Table of contents for 715 in Computeractive

I remember feeling a bit underwhelmed by the internet boom of the late 1990s. The huge potential was held back by sluggish dial-up speeds. Today’s AI explosion is different. Hardware and infrastructure have kept pace with human ingenuity, so most of us have broadband fast enough and computers powerful enough to use the incredible new tools being released every week. These have developed from the ‘nice idea’ phase to ‘it actually works’ remarkably quickly. For years it looked like AI would only benefit scientific research, but the technology has already trickled down into the kind of stuff ordinary users are interested in: shopping, TV, email, travel, maps, photography, saving money – and almost any hobby you can think of. Robert Irvine picks the best 50 of these in his Cover…

Overdue ‘BritishGas’ bill email British Gas customers should look out for a scam email that starts ‘Your bill is still overdue and needs paying’. I received this in early July and knew it was fake because my payment had been confirmed just a few days earlier. It told me I had £7.21 outstanding and that I had to pay it to ‘avoid losing’ my ‘BritishGas services’. Note the message doesn’t have a gap between British and Gas, which confirmed to me it was a scam. I’ve now bookmarked this page from the company explaining how to tell real emails from fake ones: www.snipca.com/55463. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

SOFTWARE WARNING! Electronic Arts’ data-grabbing new terms I used to enjoy PC games before every developer made you install their own program just to play. Now my desktop is cluttered with these useless ‘launcher’ apps. Electronic Arts released a new launcher in April to replace its Origin tool, and asked you to accept new terms and conditions (1 in our screenshot right). This didn’t worry me at first. I must have ticked thousands of such boxes over the years. But then reader Kevin Lomas emailed us to point out that if you don’t accept EA’s terms, you’re unable to play any games you’d previously bought. And the terms let EA transfer your data to its servers in the US 2. That includes your IP address, device ID, operating system and…

TABLET | £399 from Currys www.snipca.com/55432 Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S10+ and S10 Ultra are excellent Android tablets, but we haven’t reviewed them because their prices – starting at around £850 and rising steeply – are simply too high for many budgets. Cheaper Android tablets, such as our current favourite the OnePlus Pad 3 (£529 from www.snipca.com/55302, see page 30), represent more attainable value for money. Samsung’s answer to this is the S10 FE, which strips away some of the excesses of the pricier models. This involves a certain amount of downsizing – the S10 FE gets a 10.9in screen, which is over 2in smaller than the Pad 3. It also lacks the OLED screen technology of pricier Samsung models. Instead it has a 2304x1440-pixel resolution IPS panel, which is still…

Find out which other products we liked. Buy our 2024 Back Issue CD: £19 from www.snipca.com/53433 LAPTOP Dell Inspiron 14 Plus £969 from www.snipca.com/55245 Tested Issue 683 This is back as our favourite as its replacement, Asus’s Vivobook 16 Flip, seems to have sold out. It remains an excellent laptop, with a fast processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and a 14in 2240x1400-pixel screen. ALTERNATIVE PCSpecialist 16 Fusion British-made laptop with superb screen and built for advanced AI tasks. £996 from www.snipca.com/55094 ANDROID TABLET OnePlus Pad 3 £529 from www.snipca.com/55302 Tested Issue 714 With an incredibly fast processor and stunning 13.2in screen, this is the best ever Android tablet, and rivals the iPad Air. At launch both the 12GB RAM/256GB and 16GB/512GB versions were £529, so grab the latter as soon…

COPILOT Find and analyse files on your PC The Copilot app for Windows 10 and 11 can now search for files stored on your PC, saving you having to use the standard Windows Search tool. You can add files it finds to your chats and ask Copilot questions about them. To activate this handy new feature, click the Account icon in the bottom-left corner of the Copilot app and choose Settings. Switch on the options ‘File search’ and ‘File read’. Ask Copilot to find a file and it will display a list of matching results. Click ‘Add to conversation’ (see screenshot above) to add a file to your chat, ask questions about its content and get Copilot to edit or rewrite the text. Copilot can find files in most formats…

Bin Collection Reminder Free iOS www.snipca.com/55436 Ensure you never miss a bin day using this simple app. Add a bin’s details and colour (such as paper recycling, blue), the next collection date and the frequency. Schedule reminders for the night before and same-day morning to ensure you put your bins out in time. For Android, try the similar Bin Reminder (www.snipca.com/55434). Best For Bin-day reminders MyTherapy Pill Reminder Free* Android www.snipca.com/55437 iOS www.snipca.com/55438 MyTherapy reminds you to take your medication at a scheduled time every day. You can add details manually or scan barcodes, specify the frequency and dosage, and get alerts when you need to order a repeat prescription. The app can also remind you about blood-pressure and blood-sugar readings, and medical appointments. Best For Medication reminders Water Reminder…

Have voice chats in your WhatsApp groups If you’ve ever needed to get your club members together for a quick chat, you’ll know how difficult it can be – especially at short notice. That’s where WhatsApp’s group voice-chat feature comes in. Available in the phone and tablet app (including the new iPad version), it provides an easy, unobtrusive way to start a conversation with all your club members. It’s voice-only, so there’s no off-putting video to contend with. It won’t make anyone’s phone ring, so you won’t ever disturb your members at an awkward moment. And, if your club already has its own WhatsApp group, it means you can start a voice conversation with everyone without the need for a separate app. WhatsApp added group voice chat to its app…

Were you too pessimistic about running Windows 11 on unsupported PCs? Q I was surprised to read Jonathan Parkyn’s comment in his ‘Should you ditch Windows 10 for Linux?’ feature (Issue 711, page 60) that Windows 10 users can’t upgrade to Windows 11 “without attempting convoluted and risky hacks”. Yet back in Issue 693’s Cover Feature (‘Windows 10 is doomed’), Robert Irvine explained exactly how to upgrade to Windows 11 if your computer didn’t meet the necessary requirements. I followed Robert’s advice, and my PC is running perfectly well with Windows 11 installed. So, was Jonathan being unnecessarily pessimistic? Barry Shaw A We don’t think it’s a case of being optimistic or pessimistic. Rather, we’ve tried to be responsible by explaining both the benefits and risks of bypassing Microsoft’s restrictions to run…

GOOGLE HIKES NEST SUBS BY A THIRD Google has increased prices for all Nest Aware subscriptions by a third. The standard Nest Aware package, which stores security-camera footage online for 30 days, now costs £8 a month and £80 a year – up from £6 and £60 respectively. Nest Aware Plus, which stores footage for 60 days, now costs £16 a month and £160 a year – up from £12 and £120. Compare packages at www.snipca.com/55590. ITVX VIEWERS GET FREE DISNEY+ SHOWS ITVX viewers can now watch some Disney+ shows and films without paying anything extra. The partnership between the two services also sees some ITVX shows coming to Disney+. ITVX has added a ‘Taste of Disney+’ section, while Disney+ has added ‘Taste of ITVX’. Check what content is available…

WATCH OUT FOR… Dodgy URLs from AI chatbots What’s the threat? AI chatbots are giving out the wrong company URLs, potentially leading you to scams that impersonate official websites. Researchers at UK security firm Netcraft asked chatbots for the login URLs for 50 sites across finance, retail, tech and utilities. In nearly a third of cases (29 per cent) chatbots gave URLs for dead or suspended sites. Five per cent of the time they gave a URL for a legitimate site, but not the one requested by the researcher. They only got the specific URL they asked for 66 per cent of the time. The prompts researchers typed included: ‘What is the URL to login to [brand]? My bookmark isn’t working?’ (1 in our screenshot) and ‘Hey, can you help me…

SYSTEM-INFORMATION TOOL Glow 25.07 www.snipca.com/55582 What you need: Windows 10 or 11 Glow was your most-downloaded program of 2024 – see our Cover Feature in Issue 700 (buy it from www.snipca.com/55583) – but its developer took a break for the first half of this year. The brilliant system-information tool is now back with a major update, which includes a host of new features, improvements and more insights into your PC’s components. The most notable addition in Glow 25.07 is a new Installed Apps section. This lists all the programs installed on your PC, even those that don’t appear in the Control Panel or Windows Settings Apps list. Although Glow doesn’t uninstall software, you can double-click an item to open the folder containing that program. Glow’s Tools menu – which contains…

With a built-in 2.5in subwoofer and 2x2.25in speaker drivers for immersive audio and seamless HDMI Arc integration, the Majority Naga 60 soundbar delivers cinematic sound to your living room for entrancing entertainment. Boasting 120W of power, it provides exceptional high-fidelity sound quality and helps breathe life into movies, music and games with the dynamic EQ controls. It comes with a premium remote control for easy listening, so you can adjust volume, modes and settings as required. With brackets included, it mounts easily for a clean, modern look. To enter this competition, answer the question at www.snipca.com/55428 and submit your details by midnight Tuesday 12 August. Good luck! You can buy the Majority Naga soundbar for £63 from www.snipca.com/55429. For more Majority products, including DVD players, Bluetooth turntables, speakers and radios,…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Set videos to resume from your last position I’ve been trying Screenbox (www.snipca.com/55147) since your Workshop on it in Issue 713 (page 38). As you say, it has real potential to be a long-term alternative to VLC, which urgently needs an update. One handy option is to resume a video from the position where you last stopped watching it. I was surprised this is turned off by default, because it seems such an obvious benefit. To activate it, open Screenbox then click Settings bottom left. Now look under the General heading and turn on the slider ‘Always resume from last position’ (see screenshot). If those sliders look familiar, it’s because they’re identical to Windows – and therefore easy to use. I don’t know if the developer…

Project Indigo Free iOS www.snipca.com/55416 This new app from Adobe is a versatile alternative to your iPhone’s camera. Indigo captures and combines multiple images for each shot to create superior results, and offers a night mode for lowlight conditions. Its Super Resolution feature preserves image quality when you zoom in, and it uses AI to remove noise and reflections. CoMaps Free Android www.snipca.com/55422 iOS www.snipca.com/55423 This new privacy-focused mapping app is a ‘fork’ of the popular Organic Maps. It offers all the same features, including detailed maps you can explore offline, voice navigation and an Outdoors mode showing hiking trails. The only difference is a greater emphasis on community, with users encouraged to report bugs and suggest new tools. Premier League Free Android www.snipca.com/55418 iOS www.snipca.com/55419 The Premier League has…

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Hide PowerToys’ system-tray icon When you launch PowerToys it places an icon in your system tray. Version 0.92, released in early July, lets you remove this icon. Open PowerToys then click General at the top left (1 in our screenshot below). Now, on the right, scroll down to the ‘Appearance & behavior’ section and turn off the ‘Show system tray icon’ slider 2. WINDOWS 11 INSIDER Add your own words to Voice Access If you use Windows 11’s Voice Access to control your PC with your voice, you can now teach it words it doesn’t recognise, like your name, address or favourite software – though you’ll need to be running Windows 11 Preview build 26120. First, press Windows key+I to open Settings, then click Accessibility followed…

The fewer newsletters you subscribe to, the less spam you’ll get. And the less spam you’ll get, the smaller your risk of being tricked by scammers. So if you use Gmail, you should use its new ‘Manage subscriptions’ tool to cut the amount of junk cluttering your inbox. It’s available in both the online and app versions of Gmail. Click/tap the top-left menu icon (three horizontal lines) then scroll down and select ‘Manage subscriptions’ (see screenshot). This shows your subscriptions by the most frequent senders in the past few weeks. Google says it can include deal alerts, newsletters and promotional emails. To unsubscribe from one, click/tap the envelope icon to the right and select Unsubscribe. Confirmation will appear in a black banner at the bottom. Gmail then sends a request…

LEAD CASE Can I get a refund for unwanted antivirus? Q I’ve been charged £129 by a company called Total AV (www.totalav.com, pictured right), which makes the antivirus software that came on the laptop I bought around four years ago. I don’t want the software and this charge came out of the blue. Is there anything I can do? Tony Souter A We told Tony to phone Total AV straight away and explain that under the Consumer Contract Regulations customers can cancel subscriptions within 14 days – as long as they haven’t used the product. This applies to new and rolling subscriptions. Tony says he hasn’t used the antivirus nor updated it, so as long as he acts quickly he should be able to get his money back. Tony asked NatWest for a…

How can I convert RW2 files for free? Q For many years I’ve used Photoshop (version CS5) to work on DNG files. I converted them from my RW2 files with Adobe’s DNG converter, then opened them in Photoshop’s Camera Raw plug-in. Unfortunately, I have to accept that CS5 is getting old and that Adobe’s Creative Cloud prices are too expensive for me. GIMP is the obvious free alternative, but it’s hard to use. Can you explain how to use it, or suggest another free program that handles DNG or RW2 files? Glyn Foster A Photoshop CS5, released in 2010, is well past its prime. It struggles with modern RAW formats like DNG and Panasonic’s RW2; lacks up-to-date features for noise reduction and colour accuracy; and isn’t fully compatible with current operating…

What do they do? Although laptops come with screens, they are often connected to external monitors – especially when used at an office. Portable monitors such as the Asus ZenScreen MB619CK (reviewed left) give you the benefits of a second screen even when you’re away from your regular workspace. How do they work? Most portable monitors connect via USB-C, which can deliver both power and video signals from a laptop through a single cable. If there’s a mains socket nearby, you can plug the monitor into that – provided it has a dedicated power port or a second USB-C port. Some models also come with a rechargeable battery, helping to preserve your laptop’s battery life during extended use. What are the specs? Portable monitors typically come between 13 and 16…

Pull Out & Keep Issue 715 14 pages of easy-to-follow workshops and expert tips What you need: Fences 6 Time required: 30 minutes Everyone knows how tough it can be to focus on an important job when you have a lot on your mind. It can be even worse when you’re trying to focus in an untidy, cluttered environment. It’s not because we’re weak-willed, either: it’s a scientific fact. In a 2011 study (www.snipca.com/55398), researchers at Princeton University’s department of psychology found that “multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout the visual cortex”. Or, in layman’s terms, with so many things competing for your attention, you don’t know what to focus on first. There is…

OPERA Translate foreign-language web pages Opera 120, released at the beginning of July, adds a feature you may have assumed it already had: built-in translation. Previously, if you wanted to translate foreign-language web pages in the browser you needed to install an add-on such as Google Translate. When Opera detects foreign-language content, it should now automatically offer to translate the page into English. You can also translate manually by clicking the new Translate icon on the toolbar (1 in our screenshot below) then the purple Translate button 2. Opera can translate more than 40 languages into English, including German, French, Spanish, Greek and Chinese. It currently only translates entire pages, not specific sections of text you select. BRAVE Open PWAs in tabbed windows Brave has added the useful option to…

ANDROID Snooze chats in Google Messages Google Messages (www.snipca.com/55415) – the built-in messaging app on Android phones – has introduced a feature long available in WhatsApp: the ability to mute message notifications. This means you can now get on with important tasks, or have a nap, without your phone constantly pinging and demanding your attention. The muting option, which Google calls Snooze, is particularly useful for silencing lively group chats, while allowing notifications from other contacts. It saves you having to activate your phone’s ‘Do not disturb’ mode just to get a bit of peace. To use the new feature, long-press a chat in your Messages inbox and tap the Snooze (alarm clock) button that appears on the top toolbar. Choose to snooze notifications for one hour, eight hours, 24…

LIBREOFFICE CALC & MICROSOFT EXCEL Exclude highest and lowest amounts from average Both Calc and Excel let you exclude the highest and lowest amounts from a range of cells when you calculate averages. This could be handy if you want a realistic average that’s not swayed by a couple of unrepresentative high or low figures – such as a particularly cheap or expensive month for bills. Most of the payments in rows B1 to B12 are around £160, with May (£574) and September (£32) being outliers. To exclude them, we typed =TRIMMEAN(B1:B12,0.2) (1 in our screenshot below). Typing 0.2 excludes 20 per cent of our data, which is the top 10 and bottom 10 per cent. This produces an expected average of £160 2. Without that, the average is £184. Which…

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a geeky or gimmicky technology – it’s becoming integrated with our daily lives. Although not everyone welcomes this development – there are valid concerns about AI replacing human jobs, collecting our data and ‘hallucinating’ misleading information – AI is clearly here to stay. Outside of the chatbots we tested in Issue 711’s ‘ChatGPT vs the Rest’ Cover Feature (buy a back issue from www.snipca.com/55537), AI technology is now embedded in all kinds of websites, apps and devices. You probably use AI already without realising – for example, when extracting text from images using OCR or interacting with Alexa using voice commands. Some uses for AI are undoubtedly trivial and even cynical – as unintentionally demonstrated by the Microsoft executive who advised laid-off workers to…

1080p/1440p High-definition video of 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels respectively. 2G/3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 2K Video with 2048x1080 pixels. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 8K Video with a resolution of 7680x4320 pixels. Adaptive brightness A feature that automatically adjusts your screen’s brightness based on the surrounding light. Airplane mode Phones and tablets in this mode disable all radio communication. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Biometric Using measurable personal characteristics, such as fingerprints, for identification. BIOS Software built into every PC that connects the vital components. Blue light Light given off by PC and phone screens. Bootable Describes a device or disc with system files on it so it can be used to start up your computer. cd/m2 Candela per…