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Following Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, many readers have asked us whether it’s safe to continue using Kaspersky, and whether we should stop recommending it. We answer those questions on page 10. It’s an acutely sensitive topic that I hope we’ve provided a balanced response to. Rejecting the programs in our Cover Feature feels much less contentious. Most of them have either moved previously free tools to paid-for versions, or flirted with PUPs and adware. Others may be good programs (Adobe Premiere Elements, Microsoft Office), but cost money when free alternatives offer similar tools. I expect you’ll disagree with some of our choices. In fact, I want you to disagree. At a time when people seem to have lost the art of respectfully disagreeing with others, I want to encourage…

PC MARKET ‘£200BN BIGGER THAN PRE-COVID’ The global computer market is £200bn bigger than it was before the Covid pandemic, HP has said. It reported net revenues of $17bn in the first three months of 2022, up 8.8 per cent from the same period last year. HP’s boss Enrique Lores said sales were driven by the rise in staff working both at home and in the office. Computer sales across the industry rose in 2021 to 349 million units – the highest figure since 2012. PLAY WORDLE SPIN-OFF ON WINDOWS 3.1 You can now play an unofficial version of Wordle as it would have looked on Windows 3.1. To download the spin-off, called Windle (pictured), visit www.dialup.net/windle, then scroll to the bottom and click the ‘Windle 32-bit’ link (it works…

Nobody should be surprised that Microsoft is already working on Windows 12 (‘Question of the Fortnight’, Issue 626). This is a company that made many billions of dollars selling new versions of the operating system every couple of years. At some point it was always going to dawn on them that claiming Windows 10 would be the final version was like killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Normal service has resumed now, and we’ll probably get a new version every three years, like the old days. It will then be up to the public to decide whether they want to upgrade so often, or whether they liked the idea of having Windows 10 as their final ever version. My guess is that Microsoft has already realised that not…

SYSTEM TOOL Windows 11 Fixer 2.0 www.snipca.com/41128 What you need: Windows 10 or 11 Windows 11 certainly isn’t a bad operating system, but it does have several quirks that you may find irritating. This free tool lets you tweak Windows 11’s settings to fix common problems and annoyances, and customise how the OS looks and works. On its Fix Windows tab, the program provides options for moving the taskbar from the centre of your screen to the left, displaying the full right-click context menu and improving File Explorer so that, for example, it shows hiddens folders. Further tweaks can be performed via the Windows Settings tab, such as disabling notifications and personalised ads; changing app permissions to block access to your location, camera and microphone; and applying all recommended privacy…

SOFTWARE WARNING! MyCleaner’s ‘Russian Federation’ terms In my considerable experience (the beard’s got a bit greyer since the mugshot above was taken), most PC-cleaning tools leave behind more dirt than they remove. You can add MyCleaner to that list. It pops up in the top results when you search for ‘PC cleaner’ in the ever-erratic Microsoft Store (www.snipca.com/40991). It does nothing to deserve such prominence. Install the app, and you’re met with an ‘Important notification’ pop-up, asserting that you must read and agree to the linked Privacy Policy. Here we find the developer, Everyday Tools LLC, a Russian company with a legal entity in Austria that’s governed by “the current legislation of the Russian Federation”. Further, comrades, we learn that the company reserves the right to process personal data such…

MESH ROUTER | £160 from Amazon www.snipca.com/41122 If you want to upgrade your home network to Wi-Fi 6 you can either buy a new router and hope that it reaches every corner of your home (such as the £60 D-Link R15 Smart Router we reviewed in Issue 625), or you can opt for a mesh router, which is a group of devices that link together and spread Wi-Fi through your home like an invisible spider web. In larger houses and those prone to Wi-Fi blackspots in the furthest reaches, a mesh system should provide better coverage, though they tend to be the more expensive option. “An affordable way to push Wi-Fi 6 to the corners of your home, though it’s not the quickest” D-Link’s Eagle Pro AI M15 mesh Wi-Fi…

4K TV | £429 from Amazon www.snipca.com/41160 To cut a long story short, the Hisense 50A7GQTUK is one of the best 50in 4K TVs you can buy for less than £500. You get all the benefits of a 4K QLED display, with plenty of features and several streaming options to watch. The screen has a 4K Ultra HD resolution of 3840x2160 pixels. It’s a clear, sharp screen with vibrant colours, brilliant whites and dark (but not perfect) blacks. For a mid-priced TV, it goes above and beyond our expectations, though it doesn’t have the perfect contrast of an OLED screen. “Sharp, vibrant screen, at a good price – though sound quality fails to impress” It has a decent selection of pictureenhancement formats, including Dolby Vision HDR, and also boasts Dolby…

Toshiba’s Canvio Advance portable hard drive is a superb storage solution for anyone who wants quality and style at great value. Powered by USB 3.2 Gen 1 technology, it’s much faster than – but still compatible with – USB 2.0 devices, allowing for speedy transfer when organising your files. It’s available in four different colours – light beige (pictured), red, green, and black – and comes with Toshiba’s Storage Backup Software, which lets you schedule backups of particular files and folders at set times. Also included is Toshiba’s Storage Security Software, which locks your sensitive information behind a password, keeping your files private. In this competition we’re giving away two 2TB drives in light beige. To enter, answer the question at www.snipca.com/40897 and submit your details. It runs until midnight…

Handy hints and tips from your fellow readers Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Revert to Windows 10 from recovery disk As you explained in Issue 625 (page 63), you have just 10 days to roll your PC back from Windows 11 to 10 if you change your mind. However, you can give yourself more time if you prepare. Before I upgraded to Windows 11, I did a clean install of Windows 10 and my programs. I made my usual changes using Winaero Tweaker (https://winaerotweaker.com) and installed updates for Windows and drivers. Next, I installed my browsers and extensions, including Eversync (www.snipca.com/40949) to sync my bookmarks. After that, I used AOMEI Backupper (www.ubackup.com, see screenshot) to create a system backup (about 48GB), which I saved to an…

WINDOWS 11 Enter Unicode characters in Notepad using Alt+X The new-look Notepad in Windows 11 lets you enter Unicode characters by pressing Alt+X on your keyboard, just as you’ve been able to in Microsoft Office for years. As an example, type 0024 into Notepad, then press Alt+X and a dollar sign will appear (see screenshot below). Wikipedia has a list of Unicode characters at www.snipca.com/41152. The screenshot also shows one of the main aspects of the redesigned Notepad: rounded corners. These were added so the tool fits more neatly with the style of Windows 11. WINDOWS 10 & 11 Remove options from Settings There are a couple of reasons why you would want to hide some options within Windows Settings. If you share your computer with others, you may want…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 5G The latest generation of mobile networks. 8K Video with a resolution of 7680x4320 pixels. Currently the highest resolution available. Adware Unwanted adverts that come with software. AI Artificial Intelligence. A computer program designed to mimic the behaviour of humans or animals. Aspect ratio A measurement of the shape of a display. Traditional PC screens are 4:3. Widescreen displays are 16:9 or 16:10. Batch file Commands that are processed in sequence, often without requiring input from the user. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Blue screen…

Age UK has warned that vulnerable people will be unable to call for help in emergencies once BT replaces its copper landlines with internet phones in 2025. It raised awareness of the problem after February’s storms caused massive power cuts, leaving millions unable to connect to the internet nor charge their phones. Caroline Abrahams, a director at the charity, said people who depended on landlines were “being abandoned” and called for phone companies to put safety measures in place. She said that the disruption caused has served “as a reminder of how increasingly dependent we are on all these connections”. Around 1.5 million BT customers have already been switched from a copper landline to VoIP services. Sky and Virgin have also moved many customers. Telecoms regulator Ofcom says that 15…

Contact us so we can investigate your case Email: consumeractive@computeractive.co.uk Please include your name, phone number and address. Can I still get cashback I’m owed after 12 months? LEAD CASE Q I bought a TV set from Currys in March 2021 through TopCashback (www.topcashback.co.uk). The TV cost me £1,499, and I was entitled to £70 cashback, but the money still hasn’t appeared in my account. I know 12 months have passed, but am I still entitled to the money? And who should I chase? Kenneth Woodward A Yes, Kenneth still has a right to this money, and TopCashback is responsible for providing it, not Currys. To remind you how these deals work: cashback sites get paid by retailers for sending customers to them, then keep a cut of this money…

Q My Windows 10 PC has only 2GB of RAM, which means my system often slows to a crawl when I have several programs running and I often see a warning message that ‘Your computer is low on memory’. Other than upgrading my RAM, is there any software I can use to boost my memory? Colin Armstrong A Windows 10 should manage system memory automatically and use ‘virtual memory’ to temporarily store data when there isn’t enough RAM available to cope with it. To check this feature is working, open Settings, choose System, then About and select ‘Advanced system settings’. When the System Properties box opens, click the Settings button in the Performance section, then the Advanced tab and click the Change button under ‘Virtual memory’. Ensure the option ‘Automatically…

VIDEO LIGHT | £59 from Amazon www.snipca.com/41082 Many of us are spending more time making video calls than we used to, and ensuring your calls look and sound good are more important than ever. Clearly a decent webcam and microphone help, but so can the right lighting. If you’re in a bright, well-lit room when you make your calls, you may not need extra illumination, but not everyone is so lucky. For those with PCs in dimly lit corners, the Logtiech Litra Glow is a great option. It isn’t the cheapest light you’ll find on Amazon, but it comes with a number of benefits that make it worth the money. For starters, it has a simple stand that lets it sit on top of your monitor, though it can also…

What is it? Chinese phone manufacturer Oppo has demonstrated a new 240W version of its SuperVOOC charging technology that it claims can fully power a phone in just nine minutes. Watch the ‘proof’ at www.snipca.com/41169 (pictured). What does it do? It lowers the temperature of the charging adapter, and creates an interface from the adapter to the phone. Oppo says this makes phones charge faster and more safely. Expect to see it soon in a OnePlus phone (owned by Oppo). What’s the catch? The faster you charge a phone, the quicker the battery will deteriorate. Oppo says the battery will lose 20 per cent of its capacity after being charged 800 times. So can I do without it? Yes, but it may tempt you, especially if you have old phones…

Secret settings and the best extensions CHROME Resume searches from where you left off Chrome 98, released last month, introduces a new feature called Journeys, which lets you resume your web searches from where you left off. This saves you having to type the same queries again and lets you quickly jump back to pages that you previously visited via your search results, whether earlier that day or several weeks ago. Journeys appears in Chrome’s History section and groups your searches by topic, as well as chronologically like your standard browsing history. It lists all the links you clicked for each query, with the pages you interacted with most placed at the top of each ‘journey’, so you can either click through to them or carry out the search again.…

LIBREOFFICE LIBREOFFICE Use the same border width across all tools Back in 2012 a LibreOffice developer suggested making the default options for border widths the same across all the suite’s programs. It was a good idea that won support from other developers (see www.snipca.com/41084), so it’s surprising that it took 10 years to be implemented – in LibreOffice 7.3, released in February. From thinnest to thickest (measured in points), these new default options are: Hairline (0.05pt), Very thin (0.5pt), Thin (0.75pt), Medium (1.5pt), Thick (2.25pt), Extra thick (4.5pt). In our screenshot below, we’re changing the border width of a table created in Writer. To do this, right-click inside one of the table’s cells, then select Table Properties at the bottom. Now click the Width dropdown menu, under the Line heading,…

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT What happens to Microsoft accounts when you die? Q My Microsoft 365 Family subscription allows me to install the Office suite on my wife’s and daughter’s computers as well as my own, so we can all use Word, Excel, Outlook and various other Microsoft apps and services. I’ve been trying to find out what would happen to their Office software if I died, but I can’t find an answer. Our 365 subscription is tied to my Microsoft account, and I understand that if it’s left dormant for a certain period, Microsoft closes it. Presumably, my 365 subscription would end too. So, if I were to die unexpectedly, and my wife had to open her own 365…

Windows 11 is now running on 19.6 per cent of Windows computers worldwide, rising from 16.1 per cent in January. The figure comes from advertising network AdDuplex, which releases monthly reports based on monitoring 60,000 computers globally. It shows that 19.3 per cent are using the full version of Windows 11, with 0.3 running a preview build. The other computers all run a version of Windows 10, with 21H1 – released in May 2021 – remaining the most popular at 27.3 per cent. AdDuplex changed the colours of February’s bar chart to the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag – see www.snipca.com/41164.…

HUAWEI RELEASES ITS FIRST EBOOK READER Chinese firm Huawei has released its first ebook reader, hoping to challenge the dominance of Amazon’s Kindles. The MatePad Paper (www.snipca.com/41130, pictured above) has a 10.3in screen - much bigger than Kindles - and comes with Huawei’s M-Pencil stylus for taking notes. UK prices have yet to be confirmed, though it’ll cost €499 in the eurozone (about £414). CHROME 99 ADDS DOWNLOAD ARROW Google has added an arrow to the top of its Chrome browser that shows when you’re downloading something. When the download has finished, you’ll see a tick next to the arrow (pictured below). It appears in version 99 of Chrome, released in early March.…

‘BLACKBERRY PHONE’ COMPANY TO CLOSE Texas company OnwardMobility is to close, ending its ambition to build a BlackBerry phone. It bought the BlackBerry brand in 2020 with a view to releasing a 5G Android device the following year. But the company hadn’t made any further announcements, and released a statement on its site (www.onwardmobility.com) confirming it won’t now be making “an ultra-secure smartphone with a physical keyboard”. UK NOW 4TH ‘MOST ACCESSIBLE’ WEB NATION The UK has climbed from sixth to fourth place in the 2022 Internet Accessibility Index, which measures the quality, availability and cost of internet access in 164 countries. The table, compiled by broadband-comparison site Broadband Choices, gives Denmark top spot, followed by the US and Liechtenstein. Australia, Ireland and New Zealand are all in the top…

Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive Porn age checks: Putin’s ‘cyberthugs’ could blackmail Brits I’m worried about the Government reviving plans to force adult websites to check the age of users (Issue 626, page 8). I can see that the policy is well intentioned, and the safety of children should be paramount. But this database of personal details would be exactly the kind of information Russian hackers would try to steal when (and it is when, not if) they launch cyber attacks on the UK. The thought of thousands of Brits being blackmailed by Putin’s cyber-thugs isn’t a pleasant one. It should concern you whether you visit porn sites or not. Allan Stewart Why were kids ever allowed to access adult sites? I’m delighted that the Government hasn’t forgotten…

Learning from disasters is double-edged: it’s a painful experience, but you’re unlikely to repeat an error that triggered such anguish. I realised this a few years ago when, after switching to a new computer, I lost loads of photos that I had spent ages scanning. Stupidly, I had saved them only to my hard drive. What my past self should have done is use Robocopy to back up my Documents folder to my NAS drive, as my more-sensible current self now does. Robocopy (or ‘Robust File Copy’), is a command line tool for Windows that has a ton of options for creating reliable backups. I use it for two-way synchronisation, so if I update a file on my NAS, it’s copied to my computer (and vice versa). To make things…

What do they do? The processor is the brain of a mobile device, linking most of the key elements that make it work. Most Android devices use processors made by Qualcomm or MediaTek. Some phone manufacturers make their own processors, such as Apple (recognisable by the prefix ‘A’) and Google, which recently launched its Tensor chip in the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones. How do they work? The processor may subcontract some jobs out to other components, such as RAM memory for storing information, but increasingly more functions are being built into the processor (from graphics to networking). Therefore the make and model of processor in the phone you choose can significantly affect the performance of the device. Other factors like screen resolution and the available RAM…

SPEAKER-LAMP | £199 from Ikea www.snipca.com/41083 No, you’re not suffering from déjà vu – we reviewed the first version of the Ikea Symfonisk speaker-lamp back in Issue 615. However, Ikea and its audio partner Sonos has improved the product with this next-generation offering. As with the previous version, the lamp comes in either black or white. However, the speaker base and the lamp shade are now being sold as two separate parts, so you can choose to have it all black, all white, or mix and match the two colours as you like. It also has the option of a new glass shade (included with the previous model) for those who want a more sophisticated feel. However, there’s also still a fabric shade option if you prefer, which is £20…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2020 Back Issue CD: £15 from www.snipca.com/38164 LAPTOP PRICE DROP Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (256GB) £582 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 £849 from www.snipca.com/40042 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 (256GB) £686 from www.snipca.com/41100 Tested Issue 623 This performed so well in our most recent tests that it has ousted the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro as our…

Brilliant things to do on your device ANDROID & iOS Discover interesting communities on Reddit Social-news network Reddit contains plenty of useful information and discussion, but with more than 100,000 communities – known as ‘subreddits’ – finding it isn’t always easy. A major update to Reddit’s mobile app – the first for two years – introduces a new Discover feature that lets you browse content and communities that match your interests. To access Discover, tap the compass icon in the menu bar along the bottom of the app (see screenshot below). You’ll be presented with posts from popular subreddits and others that are relevant to your existing subscriptions (if you’re already a Reddit user). You can then tap to join these communities, or select the topic buttons at the top…