Probably among the most widely used hardware interfaces seen in consumer electronics these days is the USB. Short for Universal Serial Bus, the USB first emerged in the 1990s when a group of engineers ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. As foreign as the idea has become over the years, there once was a time when computers' I/O panels were littered with many different standard ...

When SuperSpeed USB was announced in 2007, the branding was a logical differentiator. The term launched with USB 3.0, which brought max data transfer rates from USB 2.0’s measly 0.48Gbps all the way ...

USB has been around for decades, and the sheer number of USB and Thunderbolt versions in 2025 can be bewildering. Here's what you need to know about USB 3, USB 4, Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, and ...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Ah, USB; where would we be without it? Introduced in the late 1990s as a one-size-fits-all replacement for the handful of ports and ...

Oliver Haslam has been writing about phones, computers, games, and anything else that takes a battery or plugs in for more than he'd like to admit. With a focus on mobile and laptops, Oliver is never ...

If you've ever looked closely at the USB ports on your laptop or desktop PC, you may have noticed that some are labeled with a small symbol. It looks like the letters SS, with a three-pronged icon ...

USB has come a long way since the 12Mbps days of the ’90s. It has waved goodbye to USB-B and is inching away from USB-A in favor of the slim, reversible USB-C connector. Data transfer rates have ...

Editor's note: An updated version of this article has been published. For 25 years, the USB port has been a faithful old friend, connecting and powering our everyday gadgets and peripherals. All we've ...

Chris Thomas was a reporter at Android Police from 2022 until 2025. Although cloud storage services and wireless local data transfers have reduced some of the reliance on flash drives, they are still ...