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Fergus O'Sullivan

Freelance tech journalist based in Prague

Portfolio

Thank you for checking out my portfolio, I appreciate your interest. In the years I've been writing, I've touched on many industries and areas, I've tried to somewhat order them below.

Featured Articles

These are some of my favourite, more recent articles I've published.

Startup Kitchen •

Presto’s Vojta Rocek: “We never went woke”

Looking over his career, there’s no doubt about Roček’s fondness for hard numbers: “I’m a data analyst at heart. I love to work with data.” The data definitely seems to love him back: his first company, called Stories.bi and which analyzed business data, was sold to Workday, the HR platform. This gave Roček the means to buy into Presto Ventures’ second fund.Not that he only invests: for a time, Roček also owned a pub until something many service industry veterans know hit him. “I realized I don’...
Startup Kitchen •

Lightly Technologies: A New Weapon in the Fight Against Illegal Drugs

Lightly has developed a portable device, called the Catcher, which can quickly, within the space of a few minutes, determine whether a sample of a drug is the real thing or has been in some way tampered with. Though still in the prototype stage, it’s already proven popular with law enforcement and drug companies.The Catcher makes use of a new approach to analyzing samples, called the UV-Fingerprint method. The short explanation is that a sample is placed in a small container together with a reac...
The Independent •

What is a VPN? Here’s how to choose the right one for you

Virtual private networks, better known as VPNs, aren’t new technology. The first VPN protocol – a set of rules that determines how programs ‘talk’ to each other – was developed in the late 1990s. Once a niche product for the privacy-conscious, VPNs are hard to ignore these days. They’re now everywhere, as many of us are spending more time working from home, and VPN companies have taken their marketing to streaming and TV. What is a VPN, though? And why would you need one? How do you determine wh...
Prague Morning •

Nesnězeno: Reducing What’s Left Uneaten

Food waste is a massive problem. Every year as much as a billion tonnes of food goes uneaten worldwide, which could be as much as one-third of what’s produced. This isn’t just wasteful, this discarded food also releases harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which could be as much as 8-12 percent of the total. A small local company called Nesnězeno (“uneaten”) is trying to do its part to reduce these numbers; I spoke with its founder, Jakub Henni, to find out more.
I meet Henni at the Nes...

Tech & Cybersecurity Articles

An overview of the more generalist articles I've written the past few years, most of them for How-to Geek.

How-To Geek •

DeepSeek Isn't a ChatGPT Clone, This Is How It's Different

The last few weeks the tech news has been mostly about how DeepSeek, the Chinese answer to western large language models (LLM), is sweeping the world—and sweeping away a lot of market value, besides. What sets DeepSeek apart from GPT, though, and is there more to it than just being cheaper to run?
Turns out that there is. In fact, once you take a closer look, you’ll realize that DeepSeek isn’t some same-but-cheaper clone that China has been famous for in other industries. It’s a real contend...
Proton •

What is encryption? | Proton

Encryption is a way to hide information so private data is kept that way. Without encryption, anybody could access your communications. In this article, we go over how it works and some of the different types of encryption there are.


The short explanation is that encryption is a way to scramble information so nobody except the people it’s meant for can access it. This scrambling is done by using mathematical algorithms that lock and unlock the information. There’s a lot more to it than that,...
Cloudwards •

What Is Blockchain Technology & How Does it Work? [2025 guide]

Cloudwards.net may earn a small commission from some purchases made through our site. However, any earnings do not affect how we review services. Learn more about our editorial integrity and research process.

Blockchain technology is supposed to be the future of payments, data storage and more, but what is blockchain? How does it work? Is it really as useful as advertised, or are there some serious issues with the use of blockchain networks?

Written by {"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type...
How-To Geek •

Why You Need a Longer Password

We all know the annoyance of creating a new account online: you enter the password you want, and then the service bugs you about minimum length and using special characters. There’s a reason you’re being pushed to do this, though, and in this article I’ll go over why you need a long password.
The short answer is password entropy. That term sounds way more complicated than it really is unless you’re familiar with cryptography, so let’s take a look at what password entropy is. Password entr...

VPNs & Privacy

My specialization has been in writing about VPNs, how they work, and issues with the industry.

How-To Geek •

I Went Hands-On With NymVPN, a New Kind of Secure Network

Over the last few years, a small team has been working on NymVPN, a so-called mixnet which the company claims could solve many of the issues with VPNs. I interviewed members of the team and also tried NymVPN out to see how it performed. NymVPN is two things: on the one hand it’s Nym, a decentralized network that can reroute traffic around the world or anywhere there’s a node. On the other, it’s NymVPN, a program or app that makes it easier for regular people to access this network.
In thi...
How-To Geek •

How VPN Encryption Works

A virtual private network is a service that lets you connect to servers anywhere in the world, letting you pretend you're somewhere you're not and securing your connection in the process. How does VPN encryption work, though? Here's how it keeps your connection secure. To understand VPN encryption, we first need to go over VPN protocols. These are programs that govern how a VPN talks to other entities on the network, like servers or sites---it uses the term "protocol" in the same meaning as "...
How-To Geek •

When Should You Use ZTNA Instead of a VPN?

Over the last few years or so, a new kind of network security system has emerged. Known by the acronym ZTNA, these powerful tools can replace VPNs. Should you use a ZTNA instead of a VPN?
The answer depends on a few factors. A virtual private network (VPN) is easier to set up and provides a strong, single line of defense. It's best for individuals and smaller businesses. A zero-trust networking access (ZTNA) application is more complicated to implement, but builds tiers of defenses that moni...
Cloudwards •

BestVPN.com & Buffered VPN: A Match Made in Heaven

Cloudwards.net may earn a small commission from some purchases made through our site. However, any earnings do not affect how we review services. Learn more about our editorial integrity and research process.

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Technical Articles

These are articles that go into depth how you can use tech for yourself.

How-To Geek •

How to Build Your Own VPN Using a VPS

If you're not sure you can trust commercial VPNs, one alternative is to set up a VPN for yourself using a virtual private server, or VPS. With some know-how, you could be up and running in just a few minutes and for just a couple bucks. Setting up your own VPN is cutting out the middleman in a way: there's no VPN service to pay, nor do you have to take on faith that they will destroy your logs---the records that show which sites you connected to and when. A DIY VPN is a guarantee that nobody...
How-To Geek •

6 Commands to Clean Up Your Ubuntu System From the Terminal

Keeping your computer free of digital clutter is an important part of maintenance, while also making sure you always have space for new files and programs. Here are some simple commands that will let you clean up your Ubuntu system from the terminal, no GUI required—well, with one exception. Note that in most cases, these commands will work on any Debian-based system. I tested them on both an Ubuntu install as well as a Linux Mint machine. On both systems I gained a lot of space, a lot more t...
Proton •

How to use Proton Pass passkeys | Proton

Passkeys allow you to authenticate yourself for online accounts without using passwords or passphrases. Currently, passkeys are supported in our browser extension and on Android and iOS devices.


Note: Firefox doesn’t yet offer passkey support on iPhones and iPads.


Read more about passkeys and how they work.


This guide only covers creating passkeys. To manage them, you can follow the same steps as any other Proton Pass item. We also have guides on how to use Proton Pass browser extensio...
Proton •

How to use the Proton Drive Windows app | Proton

The Proton Drive Windows app allows you to easily upload and download files and folders, as well as sync them across your devices. In this article we explain how to use it. Note that to follow any of these steps you’ll need to create a free Proton account.


We also have a full guide on how to use the web app if you prefer to interact with Proton Drive through your browser.


To install the app, visit the Proton Drive download page, scroll down to the Download desktop apps section, and click t...

Reviews

The last decade I have written more reviews than I can count, here are a few I am particularly proud of.

How-To Geek •

TorGuard Review: A Geeky, but Flawed VPN

TorGuard was a solid, geeky VPN, and I was always happy to recommend it to everyone. However, upon reviewing it again, I encountered some issues that should cause prospective subscribers to hesitate, especially regarding performance. TorGuard is a faintly weird mixture of the simple and complicated. At first glance, the app is super simple with just a few buttons. Dig a bit deeper, though, and you’ll quickly find that a lot lurks beneath the surface, and not all of it is good. In its current...

History Articles

I studied history, and I still have a passion for it. Thanks to The History Guild, I have found the occasional outlet for that passion.

History Guild •

The Siege of Malta through Australian eyes

Reading time: 12 minutesThe Siege of Malta in the Second World War, which lasted from June 1940 until November 1942, was a linchpin of the war. Had Malta fallen to the Axis, the war may have concluded very differently. Australian soldiers, sailors, and airmen played a crucial part in defending the island, in this article we explore how they experienced it.By Fergus O’SullivanLike many of our article about Australians in the Mediterranean in World War Two, this article draws heavily on the Austra...
History Guild •

Can Games Teach History?

Reading time: 7 minutesVideo games love historical settings: from adventure games like the Assassin’s Creed series, to action games like Call of Duty and its sequels, to strategic sagas like Europa Universalis; there’s no shortage of examples. Can computer games be more than entertainment, though, and can they actually teach their audience about what happened in the past?By Fergus O’SullivanThat can be pretty difficult to pin down, says Pieter Van den Heede, a lecturer at the Erasmus University...
History Guild •

Four Video Games That Actually Teach History

Reading time: 13 minutesThere are plenty of video games that use historical backdrops for their narrative, or even entice you to recreate history in some way. As we discuss with historian Pieter van den Heede in our article on whether games can teach history, the question remains of how much you actually learn while playing these games. Thankfully, some do a much better job than others, and in this article, I will explore four of them.By Fergus O’SullivanFor this article, I’m going to focus on t...
History Guild •

How a Cyprus Museum Uses Tech to Make the Past Come Alive

What do you do when a building important to your city’s history is inaccessible? When you can see it, but simply cannot get anywhere near it? This is the question facing the Ledra Palace Hotel in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus and one of the last few divided cities in the world. One group of researchers seems to have found a solution, using cutting edge tech.By Fergus O’SullivanUp until the Turkish invasion in 1974, the Ledra Palace Hotel served as a social hub for the elite of Nicosia. It hoste...