Table of contents for 547 in Computeractive

This issue’s Cover Feature takes you from the busy streets of Los Angeles in the 1920s (hooray for Harold Lloyd!) to Napoleonic-era Russia, via the Triangulum Galaxy three million light years from Earth. That’s a snapshot of the breathtaking range of free content you can download from the web. It’s important I warn you, though, that it’s the type of feature you should start reading only if you have nothing planned for the next few hours. One click quickly leads to another, as you find ebooks, posters, maps, simulators, old newspapers and more to download. There’s something strangely satisfying about immersing yourself in the abundance of content online, away from the bickering hordes on Twitter or selfie-obsessed masses on Facebook. I hope you enjoy our buffet of downloadable delights. Please…

Ello, ello, ello, is this a scam? I received a call from Hammersmith police station (no name was given) telling me they had arrested an individual who used a debit card belonging to me. They asked if I had given permission for anyone to use the card, to which I said “no”. They immediately rang off, after which I reported the incident to my bank. I don’t bank online and rarely order online, using a payment card. My suspicion it was a scam were confirmed by searching online (www.snipca.com/30449). I was just surprised they didn’t ask for confirmation of the card number. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

Can I get a refund for dashcam via Wowcher? LEAD CASE Q I bought what was advertised by retailer Charles Oscar as a £126 dashcam for just £9.99 plus £3.99 postage via the discount voucher site Wowcher (www.wowcher.co.uk). But what I received was a cheap, shoddy, totally useless version. Wowcher told me to contact Charles Oscar, which asked for photographic evidence. I couldn’t provide this. Is there anything I can do? Brian Martin A Brian told us that he should have been more sceptical given the too-good-to-be-true size of the discount. The first result on Google when you search for ‘Charles Oscar’ is from Trustpilot, on which customers leave reviews for companies. The score for Charles Oscar? A paltry one star out of five (www.snipca.com/30414). Of 289 reviews, 93 per…

This issue’s column is inspired by reader Peter Heilbrunn. He wanted to know the best services for dictating his own words and transcribing those of others. We’re happy to oblige. Choose your voice recorder The first thing to consider is your recording device. If you’re simply looking to dictate, then your PC or phone’s built-in microphone is adequate, or you could buy a headset – wired or Bluetooth – for hands-free operation. Mpow’s PC Headset (£18.99 from Amazon www.snipca.com/30348) offers comfort and quality without breaking the bank. The tools for converting speech to text are built into your computer or phone. Windows users should experiment with the built-in speech-recognition tools (type speech recognition into the Windows Search box to get started). iPhone and Android users should tap the mic button…

What do I need to fill out forms on my PC? Q I would like to fill in forms using my PC rather than using a pen. Can you please suggest suitable software to download? As a recycled teenager, I do not want anything complicated. Nancy Noble A If you want to fill out a paper form (as opposed to a PDF), you first need to import it to your PC, either by using a scanner or taking a photo of it and transferring the JPEG file to your computer. Some PDFs have fields you can type text into directly using a PDF reader. However, for PDFs that don’t (as well as any paper forms you’ve had to scan in), you’ll need to create your own text fields within the…

When I was a child, I watched Threads, the infamous 1980s TV movie about the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the UK. It was deeply harrowing – like an episode of EastEnders with added radiation poisoning – and left a lasting impression. So, imagine how Laura Lyons’ young son must have felt when the family’s smart security system started blaring out seemingly genuine warnings about a North Korean nuclear attack. The boy was apparently so terrified, he hid under a rug. Eventually, the Lyons (from Orinda, California) realised the alerts were fake – a hacker had somehow gained control of their home’s wireless Nest security camera. Google, which owns Nest, claims the most likely explanation was a compromised password, obtained via a third-party data breach. The incident demonstrates two…

‘Significant boost to my ADSL’ I was keen to test devolo Magic 2 Wi-Fi adapters as I live in a new-build flat in an area which is yet to get fibre broadband - and so I need to make the most of my ADSL connection. The adapters came well packaged with an easy-to-follow installation guide. devolo’s home-network app was similarly easy to set up and I soon had my network up and running. I work from home a lot and find that when I transfer large PDFs between different inboxes and SharePoint environments my internet basically shuts down until the document has fully transferred. But since installing Magic 2 adapters I’ve found that the ‘Airtime Fairness’ feature helps my Wi-Fi stay usable while the document transfers. It means I can…

PC MONITOR | £207 from Amazon www.snipca.com/30524 Like the Iiyama ProLite XUB2495WSU-B1, which we reviewed in Issue 546, this is a monitor designed for office workers rather than gamers, style-conscious home users, or those who want a big screen for entertainment. At a modest 24 inches, it offers 1080p Full HD resolution plus a bit of extra height, giving a squarer 16:10 format that makes more sense than 16:9 widescreen for working on documents. If you really hate scrolling down, you can even rotate it 90 degrees for a portrait display. An attractive, well-adjusted monitor with good connections and colour accuracy The stand also has lots of tilt and height adjustment, making it easier to create a comfortable working environment than is possible with more basic models, or those designed…

What was it? In 2006, Microsoft and Intel released specifications for a class of ‘ultra-mobile personal computers’, or UMPCs. Featuring touchscreens just five to seven inches across, they would run the Tablet PC edition of Windows XP. The first to reach the market was Samsung’s Q1 (pictured), a 7in device resembling an overgrown PlayStation Portable, with buttons either side of its colour display. Later, the Q1 Ultra added a BlackBerry-style qwerty keyboard, split between the left and right sides so users could type with their thumbs. Why did it die? The Q1’s chunky design divided opinion, but everyone dislike the fragile kick stand and absent keyboard, finding the touchscreen text-entry system awkward. Three-hour battery life wasn’t bad for a laptop at the time, but felt limiting for a machine intended…

What you need: Solid-state drive; 2.5in case; USB cable Time required: 40 minutes The price of PC memory has been falling for years, which makes solid-state drives (SSDs) increasingly attractive. In pure poundsper-megabyte terms, they don’t quite rival hard drives, but we believe that the extra cost is worth it given the boost in performance they can deliver. If you regularly edit video or have a large photo library, storing your media on SSD will pay dividends, because you’ll spend less time waiting and more time creating. The trouble is, upgrading your internal drive to an SSD can be fiddly. One slip of the screwdriver, and you could cause serious damage that won’t be covered by your warranty. You could hire a professional to do the job – if you’re…

If you use USB sticks to share or back up smaller files, you’ll be familiar with the tedious process of safely ejecting them before removal. Although our SSD connects in the same way, and has similar components inside, Windows subtly changes the way it saves files which, depending on your settings, should make it safe to unplug your SSD without ejecting it first. Return to Disk Management and click the SSD’s name in the left-hand column (‘Disk 1’ in our case). Select Properties 1 in the pop-up menu, then click the Policies tab 2 in the box that appears. Check that ‘Quick removal’ 3 is selected if you’d like the convenience of unplugging without first ejecting. This is the safest way to work, as it prioritises writing the data to…

DESKTOP SHORTCUTS Create desktop shortcuts faster in Windows 10 In Issue 546’s Problems Solved (see page 68), you explained to reader Edmund Wall how to create desktop shortcuts using the Start menu in Windows 10. For readers who may have missed that issue, you basically open the Start menu, right-click the relevant item, move your cursor to More, then click ‘Open file location’. Next, right-click the item you want to create a desktop shortcut for within File Explorer, move your cursor to ‘Send to’, then click ‘Desktop (create shortcut)’. Well, I’ve found a faster way to do this. When you click the Start menu to bring up the list of installed programs and apps, you’ll see some programs, such as LibreOffice and Microsoft Office 2013, have folder dropdown menus listing…

BT8600 Advanced Call Blocker Cordless Phone £58.89 from Amazon www.snipca.com/30536 I’ve read many letters in your magazine about people who complain about nuisance spam and cold calls from sales people, fraudsters, and so on. My advice would be to buy the brilliant BT8600 Advanced Call Blocker cordless home phone. Setting up the phone is easy with full instructions provided in the box. You can save all your contacts and set up speed dial. The BT Guardian option lets you choose to intercept calls from any numbers that you haven’t saved. The caller will then need to identify who they are, after which you can choose to answer, block or send the call to voicemail. You can block individual numbers and even calls from specific area codes. If a caller is…

Google Fit Free Android www.snipca.com/30470 Google’s pedometer app tracks the number of steps you take each day and displays this in a graph. You can set your own daily targets and receive notifications when you reach them. The app logs your daily progress as reports that you can check at https://fit.google.com. Best For: Measuring step counts Argus Calorie Counter* Free Android www.snipca.com/30471 iOS www.snipca.com/30472 Argus is a great all-in-one fitness app. As well as counting your steps, it can monitor your water intake, sleep, heart rate and it even has a barcode that scans food for calories. Your data is presented as neat graphs and the app also provides customised workout plans. Best For: Overall health and fitness monitoring Map My Walk Free Android www.snipca.com/30473 iOS www.snipca.com/30474 As its name…

LIBREOFFICE WRITER Add feedback to documents you’re collaborating on One of the best ways to provide feedback or instructions on a document you’re collaborating on is by adding comment boxes that don’t change the original text. To add a comment box to a document, first click the space where you want to add it. Alternatively, select any text you want to comment upon. Next, click the Format tab, then click the Comments option in the middle. Alternatively, click the orange speech-bubble icon at the top right (see screenshot below) or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+C. You’ll now see a yellow text box linked to the space you’ve selected or the text you highlighted. Type your comments into the box. If you’ve received a document with other people’s comments, right-click any…

What is it? A browser extension that warns you when you visit a website it claims knowingly publishes fake news, or has a hidden agenda. It tells you to “proceed with caution: this website generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability”. NewsGuard hit the headlines last month over a warning it showed on one of the UK’s most popular websites. Which one? Mail Online (www.dailymail.co.uk), home to the Daily Mail, and the eighth most visited news website in the world. The warning first appeared in August last year, but came to greater prominence in January when NewsGuard was added to Microsoft’s Android and iOS app for its browser Edge. What specific claims did NewsGuard make? That the Daily Mail “repeatedly publishes false information and has been forced…

1 Kaspersky Internet Security 2019 (3 devices, 2 years) Full price: £79.99 Our price: £34.99 (save 56%) 2 Bitdefender Family Pack 2019 (Unlimited devices, 2 years) Full price: £149.99 Our price: £69.99 (save 53%) 3 Kaspersky Internet Security 2019 (1 device, 1 year) Full price: £34.99 Our price: £17.99 (save 49%) 4 Norton Security Deluxe 2019 (3 devices, 1 year) Full price: £59.99 Our price: £18.99 (save 68%) 5 Avast Internet Security 2019 (1 PC, 2 years) Full price: £89.99 Our Price: £34.99 (save 61%) 6 Norton Security Deluxe 2019 (3 devices, 2 years) Full price: £109.99 Our price: £34.99 (save 68%) 7 Bitdefender Internet Security 2019 (3 devices, 2 years) Full price: £84.99 Our price: £39.99 (save 53%) 8 iolo System Mechanic 18 Full price: £39.99 Our price: £18.95…

USB-C might be the latest thing in connectivity, but the technology is constantly evolving. USB 3.2 promises to double the data speeds of USB 3.1 and we expect to see USB 3.2 devices emerging on the market next year. Between now and then, USB-C is likely to spread to even more devices. Apple, for example, recently began to include USB-C ports on iPad Pros and MacBooks, but even the latest iPhones still use Apple’s Lightning connection instead. Rumour has it that the iPhone 11 may finally ditch Lightning in favour of USB-C. It’s also possible that manufacturers will start adding their own features to USB-C. Last year, for example, Microsoft filed a patent in the US (www.snipca.com/30390) for a type of USB-C connector with a magnetic latch system that should…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Can my wife use my old GSM phone? Q My partner is becoming increasingly forgetful, so we’ve agreed it’d be sensible for her to start carrying a mobile phone – even though she doesn’t like them. I’ve used mobiles for the past 15 or so years, but only fairly basic models. Right now I’m on an iPhone 4, and happy with it. Before that I used a Nokia 3330 (pictured right) that I bought around the millennium. I’ve kept this in a drawer and, having powered it up recently, it’s still in working order. I know we’d need to arrange a call contract of some kind, but I have no idea where to start or if it’d even be an option for a handset this old?…

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 next (fifth) generation of mobile networks, to eventually supersede 4G. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. Add-on A program that adds extra features to your browser. Biometrics Using measurable personal characteristics, such as fingerprints, for identification. BIOS Basic Input-Output System. Essential software built into every PC that connects the vital components. Bloatware Unwanted software built into a new device. Cache A temporary space for storing information. Cast To send content from your PC to TV. Codec Short for Compressor/Decompressor. A file that tells a computer how…

What’s the threat? Fraudsters are phoning people claiming to be from Ofcom in an attempt to obtain their bank details, and connect them to expensive premium-rate phone numbers. In one version of the con, the scammer tells you to pay an outstanding bill or payment on your phone or broadband service. You’re told that unless you hand over your bank details to pay, your service will be disconnected. The second type of scam is an automated voice message that tells you there’s a problem with your phone or broadband service. You’re urged to press a number on your keypad to discuss it further with Ofcom. Doing so connects you to a high-cost premium number. How can you stay safe? All the usual rules apply: be extremely suspicious about calls received…

EU’s copyright law is ‘short-sighted’… In Issue 546’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’ (‘Will the EU’s copyright law lead to blank Google results?’, pictured right), you say that “mercifully” the subject has nothing to do with Brexit. That may be strictly true, but the EU’s Copyright Directive is precisely the kind of short-sighted, bureaucratic, restrictive law that made the British people vote to leave. The internet is fine without the EU’s meddling. Ian Johnston …but we need it to stop newspapers closing Whatever your views on Brexit, the EU’s Copyright Directive will ultimately prove to be a good thing. Tech giants like Google have been sucking money out of newspapers for years. Local publications have bitten the dust, and it won’t be long until some major national papers follow suit. We…

When requesting your money back for a faulty item that’s over six months old, you may have to accept a partial refund to reflect how long you’ve already used it for. That’s the compromise reader Alan Stevens made (see Issue 542) in his case against Currys PC World, accepting a £165 voucher for the faulty £269 Sony MDR-1000X headphones he bought in July 2017. Soon after Alan bought the headphones they developed cracks in the plastic. Cracks also appeared in the replacement headphones sent by Currys PC World. Sony has admitted there’s an “abnormal fault” in the design of the headphones, and has offered free repairs and replacements - in China, at least. Sony told Alan to take the headphones to its local repair shop, but he decided to negotiate…

I’m trying to trace my aunt Ada Moody’s records. She went to Canada in 1911, married Walter Baldwin and died in 1913. Roy Smart Roy supplied a link to Ada Baldwin’s grave in Regina, Saskatchewan. This confirmed Walter’s name and the date of her death. The province’s digital birth, marriage and death indexes (www.snipca.com/30349) only revealed her death entry (1 October, 1913). We believe the wedding took place just after her arrival in Regina in late 1911 because her immigration record stated she was “to be married”. For more help, visit FamilySearch’s Canada page: www.snipca.com/30354. Have a genealogy question for Nick? Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with ‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.…

I resisted ad blockers for a long time. This was partly because some of my favourite sites rely on advertising revenue to survive, but also because I didn’t want one blocking genuine content that it’s mistaken for an ad. In recent years, however, some websites have gone ad crazy - with flashing boxes and video clips splashed all over the place, making scrolling and navigation impossible, as well as slowing pages to a crawl. I’ve therefore crumbled under the pressure and now use the Adblock Plus (ABP) browser extension (available for all major browsers at https://adblockplus.org). As soon as ABP’s installed, the web becomes a much calmer place. Some websites show empty boxes where ads used to be, but on most it’s as though the ads were never there. While…

PC | £1,199 from www.snipca.com/30400 Acer’s Nitro PC range, available in the UK from Currys and PC World, generally sits below its Predator gaming PCs (see our review, Issue 544), but the N50-100 DG.E0REK.006 that we were sent for testing came with the highest available specification, making it a very capable all-round mini-tower. The eight-core AMD Ryzen 2700 processor is paired with a good mid-range GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card, carrying 6GB of its own memory, and Windows 10 is installed on a 256GB SSD that’s complemented by another terabyte of hard-drive space. “A decent do-it-all PC with impressive specifications” Don’t confuse the 2700 chip with the 2700X, although both can be overclocked. The 2700 is a little slower all round – about 20 per cent in our tests, and…

What is it? Lexar, a memory card brand now owned by Chinese firm Longsys, has announced the first SD card with a capacity of one terabyte. The 1TB Professional 633x SDXC UHS-I (pictured) comes 15 years after the company’s first 1GB card, representing a thousandfold increase in storage. Why would I want it? Secure Digital cards, introduced in 1999, have been incredibly popular. They’re still used as removable storage in nearly all digital cameras, from basic to professional-quality DSLRs and video cameras, as well as many other accessories, and – especially in the more compact microSD variant – also provide a simple option for internal storage expansion. 1TB hard drives have been commonplace for years, and SSDs this size are now quite affordable, so it makes sense for SD to…

LAPTOP PRICE DROP HP Envy 13 £750 from www.snipca.com/29555 Tested Issue 539 The combination of an eighth-generation quad-core i5 chip and MX 150 graphics makes this an excellent all-round laptop, let down only by the poor colour reproduction of its Full HD touchscreen. Seven-hour battery life is adequate, and it’s nicely made. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 This premium laptop starts at £1,200, but the best deal is with the brand new quad-core i7-8550 and QHD touchscreen. £1,300 from www.snipca.com/26796 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 9.7 £470 from www.snipca.com/27058 Tested Issue 501 Samsung’s new mid-sized tablet has a wonderful HDR screen and comes with a pen, unlike Apple’s iPad Pro. But its processor isn’t the fastest and it’s disappointingly expensive, especially compared to the £319 iPad 9.7in. ALTERNATIVE Asus ZenPad…

I like to keep my internal drives clutter-free. This not only makes things easier to find, it also means I can put off upgrading my hardware for longer because the internal storage always has room to spare. Being a keen photographer and Photoshop user, I use an external SSD to balance my storage and speed requirements. I don’t want to be waiting for my photo library to load every time I need to find a particular shot – and thanks to my SSD I don’t have to. What will you use your fast additional storage for? Backup? Photos? Videos? Let us know: letters@computeractive.co.uk…

What you need: SyncThing; Any Windows version (XP to 10) Time required: 45 minutes The drawback of online-storage services like OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox is that they offer only limited free storage and store your data on their servers (which means in theory they can access it). An alternative is to use SyncThing to create your own home-based storage that automatically syncs folders across all PCs on your network. Any data you sync is stored on your own PC and there’s no limit on how much data you can sync. STEP 1 To use SyncThing, download its user interface SyncTrayzor. Before doing so, find out whether you have a 32bit or 64bit PC. Right-click My Computer/This PC 1 on your desktop, Start Menu or File Explorer, click Properties then…

Last weekend, my family threw me a big party for my 60th birthday. My friends and family took loads of photos on their phones and my son snapped the celebration on his fancy digital camera. I wanted to collate all my guests’ photos in one place and compile the best ones in an album. I use Dropbox as my cloud-storage service and after a little research, found a way to request photos from other people that can be stored in a Dropbox folder of your choice. To do this, go to www.dropbox.com and log into your account (or create one if you haven’t already). Next, click Files on the left, ‘File requests’, then the blue ‘Request files’ button on the right. In the window that opens, you can specify what…

ANDROID See how long a future journey will take while driving Google Maps has added a useful new feature that lets you set future departure or arrival times and get an estimate of how long your car journey will take. For example, you can can check whether your journey would be a quicker if you left home to visit relatives at 6pm or 7pm. Google Maps uses its own traffic data – collected over a period of time – to provide you with reliable estimates. Alternatively, you can also find out what time you need to leave if you need to be somewhere at a specific future time. Open Google Maps, tap the blue Go icon on the right, enter your starting point and destination as you normally would, then…

WINDOWS 10 Stop Windows updating drivers when you update your PC By default, Windows updates all your PC’s drivers whenever you update your PC. While this is mostly a good thing, sometimes a faulty driver update (for example, to your graphics card or motherboard), can harm your entire PC. If this happens, you can always roll back your driver to its previous version by opening Device Manager, right-clicking the faulty driver, clicking Properties, then clicking the Driver tab. Here, you’ll see a button to revert to the previous version. Alternatively, you can choose to skip driver updates completely whenever you update Windows. To do this, search for and open your Registry Editor, then navigate through the following path by clicking the dropdown menus on the left: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Policies\Microsoft\Windows\ WindowsUpdate. Right-click…

Excel has a great little add-in called ASAP Utilities that lets you carry out many additional tasks in a few easy steps. In our example, we’ll show you how to use it to convert data laid out in cells down a single column (as in screenshot 1) into multiple rows (as in screenshot 2). Excel does have a tool that lets you ‘transpose’ a column into a row and vice versa, but it doesn’t let you transpose a column into multiple rows in one go. To download the add-in, go to www.snipca.com/30419, select ‘Home and Student edition’ below ‘Select your download’, click the ‘Download Home and student’ button, open and run the downloaded setup file, then click Finish. You’ll now see a new ‘ASAP Utilities’ tab when you next open…

You love free software, and so do we. That’s why we devote a whole section to it in every issue of Computeractive (see page 18). But what about all that lesser-known stuff you can download? The resources that experts love to use but hate to share, the tools that developers would rather you didn’t know about, and the simulators that let you explore galaxies far, far away. It’s all out there, as we reveal in this Cover Feature. And when getting hold of a program isn’t as straightforward as clicking a familiar Download button, we’ll talk you through the process. We’ve scoured the internet, looking for genuinely useful downloads that we know you’ll love. Some are hidden features of programs you may already use, but our focus is more on…

Microsoft Composite Image Editor www.snipca.com/30505 Not all websites offer the option of download buttons, preferring that you access their content only online. And while – as we’ve explained here – you can always take screenshots of maps, that’s a hassle if you need to create multiple screenshots to capture everything you want. This excellent tool from Microsoft lets you stitch adjacent shots together into one image. First, take your screenshots (making sure each overlaps slightly), then load Composite Image Editor and click New Panorama From Images at the top. Select your screenshots, click Open, then click Next (top right) to see your images stitched together. Click Next again, then, in the Image section on the right, click ‘Export to disk’ to save the merged image as a JPEG. 4K Video…

How would you like to buy a new laptop with £200 to spare? It’s a tempting offer, but what if it came with a big condition: the laptop would be refurbished? If that puts you off right away, hear us out. Not only would you be missing a bargain but, in many ways, reconditioned kit is a safer buy than a brand new product. Here’s how it works with refurbished PCs and laptops. From a factory in Asia to a desk in the UK, new computers undertake a long journey, during which they experience temperature and altitude changes, knocks and bumps. No wonder some are dead on arrival. Often, the fix is a simple soldering job, but to do this the store or manufacturer must open it up and carry…

Q Issue 543’s MiFi article (page 35) was interesting. We have a caravan and take our laptop on long tours. Relying on campsite Wi-Fi is patchy and expensive. MiFi seems to fit the bill, but you also mentioned tethering and hotspots. I wonder if this is the solution for us? So, could you explain the differences? Would tethering be as fast? Please explain it like I’m a child, rather than my 72 actual years! Bryan Warraker A We’ll start by reiterating that MiFi is a brand name owned by Hutchinson 3G, the firm behind the UK’s Three mobile network. However, the term is often used generically to describe any portable router that uses a 3G or 4G data connection to deliver mobile Wi-Fi – dubbed a hotspot. With that clear,…

Cats have nine lives, my PC has 900. I’ve spent years installing dodgy programs, knowing (sometimes even hoping) they contain the kind of bugs my antivirus isn’t designed to block. Bloatware, spyware, adware - come and have a go if you think you’re junk enough, so I can write about it in Computeractive. My computer bears the scars, but I could have avoided these by installing dubious downloads in a sandbox, which runs programs and files without letting them touch your actual system. But sandboxing always seemed like a hassle, and I didn’t trust a virtual PC to behave like a real one. Besides, I didn’t want to be the software equivalent of people who drive like maniacs just because they’ve installed an airbag. Few things are as deadly as…

SCAM VICTIMS LOSE £190,000 A DAY Victims of scams in the UK lose £190,000 a day, new police figures show. Action Fraud, part of City of London Police, said between April and September 2018, 13,357 people reported cybercrimes, losing a total of £34.6m. More than a third of victims were tricked by criminals hacking their social-media and email accounts. MARTIN LEWIS DROPS CASE AGAINST FACEBOOK Consumer campaigner Martin Lewis (pictured) has dropped his legal action against Facebook after it agreed to introduce an option to let users report scam adverts. The MoneySavingExpert website founder was suing the site for reputational damage after it showed adverts that falsely claimed he backed several risky investment schemes. Facebook will also donate £3m to a new Citizens Advice project to detect scams and support…

Spam doesn’t just clog up email inboxes - it’s becoming a considerable nuisance in text messages too. Google’s solution is ‘Spam protection’, a new feature switched on by default in Android Messages. It’s being rolled out to phones gradually, so check if you have it by opening the menu (three dots, top right), tapping Settings, then Advanced. If it’s turned on, you’ll see the blue button switched to ‘On’ (see screenshot). When Google thinks it has detected spam, you’ll see a message asking you to ‘Report spam’ or ‘Report not spam’. When you report spam, Google receives a copy of the spammer’s messages (up to 10), helping it to “understand spam patterns” to better detect and block it in future. On its Messages Help page (www.snipca.com/30453) Google says it temporarily…

It doesn’t surprise me that millions of people have stopped using their landline phones (News, Issue 546, page 9). I’m living proof that someone who isn’t very ‘techy’ can gradually move away from landlines in favour of smartphones. I was sceptical at first. The landline phone had been such a vital part of my life, always there in the hallway. I recall as a child our family getting a phone for the first time, and what an important moment it felt. But in the past two years I’ve probably made fewer than 10 calls on the landline. The transformation began when my son bought me a cheapish Android phone for my birthday, and then installed WhatsApp (www.whatsapp.com) on it. This app is amazing! You mention that it’s popular with teenagers,…

In March last year, I bought a Netatmo security light from Electricalsupplies.co.uk (https://electricalsupplies.co.uk). It was not installed until recently (we bought it in advance for our new home), and worked perfectly for a day or two before biting the dust. A couple of emails to Netatmo (www.snipca.com/30418) confirmed that the installation was fine and a defect with the light was the probable cause. This was good communication from the manufacturer. I then went back to Electricalsupplies.co.uk with a copy of the email from Netatmo, and they offered me a collection the next day or a full refund. I chose the former. The company then sent a replacement, and dealt with the matter in just a matter of days. The service from both companies was most impressive. Has a company impressed…

MEDIA PLAYER Kodi 18 https://kodi.tv What you need: Windows 7, 8/8.1 or 10 Kodi is a powerful media player for music, videos and photos stored on your PC, as well as online media. Version 18, known as Leia, is the first major upgrade in two years, and although the design hasn’t changed a great deal, the developers have added lots of new features. Although Kodi itself is perfectly legal, it often makes headlines for the wrong reasons because people use it to access paid-for content (such as live sports broadcasts) for free using non-Kodi add-ons. We strongly advise you to steer clear of these and instead use those in the Add-ons section in Kodi - these are vetted by Kodi and won’t allow you access to copyrighted content (and break…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Printer junk During a recent purge of my PC, I stumbled upon a whole load of installed tools that came with my printer – a two-year-old Canon TS8050 – and realised that I had never once used any of them. Windows 10’s ‘Apps & features’ didn’t list the amount of hard-drive space these tools took up. So, I did a little detective work and discovered that, in total, Canon’s bundled programs occupied at least 800MB of space (see screenshot). Many of us routinely install software that comes with new hardware, often because it’s not clear these programs are optional. But the truth is that most of it is unnecessary and there are usually better free alternatives. My TS8050, for example, came with no less than…

What’s the best upgradable laptop? Q I’m looking for a laptop that’s quiet and easily upgradable, so I can improve the memory and storage later. An i3 or i5 processor would be OK. I won’t use it for gaming, but I edit the occasional family video. It will sit on my desk at home, so battery life isn’t a concern, but I’d like a decent typing action. I can spend up to £1,000. Mike Burke A So, a laptop that needn’t be portable, but must be upgradable. That sounds more like a desktop. Laptops are great if you need to carry your work around, but the usability of a relatively small screen fixed behind a keyboard is poor. Few laptops nowadays have upgradable storage, and even adding RAM can be…

EARPHONES | £120 from Amazon www.snipca.com/30541 Despite scepticism about their high price and chopped-off design, Apple’s AirPods – wireless earbuds for iPhones, which can also be used with Android devices – have proved popular. A more advanced version is reportedly on the way, but in the meantime competitors are emerging. Mobvoi’s TicPods Free, created after a £2m crowdfunded campaign, share the AirPods’ bud-plus-spike format and similarly come with a charging case (pictured below) that extends their battery life by up to four hours to a day. They come in white, orange-red or navy blue. “Cable-free, in-ear buds offer more control for audio on the go” Unlike Google’s Pixel Buds (£159 from www.snipca.com/27488, see our review, Issue 526), these are completely wireless units, with no cable between the two – hence…

In this competition we’re giving away three Crucial MX500 SSDs, each with a capacity of 500GB. It’s the best SATA SSD you can buy, having topped that category in our SSD Group Test in Issue 545, earning a five-star Buy It! award. Like many SSDs it uses 3D NAND technology to layer flash memory cells – packing them tighter to reduce cost per megabyte. But it also has a single-layer cell cache to boost speed. In our tests, this cache helped read and write speeds reach a fantastic 564 and 517MB/s. SATA drives really don’t get any faster than Crucial’s MX500. It has several essential features for peace of mind, including integrated power-loss immunity, which preserves all your saved work if the power unexpectedly cuts out. There’s also AES 256-bit…

1 Right-click the unallocated space that constitutes your new drive and select ‘New Simple Volume’ 1 in the menu that pops up (a volume is an area of storage). Click Next, then enter (in megabytes) the capacity you want to devote to the first of your partitions. By default, Disk Management suggests you should use the drive’s full capacity, but if you want a partition of around 300GB, enter 300000 2, then click Next. 2 Choose a drive letter to denote your new partition in Windows. Here, we’re choosing the letter P 1 to remind us that this partition will be used to store photos. Click Next again, then leave the defaults as they are in the following box, so that the SSD is formatted using the NTFS file system.…

BBC Sounds app When I first heard about the BBC Sounds app, I was looking forward to finding out how the Beeb had improved upon its iPlayer Radio app. However, the app left me feeling disappointed because none of the problems that were prevalent in iPlayer Radio were addressed. In fact, its interface was even more clunky, so I decided to look for a suitable alternative. And what I use instead… I settled on a free Android app called Podcast Addict (www.snipca.com/30533), which has a 4.6 review rating (BBC Sounds has 2.1). The app is easy to use, lets you listen to podcasts, audiobooks and radio stations, and has handy menus for finding and playing the latest shows. The app is not yet available for iOS. Tell us why you…

Bottom Quick Settings Free Android www.snipca.com/30467 On Android devices, you need to swipe down from the top of the screen to access your settings panel. This app lets you access it from the bottom instead - making it easier for those with small hands or larger devices. It also lets you customise it with colours and themes. Rivetz Authenticator Free Android www.snipca.com/30469 This app lets you secure all your apps, including email and social-media accounts, with two-factor authentication. Unlike other similar services, your authentication codes are backed up, so you can retrieve them if you switch to a new device. Freeview Free iOS www.snipca.com/30468 The new Freeview app lets you browse all live broadcasts and on-demand content from BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, Demand 5 and UKTV Play. Once…

It’s easy to cast your PC screen to your TV if you own a smart TV or a Google Chromecast (www.snipca.com/30412). This is a great way to view any photos and videos that are stored on your PC on your TV’s larger screen. There are several ways to do this. First, make sure that your PC and smart TV/Chromecast are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. If you want to cast a video, open File Explorer in Windows 10, navigate to the video you want to cast, right-click it, move your cursor to ‘Cast to Device’, then select the name of your TV/Chromecast. To cast multiple items, it’s a better idea to use the ‘Cast desktop’ feature available within the Chrome browser. Open the browser, click the three dots at…

If your club has a web page that promotes an upcoming event or meeting, it’s a good idea to create an advert in your emailed club newsletter that links to it. Anyone who clicks this advert will be directed to your web page - similar to clicking linked text in an email or website. It’s worth noting that not all email providers let you link graphics to your websites - Yahoo and Outlook.com, for example. But we’ll show you how to do this using Gmail, the Outlook PC program and Thunderbird. Your options You can design an advert from scratch, but this will take time unless you’re adept at using online design software like Adobe Photoshop or InDesign, which cost nearly £20 per month. Instead, use a site that lets…

Genymotion www.snipca.com/30504 It might not neatly fit into one of our four categories, but this little-known download is just too good to ignore – especially if you’re considering getting your first Android phone but want to try out the operating system (OS) first. Genymotion is an Android emulator that’s aimed primarily at app developers, but there’s a free version for personal use (click Download Genymotion Personal Edition at the link above). Version 3 came out at the end of 2018 with a new design and, importantly, the ability to run Android 9. The emulator uses VirtualBox. If you don’t already have this installed, click the ‘with VirtualBox’ button when downloading. To install your first virtual Android device on your PC, choose it from the list of ‘Available templates’, where you’ll…

If you’ve bought a new laptop and are concerned it may actually be refurbished (due to scuff marks or other signs of wear and tear), there are ways to check its history. First, look for the laptop’s serial number or service tag (pictured) – usually located on a sticker on the underside or in the battery compartment. Most manufacturers provide a web page where you can enter this serial number to check the laptop’s manufacture date, warranty status and more. If something doesn’t look right (such as warranty expiring earlier than expected), or you can’t find the info you need, phone the manufacturer and ask them to investigate. They’ll be just as keen to find out whether you have been mis-sold one of their laptops. We’ve listed service websites and…

Why won’t Process Explorer run? Q I followed Issue 544’s Windows 11 article. Everything went well but while Process Hacker (www.snipca.com/30037) installed OK, it wouldn’t launch. Instead, I get an error saying the file can’t be accessed. I’m the only person to use my PC, so I’m automatically the administrator. I have tried running it as an administrator but that doesn’t work either. My PC runs the 64bit edition of Windows 10, with the October Update installed. The Process Hacker download does not specify whether it’s for 32bit or 64bit. Could this be the problem? James Tait A The download page does state that Process Hacker is compatible with both 32- and 64bit setups (under ‘System requirements’), so that’s not the problem. In the first instance we’d try reinstalling. If…