In an effort to curb the flood of threads that are essentially the same, I've collected and answered a bunch of common questions. Feel free to add your own and I will append them.There are many different ways to learn how to solve the cube. While most will suggest you learn the method in the instruction manual or a basic method from youtube, two great starting points are the super simple 8355 method and the (mostly) intuition-based Petrus Method Nearly all methods use algorithms to perform tasks to advance to wards a completed cube. Algorithms are sequences of moves that are written in cubing notation The method widely considered the easiest to use at the moment is the Pochmann Method . The page that is linked will give you a nice introduction to solving blindfolded and blindfolded methods in general.The most popular method at the moment for speedcubing is CFOP . A good website for someone wishing to transition to CFOP is Badmephisto's site.If they exist, algorithms and information for most things can usually be found on the Speedsolving Wiki This question pops up a lot and the answer is quite frankly, whenever you feel like it. There is no 'correct' time to start learning a full set of algorithms. However, if you average over a minute there are probably other things in your solve that can work on to help you improve other than learning OLL. There are people who know full OLL and average over 2 mins and people who don't know OLL and average 12 seconds.(Hopefully after people start to read this FAQ, threads that start with this question and continue with a flood of "Practise" will be curbed.)The main way to get faster is to just practise. There's no secret, but there are things you can do to help improve. An example is analysing how long each part of your solve takes and seeing what you can improve on. No one knows how you can get faster better than you do.Fingertricks can be difficult to describe in text. I advise you to try and start using fingertricks without focusing too much on them. As you watch videos of cubers to see how they do it, and speak to people at competitions to pick up tricks, you'll develop your own style of fingertricks over time. I find it helps to try and discover fingertricks yourself when learning algs.All competitions that have been announced or have already happened are posted on the WCA website . If there's not a competition that is near you at the moment, be on the lookout! Sometimes future competitions are discussed in the Official WCA Competition sub-forum.There is no 'best cube'. Personal preference and style contribute to the decision on which cube is best for you. However, there are some cubes that are more popular than others because many consider them to be the best for them. As of writing, popular cubes are the Dayan Guhong, FII and Alpha5/HaiyanMemory.No idea.Popular sites include cubesmith.com for stickers and lightake.com for everything else. A quick look in the Hardware Area will reveal where people are buying things from at the moment.As with the 'best cube' question, there is no best method. The most popular methods at the moment for speedcubing are; CFOP Petrus and ZZ This is another question with no real answer. Do some research for yourself and if you like the look of a method, go for it! Each method mentioned has potential to be very fast. People have gone further with certain methods than with others, but that doesn't mean that those methods are 'better'.It's highly likely that the method has been already discussed at length. I advise you to do some research before posting about it and check if it already exists. If you're sure that it's a new and unique idea, post it and get ready to defend it from the people telling you that it's a bad ideaThis seems to be a common misconception peddled by uninformed cubers. There is no advantage to gain from starting with an inferior cube. In fact, you may develop some poor techniques by doing this. It will only hold you back and make it more difficult for you to adjust to a better cube.