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With the police cracking down on TV sticks that have been hacked to access programmes for free, you might think there are no legal ways to modify these devices to watch more than you thought you could. But that overlooks the joy of sideloading. This is a clever way of sneaking apps on to your sticks that are otherwise blocked. I know this sounds a little dodgy, but it’s entirely legal – as Robert Irvine reveals in his excellent Cover Feature. He also explains how to mirror channels on the sticks that don’t allow sideloading, and recommends the best VPNs to add to your devices, so you can watch anything anywhere. He even has a punt on a £50 Android TV box from Amazon. There are loads of these cheap…

Google blocked 2.28 million risky and malicious Android apps from its Play Store last year, an increase from 1.5 million in 2022. It also blocked 333,000 accounts that offered apps containing malware or repeatedly broke its policy, and a further 200,000 that asked for unnecessary permissions from users, such as reading their text messages or accessing their location. Google claimed that investment in new tools to detect threats allowed it to spot more dodgy apps, as part of its ‘SAFE’ principles: Safeguard Users, Advocate for Developer Protection, Foster Responsible Innovation, Evolve Platform Defenses (see www.snipca.com/50361). It also uses a “more stringent” process for verifying the identity of app developers, and has started to indicate certain types of apps that have been independently verified as safe. VPN apps were the first…

When it’s difficult to prove that a fault is inherent, we often have to rely on the goodwill of the retailer or manufacturer. That’s what happened with Raymond Dalgleish’s case against Nokia, which we covered in Issue 680. It has agreed to replace his C01 Plus phone, which he bought in 2021 from Argos for £70, with the upgraded C22 (pictured), released last year and priced £120. Raymond got in touch with us when the phone stopped receiving texts containing PINs for multi-factor authentication (MFA). Nokia told us it couldn’t find a fault with the phone, adding that many models from all manufacturers occasionally have problems with MFA. It said the offer of a C22 was “exceptional and discretional”, and it represents a decent result because it had initially claimed…

SEARCH TOOL Listary 6.3 www.snipca.com/50390 What you need: Windows 10 or 11 The built-in Windows search tool is notoriously slow and unreliable, often failing to find files and pushing you to search the web instead. Listary provides a faster and more accurate alternative, which lets you find and open any file or program on your PC in seconds. Version 6.3 redesigns and improves Listary’s interface to make its searches even easier, speedier and more comprehensive. The biggest changes are to the File Search window, which you open by clicking Listary’s system-tray icon. Previously, when you searched for a file or folder, you could only view nine results at a time, out of a maximum of 50. The window has now been enlarged to show more results at a glance, which…

SOFTWARE WARNING! Malwarebytes' ‘you’re at risk’ scare tactics If, like me, you’ve been hacked before, you often find yourself looking over your shoulder when surfing the web. I mean that both metaphorically and – when I’m using my laptop on the train – literally. I take all the necessary precautions, including two-factor authentication and use a password manager (1Password). But I’m still paranoid that my data is being sold somewhere on the dark web. So I was interested in a new tool from Malwarebytes that analyses your ‘digital footprint’ to see whether you’re at risk. I entered my email at www.snipca.com/50343 and Malwarebytes told me my passwords hadn’t been found, but that they ‘may still be exposed’ (1 in our screenshot above right). This was meaningless and vague, so I…

What is it? A screen’s contrast ratio is a measurement of how many times brighter its lightest white tone is than its darkest black. This is useful when watching scenes that are dimly lit, because a screen with high contrast can display very dark scenes while still maintaining definition. How does it work? The white light from a pixel is produced by turning its red, green and blue elements up to their brightest setting, which combine to make the screen’s brightest white light. Black is created by switching all the colours off. In the case of OLED screens (such as the one on the pictured Asus Vivobook S16 OLED, reviewed on page 22) it involves switching off the light in the pixel. Other types of screen can’t do this and…

What is it? The Motivo (www.snipca.com/50377, pictured), from Italian manufacturer Volumino, is a tablet dedicated to playing music from streaming services. What does it do? Although it looks like a tablet from the top, it’s much thicker at the rear. This is to accommodate its impressive range of connections, which let you hook it up to all manner of Hi-Fi devices, amplifiers and speakers, or simply plug in your wired headphones. It also has a physical dial, which is great for adjusting the volume. What’s the catch? It costs £1,499, which is a lot to pay for a tablet that only streams music, even if it does that job really well. So can I do without it? Yes. This has been designed for audiophiles who crave a tablet-style streaming interface…

EDGE Improve your writing style using Copilot Edge 124, released at the end of April, continues Microsoft’s integration of its Copilot AI tool with the browser, by adding the option to rewrite text. Previously, you needed to open the Copilot sidebar and either type (or copy and paste) the text you wanted the chatbot to rewrite. Now, you can access the feature directly from the email, social-media post, comment box or other online text you’re writing. Simply highlight the text you’ve written and either click the ‘Rewrite with Copilot’ button that appears or press Alt+I on your keyboard. Copilot will then generate a reworded version of the text, and suggest ‘Here is another way of writing this’ (1 in our screenshot below). If you’re not happy with its first attempt,…

LIBREOFFICE WRITER & MICROSOFT WORD Rotate text in documents Typing into a document normally means keeping your text fixed horizontally left to right. But you can use a text box to rotate your text for effect. In Microsoft Word, click Insert (1 in our screenshot below), followed by the Text Box button 2, then pick an option from the menu. In our example, we chose Simple Text Box. In LibreOffice Writer, click Insert then Text Box in the dropdown menu. Once you’ve typed your text, left-click and hold the rotation icon 3. Drag your mouse in a circle clockwise or anti-clockwise to rotate the box, then let go. MICROSOFT EXCEL ONLINE Export your file in CSV format Microsoft has updated the online version of Excel to let you export spreadsheets…

RUSSIAN NAMED AS LOCKBIT HEAD HACKER UK police have named Russian citizen Dmitry Khoroshev (pictured) as the head of the LockBit ransomware group, which has launched over 7,000 attacks worldwide. The National Crime Agency said unmasking Khoroshev was part of an investigation with the FBI and other global partners. The UK, US and Australia have all sanctioned him. Read more at www.snipca.com/50378. NOKIA BRINGS BACK CLASSIC 2000s PHONE Finnish company HMD is releasing a modern version of the Nokia 3210 phone, which was popular in the early 2000s. Priced £74.99, it runs on 4G, and has a 2.4in colour screen, a two-megapixel camera and Bluetooth 5.0. It comes in three colours (pictured). Buy at www.snipca.com/50380. TOMORROW’S WORLD We knew Boston Dynamics’ robot dogs could walk, run and jump. Now they…

Your feature on finding out where items are made before buying them was thought-provoking (Issue 683, page 62, pictured). I can understand the enthusiasm for new laws that force online stores to list the country of origin. But I’m worried that any law would also cover high-street shops, which would be a logistical nightmare for them. When you’re buying in a physical store, you can pick up an item and check where it was made. We don’t expect store owners to add flags on shelves to indicate this. You obviously can’t inspect items when buying online, so shoppers need more help. Country of origin should be shown as prominently as the price. Burying this information, as Amazon does on its Indian site, isn’t good enough. Much of your article focused…

I’d like to back up Alan Racheter’s recommendation of Silux Mobile (Issue 682, page 40), which he now uses for mobile broadband. When I saw its offer of £13.95 a month for two years, I wanted to double-check it was genuine. It seemed too good to be true. I phoned to ask, and they weren’t offended that I insinuated they might be a scam. The O2 router I selected arrived within 48 hours. I needed a little help setting it up, but they always answered the phone quickly to offer assistance. When I sent an email over the Easter weekend they replied within an hour of the next working day. From my conversations with them I get the impression they’re a smallish firm that prioritises customer service over the rush…

Ashampoo WinOptimizer www.snipca.com/50401 Price: £9.50 a year or £44 one-off purchase Free trial period: 30 days What you need: Windows 10 or 11 Ashampoo WinOptimizer is one of those all-in-one PC-tune-up suites that were all the rage 15 years ago. It’s certainly packed with features, but there are big differences between the free and standard editions. Ashampoo WinOptimizer Free takes having to pay to unlock premium features to ridiculous lengths. Far too many of its options are locked behind padlock symbols that prompt you to upgrade – even essential ones such as ‘Delete privacy traces’, ‘Manage system settings’ and ‘Check disks for errors’. Clicking these opens the ‘Buy now’ page on Ashampoo’s website, which quickly becomes very annoying. Thankfully, the free trial of the full program is completely unrestricted for…

This might sound like a youth club for kids with a passion for former tech giants, but it’s actually one of the world’s most technically advanced scam gangs. Based in Nigeria, it specialises in romance scams. Fraudsters contact victims on dating sites, then win their trust before tricking them into sending money – normally to help with an invented “crisis”. Its tactics have evolved recently to use face-swapping software, which adds a digital ‘mask’ over the scammer’s face, letting them impersonate facial expressions. It can even change the scammer’s skin colour. The name dates from the 2000s, when Yahoo Mail was popular in Nigeria. It was used by the infamous ‘419 scammers’, who bombarded strangers with emails promising riches for a small advance fee. Such crude tactics seem almost quaint…

PC MONITOR | £180 from Acer www.snipca.com/50262 World of ports We realise that not everyone has hundreds of pounds to splash out on a good-quality monitor, which is one reason our current (and long-time) favourite is the £120 Iiyama ProLite XU2492HSU-B2 (www.snipca.com/49491, reviewed in Issue 618). It has a fairly limiting 24in screen, however, so if you want more room to work without spending a small fortune, the Acer Vero B7 B277E will definitely appeal. “Less sharp than our favourite monitor, but has lots of ports, good speakers and handy controls” There will always be compromises when spending relatively little on a larger screen. Both monitors have the same Full HD 1920x1080-pixel resolution, but to stretch the same number of pixels across a larger expanse Acer has had to make…

LAPTOP Dell Inspiron 14 Plus  £899 from www.snipca.com/50079 Tested Issue 683 Has the same processor (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H) as our previous favourite (Acer Swift Go 4), but manages to squeeze more speed out of it. Has 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and a 14in 2240x1400-pixel screen. Excellent value overall. ALTERNATIVE Acer Swift Go 14 Still a fast and powerful laptop, with a great 14in screen. £899 from www.snipca.com/49733 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 £799 from www.snipca.com/50039 Tested Issue 667 With a much brighter screen than our previous favourite – the Galaxy Tab S8 – this is perfect for watching TV. It also has a faster processor, so tasks feel smoother, even with several windows open. £799 will get you the 128GB version. If you want 256GB you’ll need to…

ANDROID & iOS View 3D buildings in Google Maps navigation mode Google Maps has long offered the option to view 3D renderings of buildings, which is useful for identifying where you are in unfamiliar areas. Tap the Layers button in the top-right corner of a map, select 3D under ‘Map details’ then zoom in to see 3D versions of certain buildings. Google has now added 3D buildings to the navigation mode in Maps, so you can see them when you’re travelling from one location to another. The new feature is also available to drivers who use Android Auto or Apple CarPlay in their cars. To activate 3D buildings, tap your profile picture in the top-right corner of the Google Maps app and select Settings. Tap ‘Navigation settings’ (just called Navigation…

Burglars don’t like to smile for the camera. Surveys suggest that most will avoid homes with CCTV installed outside. But many still take the risk because they’re confident of disabling cameras, or avoiding them. However, they won’t be able to do this if they can’t even see where the cameras are. The easiest devices to hide are so-called spy-cams. They can be as small as a credit card, or disguised as other home equipment such as a smoke detector, TV remote control or even an air freshener. You’ll need a device with a wide field of view so you can see as much of your target area as possible. It also needs to be high resolution, though there’s a balance to be struck. You don’t want the bother and expense…

Is WinX DVDRipper really free? Q I was excited to read about WinX DVDRipper (www.snipca.com/50228) in Issue 671’s Problems Solved (page 69), but you didn’t mention that the “free download” is only a trial version limited to five minutes. Is that right? John Perkins A Yes, the free version has the time limit you mention and places a watermark on ripped movies. To remove these, you need to pay an annual subscription (around £32 a year) for DVDRipper Platinum Edition. We should have made this clear, so we apologise for any confusion. For a truly free alternative, try MakeMKV (www.makemkv.com). It rips DVDs and Blu-ray discs to MKV files, stripping out any region coding as it does. Movie files in this format should play back in most media players, including…

‘Not used KCOM account’ As a Hull resident I have little choice but to use KCOM for broadband. I don’t normally receive scam emails relating to the company, but in the past month I’ve had several. They all claim I’ve not used my account for weeks, which is nonsense because I spend many hours online every day, on lots of devices at home. Local forums have warned about it. One person who got scammed said that when you click the link in the email you’re asked to submit your personal details. It’s obviously a scam, but it may catch out many KCOM customers because they’re not used to emails impersonating the company. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

Am I liable for a laptop lost by Royal Mail? Q In March, I bought a laptop from Studio (www.studio.co.uk), priced £119.99. When it arrived I decided it wasn’t right for me, and Studio said I could return it as long as I didn’t open it. I returned the laptop by first-class post, but Studio says it never received it and is refusing to refund me. Royal Mail is only covering me for £20. Is this my fault? Surely the blame lies with Royal Mail or Studio? Francis McDermott A We’re afraid that the responsibility lies with Francis to guarantee that the laptop is safely returned to Studio. He returned it not because it was faulty or not as described, but because he had changed his mind about the purchase.…

Should I switch from Clean Master? Q I’ve used Clean Master (www.snipca.com/50117) for several years after seeing it recommended in Computeractive. In March, the professional version stopped working. It encouraged me to buy another version, so I tried that and my payment appeared to go through. But I didn’t receive a code, and my emails to the company have gone unanswered. Are you aware of Clean Master being unreliable or hacked? Or is there a better alternative? Sylvia Nicholls A There’s no need to pay for system-optimisation software. You can get all the clean-up tools you need for free with Wintoys (www.snipca.com/50209). Once you open it, it shows a summary of your system – key hardware information plus details of installed software, running processes and more. The ‘Apps’ section lets…

PHONE | £289 from Amazon www.snipca.com/50373 Tough call Smartphones can be so expensive and yet so easy to break you might occasionally think twice about taking yours with you when you’re out and about. The Samsung Galaxy XCover 7 should allay such fears because it’s designed to withstand the odd knock or fall, and can survive a downpour and dust. That said, unlike many toughened models the XCover looks similar to most standard phones. Its slick and practical design doesn’t scream ‘phone for outdoor survivalist’. It does, however, make it easy to hold and all the buttons are where you might expect them to be. It has a 3.5mm audio jack at the top, and its flat underside with a textured pattern means the phone won’t easily slide out of…

Winner of a Recommended award in Issue 680, OneOdio A10 headphones use advanced Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation to counter external sound. Dual noise-detecting microphones pick up and filter out up to 95 per cent of low and mid-range frequency external noises, preventing your music, podcasts and audiobooks from being ruined by the outside world. Its custom 40mm large-aperture drivers offer clear, natural and balanced audio quality. Compared with CD quality, Hi-Res audio brings punchier bass, richer details and wider dynamics. The sound is closer to the original detail, which can bring you an immersive experience and a fantastic musical journey. Turn on Transparency (Ambient Sound) Mode to lower music and amplify speech through microphones, making it easy to communicate with people without having to remove your headphones. The Premium Li-ion…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Remove options from Files’ right-click menu The Files app (www.snipca.com/50045) has added some excellent new features in its update to version 3.3 (see Issue 682, page 19). It’s now an even better replacement for File Explorer in Windows. I learn new tricks every time I use it, including the option to remove everything you don’t need when you right-click a file. Files has a lot of options enabled by default when you right-click. To see them, click the top-right Cog icon followed by ‘Context-menu options’. There are probably more than you need. I clicked the sliders to turn off options like ‘Show option to copy path’ and ‘Show compression options’. The only actions I kept were to open folders in a…

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Install apps faster from the Microsoft Store Microsoft now lets you directly download the executable (EXE) files for apps in its store. This means you don’t have to click Install, then wait for your browser to open the Microsoft Store before clicking Install again. It’s a quicker way of installing apps from the Store to your computer. We downloaded the EXE file for Netflix as an example. First, on the app’s page (www.snipca.com/50312), we clicked Download (1 in our screenshot above). Next we clicked the pop-up that appeared just below the downloads tray at the top, followed by ‘Download unverified file’ 2. This is a security check that Chrome (and other Chromium browsers) run to make sure you’re not downloading a virus. The Microsoft Store is…

What are they? Those little boxes that appear above your browser’s address bar, each containing a different web page. You can open one by clicking the plus (+) icon or pressing the Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut. They help you hop between web pages without having several browser windows open. But then you probably knew that because you most likely use them every time you browse online. However, we’re guessing that you’ve never had more than 7,000 open at one time. You guessed correctly. Surely that would be impossible? No, it’s entirely possible, as one Firefox user recently proved. Hazel, a software developer, had 7,470 tabs open on the browser. Wow. Why did she have so many? She told the website PCMag it’s “like a trip down memory lane”. Having “clusters of…

1080p High-definition video: 1920x1080 pixels. 2K A screen with 2048x1080 pixels. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 720p A common resolution of high-definition video: 1280x720 pixels. 8K Video with a resolution of 7680x4320 pixels. Currently the highest resolution available. Active noise cancelling Method for reducing unwanted sound by adding a second sound specifically designed to cancel the first. AI Artificial intelligence. Intelligence demonstrated by a machine rather than a human being. APK Android Package Kit. The file format Android uses to install apps. Bandwidth A measure of how much data can be transferred through a connection at one time. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are…