Holiday Foods Face-Off: Which Is Healthier to Eat?

These two starters have a lot in common, starting with the fact that they’re both easy to overeat, as foods that are high in carbohydrates and sodium tend to be. Cheese and dips both pack a lot of sodium, and—unless you’re talking about vegetable- and bean-based dips like salsa, guacamole, or hummus—saturated fat. Calorie-wise, the…

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Most Reliable Boiler Brands of 2026

Boilers are far less common than gas furnaces, and that’s reflected in the responses to Consumer Reports’ most recent survey on central heating. Our members installed 1,791 new boilers between 2009 and 2025, compared with more than 34,000 gas furnaces. But just like a furnace, when a boiler breaks, you want it repaired—or replaced—ASAP. Forty-two…

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Best Whole-House Generators

“A home standby generator does a great job of supplying backup power during an outage,” says Dave Trezza, the test engineer who heads CR’s generator testing program. “But standby generators aren’t cheap, and the installation can be complex and expensive—not a DIY job. That’s why you need a properly sized, top-performing model from our tests…

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How to Get That Gross Mildew Smell Out of Your Laundry

Rich Handel, CR’s laundry expert, offered several suggestions for remedying my stinky laundry. His first recommendation was to leave it in the washer and just run another wash cycle on the load. This should work if you haven’t dried the load because Handel says the dryer can lock the smell in. Unfortunately, I had already…

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6 Best Electric Ranges of 2025, Tested and Reviewed

While sleek styling and a dazzling array of features might impress, what’s most important is a range’s ability to perform some very basic tasks really, really well, day in and day out. And that’s what we zero in on when we’re choosing the best electric ranges. Here’s what our recommended ranges have in common: They…

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The 73 Best Deals From REI’s 2025 Holiday Sale

Today is the last day of REI’s Holiday Sale. For the past 10 years REI has shut its doors for Black Friday, suggesting that instead potential customers should get outside and enjoy the world around you. That’s great advice, but of course Black Friday is also one of the biggest retail spending days of the…

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Talking Cars 481: Driving the Volkswagen Tiguan

Main theme: The Volkswagen Tiguan has always sat toward the bottom of a very competitive class of compact SUVs, including the Honda CR-V, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5, Mazda CX-50, Nissan Rogue, Subaru Forester, and Toyota RAV4. Can a redesign help reinvigorate the Tiguan’s image and attract buyers to the Volkswagen brand? What about…

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