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One thing I always ask our writers to do is show the impact on their own computers of any programs they recommend. It’s the closest we come to ‘dogfooding’, which in the slang of software developers means using your own products (or eating your own dog food) before inflicting it upon the public. Running with that analogy, Nik Rawlinson chomped through several tins of Pedigree Chum while writing our Cover Feature. He found 125GB of old files using TreeSize Free; encrypted 50MB of documents using VeraCrypt; backed up 633 files using Folder2Iso; and slashed his working memory by 25 percent using Mem Reduct. These are just four of the 16 tasks he explains, all of which are vital if you want a fit, fast and secure computer. Treat yourself to…

OPENREACH ADDS 56 TOWNS TO FULL-FIBRE Cambridge, Dartford, Hartlepool and Peterborough are among 56 towns added to Openreach’s schedule to receive Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband. To see all 56, plus locations previously added, download Openreach’s PDF from www.snipca.com/41993 (starts automatically). The new towns are highlighted in dark blue/grey. UPDATE YOUR OLD NVIDIA CARDS Nvidia has taken the unusual step of releasing security driver updates for graphics cards it no longer supports. The fixes are for the GTX 600 and GTX 700 range of cards, which Nvidia sold and supported between 2012 and 2021. To check if you need the updates, visit www.snipca.com/41992 and click the Supported Products tab. If so, click the green Download button.…

Simon says ‘it’s a scam’ “Simon attempted to deliver today your parcel but no one answered”. So read a text message I received on 15 May. It’s the first time I’ve received a scam that mentioned the name of the person delivering, so it made me look twice. But then I saw the URL I was meant to click to “reschedule & track” my parcel: https://postoffice-depot38.com. That didn’t sound genuine to me, so I searched online and apparently quoting a depot number is a new tactic of scammers, as must be adding a person’s name. Well, this is one game of Simon Says that I won’t be playing. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

Contact us so we can investigate your case Email: consumeractive@computeractive.co.uk Please include your name, phone number and address. Can I challenge a small claims verdict? LEAD CASE Q An Epson EcoTank ET 2750 printer (pictured) I bought from Currys in February 2019 stopped working four months later. After discussions with Currys the printer was returned to Epson, but the one I was given back wasn’t even the same model. Currys refused to help, so I took my case to the small claims court and won. But I feel short-changed by the verdict. Can I do anything? Stan Lawrence A When Stan first contacted us in February, the case was still being considered by the court, so neither we nor Currys could comment. But it’s now been ruled on, and Stan has…

What can I use to stitch panoramic photos together? Q I see that Microsoft has withdrawn Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor, see www.snipca.com/42047) from download. I found this a very useful program for creating wide-angle panorama images from a set of photos. Can you recommend a similar free program I can use instead? A It’s a shame that Microsoft decided to ditch support for Image Composite Editor. ICE was a great tool with a very straightforward interface and, unfortunately, there’s no like-for-like equivalent available. Many of the best panorama tools are included within expensive paid-for programs, such as Adobe Lightroom (from £10 a month). Meanwhile, some of the better free tools, such as AutoStitch (www.snipca.com/42049), haven’t been updated in a while, so we wouldn’t feel comfortable recommending them. The closest thing to…

PHONE | £124 from Amazon www.snipca.com/42051 Motorola is expanding its range of budget models with the Moto G22, which means you don’t have to spend a small fortune on your next smartphone. It launched recently at £150 for a SIM-free model, and is already being discounted by many retailers, including Amazon. It’s a relatively chunky device, but it’s nicely curved and feels well made. Its thickness (8.5mm) doesn’t compare with the slender 7.7mm of the iPhone 13 or 7.6mm of the Samsung Galaxy S22. “Budget phone makes compromises on performance, screen and camera” Inside, there’s a MediaTek Helio G37 processor, 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage (though you can expand this via a microSD card if you need to). These specifications are just about the bare minimum you need to…

PHONE | £99 from Amazon www.snipca.com/42017 The latest smartphones aren’t suitable for everyone. Doro is one of the few companies to acknowledge that there’s still a section of society who don’t want or can’t use high-tech handsets. So if you’re trying to make sure a parent or grandparent is contactable on a mobile network via an easy-to-use phone, the new Doro 6880 is a suitable choice. Its clamshell – or flip – design (with an external screen showing caller identity) opens to show a small screen and an easy-to-see number pad, ensuring that making calls isn’t rocket science. It uses HD voice technology to enhance the audibility of calls, and is compatible with hearing aids. It also has an assistance button on the back. This is similar to an emergency call…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2021 Back Issue CD: £17 from www.snipca.com/42077 LAPTOP PRICE DROP Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (256GB) £662 from www.snipca.com/41099 Tested Issue 601 Weighing just 1.16kg, this is an excellent lightweight laptop with a great screen and an AMD processor faster than many Intel rivals. It has two USB-C ports, two USB 3.0 ports and a microSD card reader. Battery lasts nearly 16 hours. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 New Intel CPUs and a taller screen make this a more powerful, all-round slim laptop. Prices start at £859 from www.snipca.com/40042 DESKTOP PC Wired2Fire Ultima WS Home Office Workstation £750 from www.snipca.com/41500 Tested Issue 630 With an overclocked eight-core chip and a 1TB SSD, this PC performs Windows tasks at a blistering speed. It…

ANDROID Change your keyboard’s long-press delay Android’s onscreen keyboard (Google’s excellent Gboard) has a handy long-press menu that appears when you hold down your finger on certain keys. Long-pressing one of the letters on the top row, for example, lets you select a number instead. But long-pressing can be tricky to get the hang of. If you’re typing quickly, for example, you may find the delay before the long-press menu appears is slowing you down and it’s easy to misjudge the lag and end up making a typing error. Thankfully, you can adjust the length of this delay to suit your typing style. Open any app that lets you use the keyboard (such as Messages). Tap in the text entry box, then tap Settings (cog icon) and select Preferences. Scroll…

There are more outdated apps in Google and Apple’s stores than those being actively updated, according to new research. Analytics firm Pixelate said there are 1.5 million “abandoned” apps that haven’t been updated in two years, outnumbering the 1.3 million that had been updated in the past six months (www.snipca.com/41994). Apps that aren’t being regularly updated can pose a security risk. In total, Pixelate analysed five million apps across both stores in the first three months of 2022, finding 650,000 neglected apps in Apple’s store, and 869,000 in Google’s. It also identified 314,000 “super abandoned” apps that haven’t been updated in over five years. The report comes a few weeks after Apple started emailing developers to warn them that it would remove apps that haven’t been updated “in a significant…

WATCH OUT FOR… Council tax & energy rebate scams What’s the threat? Scammers are impersonating energy regulator Ofgem by sending emails that claim you can sign up for both a council-tax rebate and a discount on your energy bill. The messages contain Ofgem’s genuine logo, and have the heading ‘You Are Eligible To Apply For Energy Bill Rebate’ (1 in our screenshot). They give you a deadline to claim an energy discount worth £200, and a non-repayable council-tax rebate of £250. Clicking the black ‘Claim Bill Rebate Now’ button takes you to a fake Ofgem-branded website where you’re asked to submit your personal details, and set up a direct debit to receive your rebate. How can you stay safe? The scam refers to genuine Government schemes to claim rebates, but…

Paying £150 to fix a laptop-tablet isn’t a great resolution, but it’s better than the £799 (plus VAT) Dell originally wanted to charge reader David Burt. As we explained in Issue 626, he had waited several weeks for Dell to collect the device. The company finally picked it up following our customary nudge. Dell justified its initial bill by claiming David broke the device by spilling liquid on it, and such accidental damage isn’t covered by the warranty. David has no recollection of doing so, but felt he couldn’t prove otherwise. So, reluctantly, he returned the device to a local repair shop which fixed it for £150. However, we’re not convinced by Dell’s theory. We’ve asked David whether the repair shop could suggest another explanation for the problem because, if…

I’m having problems finding details of a French ancestor (surname Joly). He was a bodyguard to Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria (1738-1789), and prevented an assassination attempt. Can you help? A useful starting point is the key archival institutions. In France, the Archives Nationales (www.snipca.com/41975), includes the ‘Commission nationale d’héraldique’. In Austria, try the Austrian State Archives (www.statearchives.gv.at). Have a genealogy question for Chris? Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with ‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.…

Microsoft Office remains stubbornly popular, though I’d argue it’s got worse over the years. Then again, I still use it, paying an annual subscription to Office 365, so I end up giving Microsoft money no matter how much (or increasingly how little) I use it. For my job, I find Google Drive a much better choice. I don’t have to remember to save files manually because every change is automatically saved online, and I can access files from any device, share them with other people and collaborate on documents. Google Drive is completely free (up to 15GB) with a Google Account. The default way of using it is through a web browser at https://drive.google.com. It works much like File Explorer: you can create folders and Google files (Sheets, Docs and…

PC MONITOR | £279 from Currys www.snipca.com/42030 As a rule, the greater the resolution of a monitor screen, the more expensive it will be. It stands to reason that it costs more to build a panel with the 8 million pixels (3840x2160) required for a 4K screen than it is to make, say, a Full HD screen with 2 million pixels (1920x1080). Rules are made to be broken, however, and Acer has worked its magic with this 28in monitor – a 4K model that you can buy on the high street for less than £300. In fact, it’s only about £100 more than our current favourite monitor, the Iiyama ProLite XU2492HSU-B1, which has only Full HD resolution. With corners having to be cut somewhere, the build quality isn’t what you’d…

MESH ROUTER | £349 from Amazon www.snipca.com/42078 Some mesh Wi-Fi systems focus on high-end performance, others prioritise affordability. The Deco X90 finds its own balance: it’s hardly a budget system, but it’s competitively priced considering it promises to deliver Wi-Fi 6 for up to 200 devices, throughout a home of up to six bedrooms. Despite those ambitious claims, the kit contains only two units. They’re not much to look at, but tasteful enough, with a single status LED near the base of each one. If you need to extend the system’s reach, an additional unit costs around £231 (from Scan at www.snipca.com/42079). “Lightning quick over short distances, and no slouch in the far reaches of our home” TP-Link has opted for a regular tri-band configuration, with each unit containing one…

Winner of our Recommended award in Issue 632, Audio-Technica’s ATH-CKS50TW earbuds combine advanced acoustic technology for stunning sound with a comfortable fit, preventing that deep bass sound from escaping. Battery life is incredible, playing for 20 hours between charges. Both the case and the buds can be recharged quickly. Just 10 minutes of charging guarantees 90 minutes of listening. You control the earbuds either by pressing buttons on the device, or through Audio-Technica’s comprehensive Connect app, which has four EQ presets. You can also set your own using the five-band adjuster. There’s noise-cancelling too, and you can connect to two Bluetooth devices simultaneously. To enter this competition, answer the question at www.snipca.com/42028 and submit your details. It runs until midnight Tuesday 21 June. Good luck! You can buy the Audio-Technica…

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Change where your screenshots are saved When you take a screenshot using Windows key+PrtScr, it is saved to C:\Users\[User Name]\ Pictures\Screenshots. If you want to change this to another folder, open File Explorer (press Windows key+E or select it by right-clicking the Start button), then navigate to This PC, followed by Pictures. Now right-click the Screenshots folder and select Properties in the menu that appears to bring up the Screenshots Properties box. You can now type the file path of the new save location for your screenshots (1 in our screenshot below), or click Move 2 and navigate to the folder. Click ‘Apply’ at the bottom to make the change and you’ll be asked whether you want to move all your existing screenshots to the new folder.…

British radio is nearly 100 years old. At 6pm on 14 November, 1922, ‘Uncle’ Arthur Burrows – Director of Programmes at the newly formed BBC – read its first news bulletin. In fact, he read it twice: once quickly, then slowly, and asked listeners which speed they preferred. It’s hard to imagine what he would have made of today’s internet radios, which can play tens of thousands of online stations from around the world, as well as music saved on your devices. He would have been dazzled by the choice on offer, but then so are many of today’s radio fans who have grown up with a different kind of ‘wireless’ technology. Here, we’ll reveal the best web radios to buy, revealing which of the many extra features are worth…

720p A common resolution of high-definition video: 1280x720 pixels. 8K Video with a resolution of 7680x4320 pixels. Currently the highest resolution available. Admin mode Allows you to make changes to a computer that will affect other people who use it. Airplane mode Phones and tablets in this mode disable all radio communication (GSM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc) so they are safe to use on aircraft. APK Android Package Kit. The file format Android uses to install apps. Aspect ratio A measurement of the shape of a display. Traditional computer screens are 4:3. Widescreen displays are 16:9 or 16:10. Bandwidth A measure of how much data can be transferred through a connection at one time. .bak The extension for backup files. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Cache A…

From August you’ll no longer be able to browse, buy or borrow new ebooks directly on certain Kindles made before 2012. Amazon has emailed customers saying that Kindle (2nd Gen) International, Kindle DX International, Kindle Keyboard (pictured), Kindle (4th Gen), and Kindle (5th Gen) will lose access to the Kindle Store. However, you’ll still be able to buy ebooks from Amazon when browsing on another device and transfer them to your Kindle. You’ll also be able to continue reading titles you’ve already added. In its email, spotted by website Good E-Reader, Amazon offers US customers 30 percent off a new Kindle, and $40 to spend on ebooks. It’s not clear whether the offer is available to UK customers. You’ll like this… Virtual network Smarty is offering 100GB of data for…

The Government has launched a new app to prevent people being tricked online by foreign spies. Called ‘Think Before You Link’, it will help individuals identify personal profiles that may be fake, and allow them to report anything suspicious. MI5 claims it has seen over 10,000 attempts by spies to fool UK users on sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Director General Ken McCallum said: “Foreign spies are actively working to build relationships with those working in government, in high-tech business and in academia”. The app has been launched by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Steve Barclay, Lead Minister for Cyber Security, said fake profiles are being created on an “industrial scale”, with many being used to gain national-security information. In…

ANDROID APPS SHOW ‘ACCESSIBILITY’ LABELS Google will soon add accessibility labels to apps on its Play Store to indicate how easy they are for disabled people to use. They’ll appear under the ‘About this app’ heading and cover categories including visual and hearing assistance, learning disabilities and motor assistance. Read more and see examples on Google’s blog: www.snipca.com/42058. ‘OBSCENELY LARGE’ EDGE MENU TO SHRINK Microsoft is planning to reduce the size of the right-click menu in Edge in response to criticism that it’s “obscenely large”. Currently, right-clicking in the browser can show as many as 16 options (pictured). Microsoft admitted this was “too long, too wide” (www.snipca.com/42074), and said it will start to fix the problem in the Canary preview version of Edge (www.snipca.com/42075). Any changes are likely to be…

Google’s jargon-development team have been working overtime. They’ve come up with FLEDGE, standing for First Locally-Executed Decision over Groups Experiment. That sounds like gibberish to the average person, which suits Google because it’s actually a new method of tracking your activity online when browsing in Chrome. Thankfully, DuckDuckGo are experts at deciphering Google’s jargon. On their blog (www.snipca.com/42014) they say that FLEDGE means you’ll “continue to have creepy ads following you around the web”. They’re similarly damning about Google’s other new tracking tool, called Topics, which triggers the same “fundamental privacy issues of automatically sharing information about your online behaviour with websites and tracking companies without your consent”. In response, DuckDuckGo has updated its browser extension to thwart Google’s new tracking onslaught. If you’ve not installed it yet, do so…

Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive It didn’t surprise me to read that Sky customers make the biggest saving when switching to another broadband provider (Issue 632, page 7). It tallies with my own experience last year. It slowly dawned on me that I didn’t need the 100Mbps broadband I was paying over £40 a month for. I sometimes watch iPlayer online, but not very often, and I certainly don’t play any games that require super-fast speeds. I live alone, so there’s only me online at any one time. Sky kindly reminded me that my contract was coming to an end, which I took as my cue to jump ship to BT. Ofcom says that on average a Sky customer saves £9.26 a month when switching, but my saving…

I contacted Garmin when the case on my Vivoactive fitness watch (pictured) broke where the strap was attached. I bought it over two years ago, and have found it far superior to rival Fitbits. I emailed the company and received an immediate acknowledgement. They said they would replace the watch free of charge, despite it being well out of warranty, and without any prompting from me. I was asked to complete a simple form to confirm my address, and three days later a new watch arrived. They didn’t want the broken watch back, nor proof of purchase. Friends tell me this is typical of Garmin’s customer service, and the pride it has in its products. I’ll certainly buy their products again. Has a company impressed you with its customer service?…

OFFICE SUITE OnlyOffice 7.1 www.snipca.com/42063 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10, macOS or Linux Back in February (Issue 624), we recommended OnlyOffice 7.0 as a great free alternative to Microsoft’s expensive Office. But it wasn’t long before LibreOffice reclaimed its place as our favourite free suite when it released version 7.3 (reviewed on this page in Issue 625). Not to be outdone, OnlyOffice has now bounced back with version 7.1 – a major update that adds a raft of great new features and tools. The most notable improvement is support for devices with ARM processors. While ARM-based Windows PCs are still relatively rare, this does mean OnlyOffice can now be installed on cheaper, low-powered devices, including Raspberry Pi. If you need this version, make sure you click the…

SOFTWARE WARNING! Audacity clones in the Microsoft Store Given the sheer volume of junk and rip-offs in the Microsoft Store, it amazes me that respectable software companies even want to appear in it. However, it seems those rip-offs are the very reason Audacity finally decided to include its audio-recording app. “Due to the ludicrous number of fake Audacitys on the Microsoft store, which charge users for non-functional or very limited applications, I’ve now (finally) taken the name back and have published the proper, free version for the first time,” read a recent tweet from Martin Keary, head of product at Audacity (www.snipca.com/41963). It’s not hard to see why Keary’s upset. Search for Audacity, and beneath Keary’s legitimate product are several others carrying a thinly disguised version of the company’s logo…

WEBCAM | £80 from Amazon www.snipca.com/42016 If your laptop’s webcam is simply not good enough for your family or work video calls, this might well be a suitable upgrade. It has excellent build quality, a plug-and-play setup, and handy software to fine-tune how it works. The PowerConf C200 can be attached to the top of your screen using the supplied stand, or you can use the tripod mount on the base if you prefer. On top there’s a switch that controls the privacy shutter – a bright red plastic lens cover, so it’s easy to see whether it’s been activated or not. Setting things up is easy. It has a USB-C port on the rear (though you only need a USB 2.0 or above port on your PC), and you…

What is it? DisplayPort (pictured) is a format for connecting PCs to monitors. DisplayPort 2.0 was announced by its governing body VESA (the Video Electronics Standards Association) back in 2019, but it has only recently awarded certification to a handful of companies. Without this, a company can’t produce a DisplayPort 2.0 device. What does it do? It increases the bandwidth available for transferring video from one device to another (up to a maximum of 80Gbps). This could allow PCs or other devices to send an 8K video at 60fps without having to apply any compression. The current fastest HDMI 2.1 standard can manage only 48Gbps. What’s the catch? Currently, only three companies have certification to produce DisplayPort 2.0 devices: AMD, MediaTek and Realtek. It’s likely that more companies will follow,…

CHROMIUM Block online ads without leaving spaces One of the main problems with using an ad blocker – other than the ethical issue of depriving sites of revenue – is that it can mess up a site’s layout and leave big gaps where the ads were. A new extension called Retheme (www.snipca.com/41958) prevents this from happening by removing ads from web pages, then cleaning up afterwards. It automatically adjusts a site’s design to reduce empty space and make the content easier to read. This gives you the best of both worlds, because you won’t see annoying ads or even know they were there in the first place. Retheme works best on ‘high-traffic’ sites that it applies custom themes to – see our ‘before’ and ‘after’ screenshots (left below) of the…

LIBREOFFICE CALC & MICROSOFT EXCEL Get a pop-up calendar for your spreadsheet Instead of typing dates into spreadsheet cells, you can use a LibreOffice extension to insert them from a pop-up box. To do this, you’ll need to install the calCalc add-on from LibreOffice’s Extensions site. Visit www.snipca.com/42001, then click the first green Download button and save it on your computer. When you first open the extension, you’ll see it being added to LibreOffice’s Extensions Manager. Click ‘Add’ at the bottom, navigate to the file you saved, then double-click it. Close the Extensions Manager, then restart Calc. Now select a cell you want to add a date to, then hold down the Ctrl key and right-click. You’ll see the calendar pop up, with today’s date in red (1 in our screenshot…

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Why can’t I email my GP? Q Help! I registered with my local GP practice to order my repeat prescriptions online. I was invited to visit mypractice.prescriptionservice@nhs.net in order to make my request to our local chemist. This is where the problem starts, as the computer asked me choose an application to open the ‘mailto’ link. This listed Yahoo! Mail and Googlemail as options, but I use Firefox for my emails. I visited the General section of Firefox’s Settings page and selected Firefox as the default for mailto. Having done this I restarted and then clicked the mailto link and was pleased to find this time that Firefox was listed as an option. Unfortunately, selecting Firefox did…