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Windows isn’t junk. For most people it’s comfortably the best operating system to use. But Microsoft adds plenty to it that feels like junk, from pointless news widgets to shameless plugs for its own tools. But Microsoft doesn’t stop there. It also stuffs Edge and Outlook with adverts, unwanted content and other irritants that seem designed to drive you potty. Forget ‘less is more’; for Microsoft it’s ‘more is never enough’. Follow the advice in our Cover Feature and you’ll be able to take a flamethrower to all this clutter. You’ll learn how to block junk so it never arrives on your PC, and obliterate what’s already there. You can then go one step further and stop Microsoft forcing you to use its tools. The result will be Windows running…

You’ll soon have to create a ‘Primary location’ to watch Netflix in your home, as part of the company’s plans to introduce payments for sharing passwords. It said that once this location is set up, anyone who lives in the household will be able to use the Netflix account. To share a password with other households you’ll have to “buy an extra member”. Netflix has launched this option in several countries, including Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain, and is expected to bring it to the UK in the next few months. Netflix has yet to announce how much it will charge UK viewers to add a person, but in Canada it costs $7.99 (about £4.91), while in Spain it’s €5.99 (£5.28). Subscribers on Netflix’s Standard plan (£10.99 a month)…

I didn’t get discount, so must I pay to return item? LEAD CASE Q In February, I received an email from Currys offering a good deal on a Fitbit Versa 4 smartwatch (pictured). Currys told me £25 would be deducted at checkout. But this didn’t happen, so I ended up paying the full £169.99. I cancelled immediately, which was confirmed by email. But now Royal Mail is saying that it’s going to deliver the watch, which means I’ll have to pay to return it. Do I have to do this? And doesn’t Currys owe me anyway for having my money for a week before refunding?Kat Logan A Kat has since told us that Royal Mail has missed its delivery date, and she doesn’t know whether the item has been cancelled…

This fortnight’s villain can’t be named for legal reasons, but if you asked Alexa how to be a terrible parent, his name should be the first answer. This delinquent dad decided to head out on a Powys pub crawl, while his five-year-old daughter was asleep in her bedroom. In lieu of an actual babysitter, he put an Amazon Echo speaker in her bedroom and decided to monitor her remotely via the device’s camera and the Alexa app on his smartphone. Dad of the Year was only caught when he got home from the pub at 2am and assaulted his partner. In court, his defence barrister argued that he had made an effort “to keep an eye” on his daughter, but he knows the standards “fell below what is expected of…

Chinese phone manufacturer RedMagic may not be a household name in the UK, but it’s managed something of a coup with this new Android phone: it’s the first available model with Qualcomm’s latest mobile processor – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Qualcomm claims this is 25-per-cent faster than the previous generation in everyday tasks, 30-per-cent faster when running games and 45-percent more power-efficient, which in turn provides longer battery life. If you want a phone to play games on, there’s simply no better option This was born out in our benchmark testing. Across the board it performed faster than any other Android phone we’ve tested, including the Google Pixel 7 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S22. The only phone that outshines it is Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max – but…

My keyboard’s Caps Lock light Following Leigh Treymaine’s question about the search for a keyboard with a Caps Lock light (Issue 649, page 26), I have one on mine, but it’s difficult to see – and with my sausage fingers, I keep hitting it when I want to press the Shift key. And what I use instead I looked for a program that might solve this problem, and came across Keyboard LEDs (https://keyboard-leds.com). If any of the Caps, Num or Scroll lock keys are activated, it places a floating red notice on screen (see bottom left of the screenshot) and in the system tray. You can set it to play a sound also. It’s a tiny download – just 511KB – and is free. It hasn’t been updated for several…

dynamicSpot Free* Android www.snipca.com/45059 DynamicSpot brings the Dynamic Island feature from the iPhone 14 to Android phones. It lets you view notifications, control apps and monitor your device via a pop-up panel at the top of your screen, which you can customise to look and behave the way you want. Some options require the £3.59 Pro version. Flipboard Free* Android www.snipca.com/45065 iOS www.snipca.com/45066 This ‘social magazine’ app, which gathers articles from around the web on topics of your choice, has a new feature called Notes. This lets you post questions and comments on content you save to your digital magazine, and read responses from other Flipboard users. Just tap the ‘Create’ icon and start writing. Google Translate Free* iOS www.snipca.com/45060 The iOS version of Google Translate has been updated to…

One of the smartest ways to use the ‘Always On Top’ feature in Microsoft’s PowerToys is to pin Sticky Notes so they’re always on top of whichever windows or browser tab you have open. If you haven’t installed PowerToys, visit www.snipca.com/45011, then scroll down and click ‘Power Toys Setup-0.67.0-x64.exe’ or, if you have an ARM processor, ‘Power Toys Setup-0.67.0-arm64.exe’. Click ‘Always On Top’ on the left (1 in our screenshot), then make sure the ‘Enable Always On Top’ slider is on (blue 2). Now check what the keyboard shortcut is in the Activation box (this will be shown as blue keys). Unless you’ve previously changed it, the shortcut will be Windows key+Ctrl+T 3. Now search for and open Sticky Notes. To pin a note, click it then press Windows key+Ctrl+T. You’ll…

Create communities in WhatsApp WhatsApp lets you create groups containing people from the contacts list on your phone and send messages to them all at the same time, making it an effective way to communicate with club members. Creating a group is easy – simply click the Chats tab at the bottom, then New Group at the top right, and go through the contacts on your phone adding people – up to 1,024. But this has its limitations. What if you run two or more clubs that are related, and sometimes need to send the same message to them all? To do that, you need to add each club’s group to a WhatsApp ‘community’ using its new Communities feature (read WhatsApp’s “vision” for the tool at www.snipca.com/45025). Set up a…

Stop Microsoft installing unwanted apps One of the best things about Windows is that you can install the programs you want and uninstall any you don’t. But Microsoft denies you this choice when it forcibly installs apps from the Microsoft Store, whether you want them or not. Last September, many Windows 10 users complained that the Spotify app was silently installed with the latest Windows update, and other apps including Candy Crush Saga, Facebook and Disney+ have also been added to PCs. This bloatware not only wastes valuable hard-drive space, but may nag you to sign up for (or into) an account with the relevant service. Thankfully, you can prevent these unwanted apps from installing automatically, in both Windows 10 and 11. First, open the Microsoft Store app from your…

Hide unwanted sidebars in Edge When Microsoft released the revamped, Chromium-based version of Edge in January 2020, the new browser was praised for its streamlined design. So it’s a shame that Microsoft has decided to spoil its simplicity by adding an unnecessary sidebar. This runs down the right-hand side of the browser, reducing the amount of space devoted to web pages, and includes shortcuts to Microsoft tools including Bing, Outlook, MSN Games and Microsoft 365. You can remove the sidebar from Edge either by clicking the ‘Hide sidebar’ button at the bottom of the bar (1 in our screenshot below), by pressing Ctrl+Shift+/(forward slash) or by clicking the three-dot menu and choosing ‘Hide sidebar’. If the sidebar keeps reopening, go to Settings, select Sidebar and switch off ‘Show sidebar’. You may…

Price rises should be stated in email subject line I don’t know whether Ofcom can ban mid-contract price rises or prevent providers from linking them to aboveinflation increases, but they should certainly force them to communicate the increases more clearly. To give an example, when Three emailed me to confirm that my phone bill was increasing, it had the subject line ‘IMPORTANT: Changes to your Three SIM Plan’. This simply isn’t direct enough. Instead, every email about a price increase should state unambiguously in the subject line: ‘IMPORTANT: your monthly subscription is increasing’. More people will open and read those emails than those that blandly mention ‘changes’ to a plan. The other alternative is for providers to visit every customer’s home and paint the words ‘PRICE RISE’ in big red…

How can I convert ISO files? Q A number of years ago I converted my DVDs to ISO files. These worked perfectly on a nowdefunct WD TV Live box that I had at the time. I would now like to use Plex, but it doesn’t work with ISO files. Can I convert my ISO files to MPEG or MP4 to work with Plex? Would Any Video Converter (AVC, www.snipca.com/44662) do the job? Graeme Cook A Given its name, you’d expect Any Video Converter to do whatever you need it to, but the free version won’t convert ISO files. One option is to buy AVC Ultimate, but it’s expensive at around £44. Instead, save your money and go for the free and opensource Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr – click the red download button).…

Q My poor eyesight is making it difficult to do Windows work on my PC, so I’d like to upgrade. I currently have a Dell all-in-one model, but I’m considering buying a mini PC and a large monitor. It’s the choice of monitor I’m not sure about. I’d prefer a model with a large screen (at least 32in) and decent contrast (an IPS panel or better), and ideally the ability to pivot between landscape and portrait formats. Can you suggest a suitable model for £300 or less?John Crosby A Pivoting screens aren’t all that common in larger models, particularly at this kind of price. However, we reviewed a monitor that ticks just about every box back in Issue 607 (page 26) – the AOC Q32P2 (pictured). This has a 32in…

This is one of Samsung’s most affordable TVs, with the 43in version reviewed here available from less than £470. Samsung’s own QLED system sounds like it’s based on OLED technology, but this actually has an LCD panel, which means its pixels are lit from behind rather than each one generating its own colours. This means there are compromises on contrast, because blacks will never be absolutely black, but it does allow the screen to display a wider range of colours. Samsung claims it reproduces a remarkable 100 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour standard. Colour reproduction is excellent – contrast not so much The result is excellent picture quality when watching well-lit scenes. Its brightness level can reach 573cd/m2, which results in quite brilliant whites, while the colour reproduction is…

Winner of a ‘Buy It!’ award in Issue 650, Synology’s WRX560 is currently our favourite router (see opposite page). Designed for the modern smart home, it supports the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard, delivering extremely fast speeds. You can combine it with other Synology routers to create a mesh network covering your home, while its high-performance internal aerials guarantee that the signal will reach all your devices, banishing dead zones. Each Ethernet port has a bandwidth for 5.5Gbps of aggregate wired throughput. A 2.5GbE port can be configured as either a LAN or WAN interface to support high-performance devices or super-fast internet. It also supports the interferencefree 5.9GHz band for higher connection speeds or dedicated wireless backhaul. To enter this competition, answer the question at www.snipca.com/45094 and submit your details. It runs…

EMAIL Pin Gmail shortcut to your taskbar At work, we’ve recently swapped from using Microsoft products to all things Google (including replacing Outlook with Gmail). I wasn’t quite ready to abandon the familiarity of using Outlook, so I created a shortcut for Gmail then added it to my taskbar. Clicking it opens it in a new window, which provides a similar experience to using an email client like my old friend Outlook. To do the same, open Chrome, then sign into your Gmail account. Now click the three vertical dots at the top right, followed by ‘More tools’ then ‘Create shortcut’. Give your shortcut a name in the box that appears (see screenshot above), then tick the ‘Open as window’ box and click the blue Create button. Now check your…

Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED £700 from www.snipca.com/44878 I was looking for a replacement for my six-year-old laptop which had become very slow, and was failing to hold a charge. I’d seen a few possible options online at around £600 when I stumbled upon the Asus Vivobook S 14 OLED on Amazon. I’m not a heavy user and it seemed to have everything I needed. It has a 12th-generation Intel i5 Evo processor and 16GB RAM, so it’s fast and the battery lasts all day. The 14in OLED screen has a resolution of 2880x1800, and it really pops (I notice that Computeractive gave the 15in version a five-star Buy It! award in Issue 647, page 22). Best of all, I bought it for just £600 on a Black Friday deal,…

Monitor and Clean Chromium www.snipca.com/45005 If you’re worried that your system is running low on memory or that it’s guzzling too much processing power, you can use this extension to check without needing to open the Windows Task Manager. ‘Monitor and Clean’ tells you how much RAM you’re currently using, both as a percentage and an amount, and with a colour-coded graph for illustration (green means you’re using minimal system resources while red indicates you’re running out). It also monitors your CPU usage, providing the details for each processor core. You can choose to show either the current RAM or CPU figure on the add-on’s toolbar icon for at-a-glance information. When either percentage becomes too high, click the Clear button (see screenshot) to free up system resources by reclaiming memory…

My Earthquake Alerts Free* Android www.snipca.com/45068 iOS www.snipca.com/45069 This app keeps you informed of earthquakes around the world via push notifications and a global map of seismic activity. Select a quake to view details of its strength, depth, time, location and distance from you. The powerful search tool lets you explore earthquakes by magnitude and region, dating back to 1970. Best For Monitoring earthquakes Disaster Alert Free Android www.snipca.com/45072 iOS www.snipca.com/45073 Disaster Alert, from the Pacific Disaster Center, delivers updates about 18 different types of natural hazards as they unfold around the globe. These include floods, landslides, wildfires, severe weather, earthquakes and tsunamis. You can choose which layers of information to show and share alerts with other people. Best For Tracking natural hazards Volcanoes & Earthquakes Free* Android www.snipca.com/45071 iOS…

MICROSOFT WORD Remove borders around text boxes, shapes and images By default, borders are added to text boxes that you create in a Word document, but they can be easily removed if you don’t want them. Select the box then click the Shape Format tab (1 in our screenshot below) at the top, followed by Shape Outline 2. Hover over the ‘No Outline’ option 3 and you’ll see the border disappear. If you like the effect, click ‘No Outline’ in your document and it’ll be removed. If you ever want to locate the edges of the text box to resize or move it, click anywhere in the text and you’ll see a dotted line appear around it. Word doesn’t add a border to every type of shape you can draw. For…

Remove ‘Meet Now’ and Chat from the taskbar The ‘Meet Now’ icon on the Windows 10 taskbar, which looks like a camera in vertical brackets, lets you make video calls using Skype without needing to sign into a Skype account. When you click the button, it opens a meeting in your browser and lets you invite other people to join. Microsoft added Meet Now to Windows 10 in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, when more of us were making video calls, but it’s hardly an essential taskbar tool. You can remove Meet Now by rightclicking its icon and choosing Hide, but to ensure it doesn’t reappear, you need to tweak the Windows registry. Open the Registry Editor and browse to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Right-click the right-hand pane, and…

Block Microsoft junk in Outlook webmail As with Edge, Microsoft has embellished its once-simple Outlook webmail service with lots of unnecessary features. These include a sidebar on the left-hand side of your inbox containing shortcuts to other Microsoft tools, and buttons for Skype, Meet Now and OneNote Feed in the top-right corner of the page. There are also prompts – or adverts – to upgrade to Microsoft 365 and to switch from your current browser to Edge. The latter can be dismissed by clicking the ‘x’ at the end of its banner, but – unlike in Edge – there are no settings to hide or disable the other elements. Happily, there is a way to remove Microsoft junk from Outlook, either temporarily or permanently, using the brilliant content blocker uBlock…

Norton 360 Premium 10 devices, 2 years LOWEST-EVER PRICE! We’re delighted to announce our lowest-ever price for Norton 360 Premium. For just £19.99, you’ll protect 10 devices for two years WHAT YOU GET Real-time malware protection Secure VPN 75GB PC Cloud Backup Webcam hack alerts PLUS Monitors the dark web for your personal information Norton is made by NortonLifeLock Inc – a standalone company dedicated to consumer cyber safety. It has always performed strongly in Computeractive antivirus tests, so we highly recommend it. 10 devices for two years NOW ONLY £19.99* Normally £179.99 Buy it from our Software Store at www.snipca.com/33247 * while stocks last…

1080p High-definition video of 1920x1080 pixels. 32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. Administrator Someone who can make changes to a computer that will affect others who also use it. AI Artificial Intelligence. Intelligence demonstrated by a machine rather than a human being. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. Antivirus engine The core component of an antivirus program that detects malware. Aspect ratio A measurement of the shape of a screen. Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a screen and add virtual elements. Backhaul The process of…

In Issue 651’s Letters Ian Heritage asked what broadband campaigners really want. Well, one thing they should be demanding is for broadband firms to always state the full price increase once they know what the rate of inflation is. I received an email from Plusnet in February telling me that my increase “is in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate of inflation published by the Office for National Statistics in January 2023 plus 3.9%”. When it sent this, the CPI figure of 10.5 per cent had been known for several weeks, so why couldn’t it say that my increase would be 14.4 per cent? I saw a recent survey revealing that less than half of people know what CPI actually measures. That makes me wonder how many people…

BENCHMARKING TOOL Geekbench 6 www.snipca.com/45110 What you need: Windows 10 or 11, macOS or Linux It’s always instructive and interesting to know how your PC’s performance compares with other systems with similar specifications. Geekbench offers a simple free way to find out and its first new version for four years has been updated to better reflect how we use our computers today. Geekbench provides two comprehensive tests. The first, CPU Benchmark, measures your processor’s power by performing a series of resource-intensive tasks to see how it copes – these include compressing files, rendering PDFs and loading HTML5 content. The new version of the program adds augmented-reality and machine-learning tasks, such as blurring backgrounds in video streams, removing unwanted objects from photos and using scripting languages to analyse and convert text.…

SOFTWARE WARNING! App adverts in the Microsoft Store The Microsoft Store is already the kind of car crash that would get a Christmas special on one of those Channel 5 motorway-cop shows. Now, Microsoft’s making it even worse. The company has announced that the app store for Windows 10 and 11 is going to be festooned with ads from app developers. Soon, whenever you search for popular programs like VLC, Paint.NET or Avast you’re going to have ads elbowing their way to the top of the search rankings. According to Microsoft, the idea is to “help developers grow their business by getting their apps or games in front of the right customers at the right time, and to inspire Microsoft Store customers with great content” (www.snipca.com/45047). I can only assume…

What are they? If you’ve considered buying a new TV in recent years, you’ll be well aware of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology, which uses individual lights to create the colours required by each pixel on a screen. However, many phones and smartwatches come with AMOLED screens (active matrix organic light emitting diode), which are thinner and use less energy, such as the Samsung Galaxy A53 (pictured right). How do they work? Similar to OLED technology, AMOLED screens produce coloured light from every pixel. This provides better contrast than LCD screens (such as IPS panels), which filter the light from an illuminated source at the rear. AMOLED screens add an extra transistor and capacitor to each pixel (the ‘active matrix’), which let the display better control colours and manage energy…

What is it? Intel’s new 13th-generation Core i9-13900KS (pictured) is its fastest desktop PC processor yet, able to process instructions at 6GHz. Although other processors have reached this speed through overclocking, the i9-13900KS is the first to reach these speeds without resorting to such tricks. What does it do? It’s a 24-core processor that runs things faster than any other PC processor to date. It’s aimed at gamers and users of demanding creative software (such as video editors) who want the most powerful chip available. It isn’t a pre-requisite for everyday Windows tasks. At least not yet. What’s the catch? Sitting at the top of Intel’s range of chips, it’s predictably expensive. Intel’s suggested price is $699 (around £577). So can I do without it? Yes. We expect Windows will…

CHROME Change your account passwords more easily Chrome’s built-in password manager regularly checks your saved passwords to inform you if any have been compromised in data breaches. It also highlights weak passwords that are easy to guess and put your accounts at risk from hackers. To perform a manual check, go to Settings then Auto-fill and click ‘Check passwords’. You can change your compromised and weak passwords by clicking the ‘Change password’ button next to them (see screenshot below), but this often only takes you to the relevant website’s homepage. Chrome 110, which was released in February, improves the feature by linking directly to the password-reset pages for more sites, so you can change your passwords more easily. It still doesn’t work for every site, but it provides a faster…

ANDROID & iOS Record a voice message as WhatsApp Status update The Status feature in WhatsApp lets you post status updates containing text, photos, videos, emojis and other content, which expire after 24 hours. You can also view the updates shared by your contacts, similar to the Stories option in Facebook and Instagram. Although there’s a prominent Status tab in the app, it’s probably WhatsApp’s most neglected feature and many users confuse it with the About option in their profiles, which you can also update with details of what you’re doing. To address this oversight, WhatsApp is hoping to draw more attention to Status by adding several new ways to “express yourself and connect with others”. Most notably, you can now record voice messages to share in your status update,…

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Get Skype to automatically translate calls Version 8.93 of Skype, released in late January, has added a ‘Universal translator’ tool that detects whether the people in the call are speaking different languages and will automatically translate them. To turn it on, click the Chats button in Skype’s left-hand panel, then right-click the person you want to talk to and select ‘View profile’. Scroll down the box that appears then click ‘Send translation request’ (see screenshot below). This will send a notification to your contact that you want to enable the ‘Translated Conversations’ tool. They’ll need to click Accept to continue. Your contact will also need to be using the latest version of Skype. You can download Skype from www.snipca.com/45043, and read about version 8.93’s other new…

You can create a hyperlink in one cell that takes you to another when it’s clicked – both within the same spreadsheet and in another spreadsheet in the same workbook. First, click in the cell where you want the link to appear, then type the following formula: =HYPERLINK("[2023Bills.xlsx] MarBills!G1","Go to G1") (1 in our screenshot, copy and paste it from www.snipca.com/45014). There are four variables in this formula, which we’ll explain. First, 2023Bills.xlsx refers to the name of the workbook – note that it will be saved as XLSX in Excel 2007 and later, and XLS in earlier versions. Second, MarBills refers to the spreadsheet you’re in. Third, G1 is the cell we want to be taken to. And finally, Go to G1 is the text we want the clickable link…

ADD A DISC FOR £5.95 Buy Windows 11 Pro for just £79.99! In this special offer you can buy Windows 11 Pro for just £79.99 – that’s £140 cheaper than Microsoft’s full price of £219.99. To buy Windows 11 Pro, visit www.snipca.com/41588 and click the red Buy Now button on the right. If you have any questions about your order please email editor@computeractive.co.uk JUST SO YOU KNOW… This offer can be used by one person only, and expires at midnight on 14 March, 2023. It’s a lifetime licence for one computer.…

Install Windows 11 without a Microsoft account Microsoft now insists that you have, or create, a Microsoft account to install Windows 11. This means your usage data will be shared with the company and synced across all the other devices you use your account on. Previously, you could beat this requirement by disconnecting from the internet during the set-up process, but the latest version of Windows 11 (22H2) demands you reconnect before continuing. You can still use the workaround when you boot an ISO image of Windows 11 from a USB stick, but a simpler method is the ‘No thank you’ trick. This involves entering an email address that will be rejected by Microsoft for being used too many times. When you reach the ‘Let’s add your Microsoft account’ screen…

How can I install Paint.NET without junk? QI tried several times to download Paint.NET (www.snipca.com/44794), as recommended in Issue 650 (page 18), but it always adds junk such as a search extension for Firefox. Can I get it without this rubbish? Hugh Gundersen Sadly, Paint.NET’s website has A loads of adverts posing as download links. The real Download button is in small text towards the top of the page, sandwiched between Donate and License links. Even if you click this real link, however, you’ll end up facing further hurdles, including a pop-up like screenshot 1 above, which is designed to trick you into downloading unwanted tools. Click the top-right X to close this. On the next page, scroll down to see two genuine download options – the ‘Get it from…