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When you next have some time on your hands, try to work out how many unique eight-character passwords you can create with the 94 characters on a typical PC keyboard. The answer, revealed on page 53, contains more zeros than the average Windows error message. And yet a computer would need only eight hours to crack it. That reinforces the importance of taking your password security seriously. Nik Rawlinson needs no reminding. Writing our Cover Feature, he found a staggering 322 vulnerabilities in the passwords stored on his iPhone. Fortunately, he’s also the best person to explain how to generate unhackable passwords. I’m going to start using the phonetic technique he outlines, and also take his advice on setting up passkeys for all my accounts. Before that though, he rounds…

Find British Home Children sent to Canada From 1869 to 1948 over 100,000 British ‘Home Children’ were sent to Canada by charitable organisations and local authorities to start new lives. Most worked on remote farms or entered domestic service. Their experiences varied greatly. Some were adopted and treated kindly by their host families, but others were exploited, and subjected to hard labour and cruel treatment. Most siblings were separated from each other and contact with their families in England was severed. After World War 1, the scheme was expanded to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Search inspection reports and immigration records Findmypast has released three new records you can search for free to trace children sent to Canada. I wanted to see if I could find my ancestor Joseph…

SOFTWARE WARNING! McAfee’s unwanted antivirus subscription via HP It’s the little pleasures in life that make it all worthwhile. Call me a tech-obsessed oddball, but that once included setting up a new laptop. But not these days. While I had hoped to get a kick out of using a shiny, new HP Spectre x360, I suspected that – like most modern laptops – it would come with loads of junk installed by HP. And so it proved. Within minutes of signing in with my Microsoft account and setting up Windows 11 I received emails from McAfee welcoming me (see screenshot 1). Odd, I thought, considering I actually subscribe to Bitdefender antivirus, and have never paid McAfee a single penny. I then spotted a McAfee icon on the Spectre’s desktop, and…

Since launching in 2021 the original Blink Mini security camera has gained a lot of fans because it was affordable and reliable. Its successor, the Blink Mini 2, seems a worthy heir, offering the same compact size and fantastic range of settings that let you tweak its configuration. However, it now has a wider 143-degree field of view (up from 110) that means it can monitor a wider area. Plus, it has a new weatherproof exterior that’s hardy enough to be left outside all year round, though you’ll need to also buy the Weather Resistant Adapter, which costs an additional £9. To keep the price down, the Blink Mini 2 makes a few sacrifices. For example, its resolution is lower than some rivals and it isn’t able to identify packages,…

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…

SOFTWARE Untick box to stop Uninstalr crashing I was keen to try Uninstalr 2.3, which was your main program in Issue 682’s Best Free Software section (page 18). It had been updated to version 2.4 by the time I got around to downloading it. I installed the portable edition on my Windows 11 Pro PC and it seemed to go fine, but when I tried to remove programs my screen kept crashing, showing the message ‘CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED’. I read online that a few people have had this problem, and that they managed to fix it by unticking the box ‘Automatically close all running programs to perform the uninstallation’. This worked for me too. You need to select the program to remove, then click Uninstall at the bottom. You’ll see the box…

WINDOWS 11 Stop BitLocker encrypting your hard drive Computers that come with Windows 11 Pro include Microsoft’s BitLocker, which automatically encrypts your hard drive. If you don’t want this, you can stop it from happening when setting up a new computer or reinstalling Windows. On the screen that prompts you to choose your country, tap Shift+F10 to open Command Prompt. Now type regedit and press Enter to open the registry editor. Expand the HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE folder, then SYSTEM, followed by CurrentControlSet, then Control and finally BitLocker. Alternatively, type this into the address bar at the top: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ BitLocker (1 in our screenshot below). Right-click BitLocker 2 and select ‘Dword (32-bit) Value’, which will create an entry in the main panel. Rename this PreventDeviceEncryption 3. Double-click this to open a…

3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 720p/1080p/1440p Common types of high-definition video of 1280x720, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels respectively. 7-Zip A free, open-source file archiver. AI Artificial intelligence. Intelligence demonstrated by a machine, not a human being. Aspect ratio A measurement of the shape of a screen. Traditional PC screens are 4:3. Widescreen displays are 16:9 or 16:10. AUP A file saved in Audacity in an XML format. It’s a reference to audio files and any changes made to them. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Biometric Using measurable personal characteristics, such as fingerprints, for identification. Blue light Light given off by PC and phone screens. Can disrupt sleep patterns. Bluetooth SIG Bluetooth Special Interest Group.…

BT has delayed plans to move customers from copper-based landlines to digital following growing concerns about vulnerable people. It had aimed to complete the switch by the end of 2025, but has decided to postpone this deadline to 31 January 2027. Virgin, which runs the UK’s biggest cable network after BT, has yet to comment, but is likely to follow suit. Both companies had already paused switching in December 2023 amid fears that too many telecare alarms would stop working after the change. Nearly two million people use telecare systems to contact emergency services, but many require traditional phone lines and won’t work with internet-based services. Even those that are compatible won’t work when internet access goes down due to a power cut, unless the customer has a backup power…

NEW BODY TO BOOST UK CHIP INDUSTRY A new independent Semiconductor Institute will bring together government departments, universities and the private sector to promote the UK’s semiconductor industry. It’s part of the Government’s Semiconductor Strategy, announced last year, which will invest £1bn in the sector. Ministers said the new body will give researchers the resources they need to bring products to market. Read more at www.snipca.com/50530. UK BROADBAND IS 96th CHEAPEST IN THE WORLD The UK now has the world’s 96th cheapest broadband, down from 76th last year. The figure comes in the ‘Global broadband pricing league table 2024’ report from broadband-comparison site Cable.co.uk. It found that the average UK price is £30.65 a month, up from £28.42, making it cheaper than Ireland, US and Canada, but more expensive than…

WATCH RETRO TV ON NEW SKY CHANNEL Retro channel Rewind TV has launched on Sky’s satellite boxes, such as Sky Q. Available for no extra cost, it contains shows from the 60s to 90s, including Drop the Dead Donkey, Hammer House of Horror, The Prisoner, Whicker’s World and Tony Hancock’s self-titled 1963 ITV series (pictured), which has never been repeated. It’s available on channel 190 – see www.rewindtv.uk. CREATE 7-ZIP FILES IN WINDOWS 11 The latest preview version of Windows 11 lets you create 7-Zip and TAR file archives in File Explorer. Previously you needed to install a third-party program such as WinZip or PeaZip (see page 19). The new feature is available to Windows Insiders now, and is likely to be added to the full version when the 24H2…

SYSTEM TOOL Winpilot 2024.5.22 www.snipca.com/50592 What you need: Windows 10 or 11 Some cynics have dismissed Microsoft’s AI tool Copilot as a glorified version of its old Office assistant Clippy. Winpilot has fun with this notion by using a version of the animated paperclip to host a Copilot-style tool for tweaking Windows settings. Although it’s primarily designed to fix annoyances in Windows 11, most of Winpilot’s features also work in Windows 10, aside from those specific to the newer operating system. When you launch the program, the Clippy character – which Winpilot calls NeoClippy – immediately springs into action, offering to help with tasks such as ‘Uninstall an app’, ‘Tweak Windows appearance and performance’ and ‘Check available disk space’. Select a suggestion to open the relevant Windows tool, if NeoClippy…

The Opal Tadpole is a capable webcam that’s both beautifully designed and well engineered. At only 35x45mm, this unobtrusive little unit sits neatly at the top of your laptop screen, attached with an adjustable silicone clip. It’s not only small, but lightweight at 50 grams, so there’s no chance it’ll apply unnecessary strain on your laptop screen’s hinge. This also makes it a doddle to carry around with you. The build quality is high and the painted aluminum finish looks stylish. The Tadpole’s cable is 55cm long, which is ideal for connecting to a laptop or monitor with a USB port, but it may struggle to reach a desktop PC tower that’s positioned under your desk. The camera’s Sony IMX582 RS sensor does a fantastic job of producing clean footage,…

CHROME Chat with AI tool Gemini from the address bar Google has now added several AI features to Chrome and launched an Android app for its AI chatbot Gemini (previously called Bard), but – at the time of writing – these aren’t yet available in the UK. However, you can interact with Gemini by visiting its website (www.snipca.com/50423) and entering a text prompt, uploading an image or speaking a command. While we wait for the new AI tools to roll out here, Google has updated Chrome with a Gemini shortcut. This lets you start a conversation with the chatbot directly from the browser’s address bar, without opening the Gemini website first. Type @into the address bar and click ‘Chat with Gemini’ in the set of options that opens below (see…

LIBREOFFICE Check the strength of your passwords Version 24.2 of LibreOffice, released in January, added a password-strength meter that indicates whether passwords you’ve added to documents, spreadsheets and presentations are strong enough. First, click File at the top, then ‘Save As…’. In the box, navigate to the folder where you’d like to save your document and tick ‘Save with password’ below ‘Save as type:’. Now click Save and the Set Password box will appear. As you type your password into ‘Enter password to open’, a bar will appear beneath it to indicate the strength of your proposed password (see screenshot below). Red means weak, yellow medium, blue strong and green very strong. In our example, LibreOffice deems the password ‘LibreOffice2024!@£’ as ‘strong’ (blue). Click OK when you’ve retyped your password…

Attempts to steal passwords have shot up in the past few years. In 2015, Microsoft’s security team detected 115 every second. That has now risen to over 4,000 – a rise of more than 3,370 per cent. Hackers continue to target passwords because – deep down – humans are predictable. Too many of us use the same passwords over and over again, despite all the security advice telling us it’s a terrible idea. In this feature we’ll give you a complete password audit, so you can see which ones have been stolen and what you must do to make your new ones unhackable. We reveal a password-creation technique that’s served us well over the years, and it’s more sophisticated than replacing the letter 0 with zeroes, and the number 3…

As the writer of Computeractive’s Browser Tips sections, I spend a lot of time testing browsers and finding interesting things to say about them. This was much easier before Chrome, Edge and Firefox switched to incremental releases, back when each new version introduced exciting tools, rather than ‘bug fixes’ and under-thebonnet tweaks. “Arc has uBlock Origin built in, so blocks all adverts as you browse” It’s no wonder several new browsers have sprung up in the last year, while the big names obsess about AI. These include DuckDuckGo’s private browser (www.snipca.com/50410), the Japanesemade Floorp (https://floorp.app) and the climate-conscious Ecosia Browser (www.snipca.com/50411). However, the most hyped browser of 2024 is undoubtedly Arc from The Browser Company (www.arc.net). Arc’s website claims the browser “shapes itself” and “doesn’t just meet your needs –…

CHANGE VIDEO PLAYBACK SPEED IN PLEX Plex Pass subscribers can now change the playback speed of videos. The feature is supported on most platforms, including Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, iOS, Linux, Windows and Xbox. You can double the normal speed or halve it, with 0.25 increments in between. For details visit www.snipca.com/50501. GOOGLE WALLET WON’T WORK ON OLD PHONES Google Wallet will soon stop working on Android phones that run version 8.1 or earlier. This version of Android was released in 2017. From 10 June you’ll need Android 9, released in 2018, or later to keep using the payment app. Read more on Google’s support pages: www.snipca.com/50502.…

Can I get compensation from BT/EE for lost phone number? Q I had serious problems with my BT broadband last autumn and decided to move to EE. My order was cancelled by EE three times, although I received four routers. I was told I’d need a new VoIP phone rather than going via copper cable, but I asked to retain my number. I was then sent a faulty phone, which took weeks to replace, so I lost my number. Am I entitled to compensation? Helena Lane A BT – which owns EE – belongs to Ofcom’s automatic compensation scheme (www.snipca.com/50366), so we believe it will have to pay Helena some money. In April, Ofcom increased to £9.76 the amount companies must pay for every day customers are without broadband or…

How do I merge several video formats into one clip? Q I’ve got about 20 short home videos running for up to a minute each, in various formats (WMV, MP4, MOV, FLV and AVI). Can I merge them all to make one continuous whole? Carl Hughes A Plenty of video-editing programs let you import a range of formats and combine them to produce a continuous whole. However, you might have a problem with FLV, because it’s Flash video. As Adobe, which owns the Flash format, explains on its website: “Because Adobe has now discontinued support for Flash, you will likely need to convert any FLV file in order to open it or to edit it with a contemporary video editing program” (www.snipca.com/50417). There are many websites that convert FLV files…

ANDROID Customise your chats in Google Messages Google has updated its Messages app for Android phones (www.snipca.com/50518) with more ways to customise your conversations, bringing it closer in line with WhatsApp. The new options are only available in RCS chats, not standard SMS ones. To enable RCS, tap your profile picture, choose ‘Messages settings’ and switch on ‘RCS chats’. The most notable new feature is Custom Bubbles, which lets you change the colour of the message bubbles and the background of your Messages conversations. Tap the three-dot menu button in the top-right corner of an RCS chat and choose ‘Change colours’ to view the available options. The default theme is blue, but you can also make your bubbles and background purple, green, pink and more. Select your preferred theme and…

Padlet (www.padlet.com) lets you share digital boards of images, videos, notes and links with others. It’s a bit like Pinterest, but more specific to your club, rather than sharing everything with the world. Every Padlet starts as a blank slate, on to which you add any elements you want. Invited club members can add to your boards too. While Padlet is free to use, you’re limited to three boards and a 20MB file limit per upload. You’ll have to pay for more boards and higher file limits – see www.snipca.com/50475 for the choice of plans. By default, each board is moderated, so all posts require your approval before publication, though you can change this in Settings. Sign up and choose a template A perfect use for Padlet is as a…

Why can’t I remove files from ‘Software Distribution’? Q Issue 681’s ‘Remove All PC Junk Safely’ Cover Feature was timely because the 60GB hard drive on my Windows 10 laptop has just run out of space. Following your instructions, I’ve created 187MB space, but the big one eludes me: ‘Software Distribution’. As you suggested, I opened the Temporary Files window, ensured that ‘Windows Update Clean-Up’ (3.04GB) was ticked, and pressed Remove Files. The message ‘Purging: Windows Update Clean-Up’ appeared, then ‘Finished Temporary Files Clean-Up’. Great, I thought. But the files were still there. Maybe my memory is so low that it won’t process the request? I would delete something to see if it helped, but there’s not much left on the drive. I now keep all my personal files on…