Table of contents for 723 in Computeractive

The first item I bought on Amazon was David Icke’s book Children of the Matrix, sometime in the early 2000s. In it he argues that an “interdimensional race has controlled the planet for thousands of years” Total twaddle, but I was researching an interview with him. I can’t recall whether “customers also bought” turquoise tracksuits. These days, Amazon is more likely to be described as controlling the planet, having grown into a manufacturing giant making tablets, streaming sticks, ebook readers, smart speakers and video doorbells. I see this as a much more impressive transformation than Google, which was, is and probably will always be primarily an advertising company. Robert Irvine is also a fan, and in our Cover Feature explains the smartest ways to hackAmazon’s services and products so they…

Amazon will soon start warning Fire TV Stick users to stop using illegal apps that let them watch paid-for content for free, such as Premier League football and movie channels. If users keep using the app Amazon will block it. Amazon will reportedly consult a ‘blocklist’ of apps maintained by the anti-piracy organisation Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, which includes Amazon, BBC Studios, Disney, Netflix and Paramount. However, it’s not known which apps are on the list. It’s the first time Amazon has blocked apps that let users access copyrighted content. The warnings will begin in France and Germany before being rolled out globally. Amazon said the move is part of a “global coalition fighting digital piracy”. This is why its latest device – the Fire TV 4K Select –…

In Issue 722 (page 60) we were highly critical of Meta’s new tricks for tracking what you do, and explained which settings to disable. But it’s only fair we applaud it for new features to keep you safe on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. On the former, if a contact sends a “potentially scammy” message, you’ll be able to check it using Meta’s ‘AI review’ (see screenshot 1). On WhatsApp, you’ll be warned when you attempt to share your screen with an unknown contact during a video call 2. Scammers sometimes use video chats to pressure victims into giving away sensitive information, such as bank details or two-factor authentication (2FA) codes. Visit Meta’s site for more information on the warnings, including recent scams it has detected: www.snipca.com/56802.…

I take Daniel Booth’s point that he finds SIM cards fiddly to insert (Issue 722, page 3). But I suppose my fingers are less clumsy than his, because it’s always been easy for me. In contrast, having to scan QR codes and navigate numerous settings to set up an eSIM seems like a hassle. With everything becoming digital, I’m happy to stick with something physical like a card. So, while Issue 722’s Cover Feature (pictured) made a strong case in favour of eSIMs, I’m going to stick with SIM cards. Not enough of the benefits you highlighted apply to me. If I ran a small business I could see why multiple numbers on an eSIM would be useful, but I’ve been retired for years and I’m content with one number,…

I’ve used Findmypast for many years to research my ancestry, but due to poor health and a reduced income I decided to take a break and cancel my annual subscription. However, I forgot to do this in time, despite Findmypast emailing me a reminder. I only remembered when I noticed the monthly payment had come out of my bank account. I immediately phoned them and asked to cancel. Now, thanks to your advice in Consumeractive, I knew I had 14 days to cancel the subscription, so I wasn’t expecting any pushback. But I was still surprised by how fast and understanding they were. There was no attempt to change my mind. They wished me well, and issued a refund for the month’s payment. Such friendly service means I’ll almost certainly…

These two charming 18-year-olds planned to take on Halfords by building a bike-selling empire on Facebook Marketplace. The only problem is they were violent thugs who assaulted their potential buyers, stealing hundreds of pounds. One attack left the victim with seven fractures to his jaw. Surgeons had to insert six metal plates to reconstruct his face. In another they had arranged to swap e-bikes worth £550, but snatched the victim’s bike after threatening to stab them (“I’m taking the bike, I can do it nice or nastily”). Thankfully, after studying CCTV, police arrested them both in January 2025. In October Ogbeide-John (left) was detained at a young offenders’ institution for four years, while Jama received a three-and-a-half year sentence. On yer bike, lads.…

LAPTOP ❘ £799 from Argos www.snipca.com/56856 HP’s OmniBook 5 is a great choice for anyone looking to step up from a budget laptop. Inside, you’ll find one of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus X1-26-100 processors. The X1-26 is an eight-core ARM-based chip designed for use in cheaper computers. In our benchmark tests, it scored just 2,414 points in our single-core test and 11,309 in our multi-core test. That matches Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 13 (£879 from www.snipca.com/56883), even though the Microsoft device costs £80 more. “Performance matches the Surface Laptop even though that’s £80 more” If all you need is a laptop that lets you browse the web, reply to emails and do do office work, the Omnibook 5 is perfect. Things get trickier if you also plan to play advanced games…

HEADPHONE AMP ❘ £202 from Amazon www.snipca.com/56867 While Bluetooth technology has come a long way, it still can’t deliver audio at the same quality as a good pair of wired headphones. So even though many devices have lost the 3.5mm audio jack, we’ve sacrificed audio quality in the process. Chinese company FiiO are out to rectify this with its latest QX13 headphone amp. It’s a portable, USB-C digital-toanalogue converter (DAC) and headphone amplifier that you plug into any device that supports it and thereby improve audio quality. As long as your phone, games console, PC or laptop has at least one USB-C port, and you have a set of high-end analogue headphones, you’re good to go. Available in either a carbon-fibre or aluminium finish, the QX13 is tiny at just…

LAPTOP MSI Prestige A16 AI+ £1,100 from www.snipca.com/55962 Tested Issue 718 A powerful Copilot+ laptop with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD to guarantee fast performance. Screen is excellent too, while battery lasts an impressive 17 hours. ALTERNATIVE PCSpecialist 16 Fusion British-made laptop with superb screen and built for advanced AI tasks. £956 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 as possible. ALTERNATIVE Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Has a much brighter screen than its predecessor, making it ideal for watching TV. Also has a faster…

GEMINI Access Google Maps and YouTube directly Gemini has improved its integration with Google Maps and YouTube to make it easier to get information from those services. Previously, you needed to type the commands @GoogleMaps and @YouTube to access the respective tools. Now you can phrase your queries in natural language, such as ‘How do I get to the nearest library?’ (1 in our screenshot below) or ‘Show me a video review of the latest iPhone’. With maps, Gemini will provide a zoomable map from Google Maps, accompanied by driving and walking directions 2. With video requests, it will source relevant videos from YouTube and let you play them within your chat. PROTON LUMO Activate the new dark mode Proton Lumo has introduced a dark mode to make interacting with the…

Hotukdeals Free Android www.snipca.com/56818 iOS www.snipca.com/56819 Hotukdeals offers an easy and reliable way to bag Black Friday bargains. All its offers and discounts are shared and rated by its massive community of UK shoppers, and span categories including Electronics, ‘Home & Living’ and ‘Car & Motorcycle’. Set up alerts to ensure you don’t miss deals on specific products and brands. Best For Finding Black Friday bargains Idealo Free Android www.snipca.com/56820 iOS www.snipca.com/56821 Prices fluctuate over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday long weekend, so use Idealo to keep track. It compares the cost of items across thousands of UK online stores, shows graphs of their price history and notifies you when their price drops below your target amount. Idealo also recommends Black Friday deals on its Home tab. Best For…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Will my software licences still work in Windows 11? Q I have a query about software licences and whether they’ll remain valid when I’m eventually forced to switch from Windows 10 to 11. A friend and I both use speech-recognition tool Nuance Dragon Professional (pictured below), each with a single-user licence. I believe this permits only one installation on one device. In my case, that’s my Windows 10 laptop. I can upgrade my laptop to Windows 11 because it meets the system requirements, but I need to know if my licence would still be valid on the new operating system. My friend has the same single-user licence on her Windows 10 desktop PC, but because she can’t upgrade it to Windows 11, she will be forced to…

Never heard of ‘royalmail’! I once fell for a courier scam during Covid, so I’m especially wary of them now. I received one recently in the form of a text supposedly from Royal Mail saying my parcel had been “temporarily held due to an unclear or invalid delivery address”. That sounds plausible enough, and it has urgency: “To avoid return or disposal, please verify your address within 24 hours”. But it’s signed ‘royalmail Customer Service’. Note the lower-case ‘r’ and ‘m’. That was a giveaway, so I deleted it. I never trust any courier messages these days, even though some I’ve received must be genuine. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

We’re pleased to say The Range has refunded reader Peter Brice for an electric blanket that never arrived (Issue 721), even though it may not have been legally required to. Six weeks had passed since purchase when Peter contacted us. The Range had told him he had bought the blanket from a third-party seller on its Marketplace (www.therange.co.uk/marketplace). This meant he had to contact the seller directly for help (just as you have to contact sellers when buying on Amazon Marketplace). The difference is that The Range doesn’t offer an equivalent of Amazon’s ‘fulfilled by’ service, in which Marketplace sellers pay for Amazon to handle returns and refunds. That means The Range never has legal responsibility for dealing with products bought via its Marketplace. Peter wasn’t sure whether he had…

Search Coroners’ inquest records Coroners’ inquests can uncover surprising details about your ancestors that you won’t find in standard birth, marriage or death records. However, many inquest records have been lost, and some survive only in physical archives. The Internet Archive lists surviving records by county and where they are kept – visit www.snipca.com/56778 then click ‘Log in and Borrow’ to sign in or create a free account. The records that have been put online are regional, but they’re worth trying. Before starting, read the National Archives’ research guide at www.snipca.com/56783. Browse Ancestry and Findmypast records Ancestry subscribers can search 200 notebooks in its ‘West Yorkshire, England, County Coroner Notebooks, 1852-1909’ collection (www.snipca.com/56779). They can include some intriguing witness statements. For example, the inquest for Robert Hayward on 28 December…

Can I recognise faces in thousands of wedding photos? Q I need to sift through thousands of photos stored in my Pictures folder. They were all taken at weddings over the past few decades. The same people appear in many of them. Is there a way of recognising the same faces that would then help me categorise the photos? I can’t afford expensive AI software. Sam Woodvine A Thankfully, digiKam now does this for free – download it from www.digikam.org. When you install digiKam make sure you leave the default settings as they are – this ensures digiKam will work with photos stored in your Pictures library. Next, right-click your Pictures library and click Refresh in the dropdown menu. This will check for changes and show thumbnails of your photos…

SIVGA’s Peng headphones have earcups made from high-density African zebrawood that’s been polished, stained and air-dried to reveal each piece’s unique grain. The natural resonance of the wood enriches mid-range warmth and clarity. No two sets look alike. Under the hood, Peng’s closed-back acoustic chamber and custom 45mm dynamic driver deliver rich, immersive sound. The rugged finish guards against scratches and corrosion for long-term durability. Oversized earpads have an angled profile to match your ear’s contours, ensuring an airtight seal and preventing sound leakage. Top vents enhance airflow to keep you cool. Clear L/R markings make left/right orientation a breeze. To enter this competition, answer the question at www.snipca.com/56728 and submit your details by midnight Tuesday 2 December. Good luck! You can buy the SIVGA Peng for £499 from www.snipca.com/56729.…

Wi-Fi Boost speed using aluminium tray I’ve managed to greatly increase my Wi-Fi signal with a used (and washed!) aluminium food tray (pictured below right). It takes a bit of trial and error to get the best angle, but it’s not too difficult. A bigger tray doesn’t seem to make any difference, but smaller ones are less effective. My router is approximately 10 metres away from the Wi-Fi antenna with two stud walls in between – one with shelving. Connecting using an Ethernet cable is aesthetically unacceptable to my wife. I currently pay for 500Mbps broadband. Using the tray my signal strength increased from 69 to 77 per cent, but more striking was the increase in speed. Without the tray my receive and transmit speeds were 351 and 585Mbps respectively.…

Snopes Free Android www.snipca.com/56816 iOS www.snipca.com/56817 The Snopes website (www.snopes.com) has been checking facts and debunking myths for over 30 years, and now it finally has a mobile app. This lets you search its huge archive of articles, browse the latest fact checks and compile a reading list of interesting content. There’s also a fun ‘True or False’ game. Wildling Free Android www.snipca.com/56814 iOS www.snipca.com/56815 This app helps you discover nature on your doorstep by recommending outdoor locations in your area. These include woods, ponds and nature reserves, each accompanied by photos, directions, recommended activities and details of amenities. Wildling also has a digital magazine with nature-related articles and videos. Kagi News Free Android www.snipca.com/56810 iOS www.snipca.com/56811 Kagi News scours the RSS feeds of thousands of online news sources to…

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Make it easier to find your mouse cursor Version 0.95 of PowerToys, released in October, adds transparency to the Find My Mouse tool. This makes the circle around the cursor partially or fully transparent, so you can locate your pointer without blocking what’s underneath. Launch PowerToys then click ‘Input/Output’ on the left and select ‘Mouse utilities’. Now turn on ‘Enable Find My Mouse’ (1 in our screenshot below) and set your preferred ‘Activation method’ that turns on the tool 2. Next click ‘Appearance & behavior’ and move ‘Overlay opacity’ 3 to set the transparency. Choose higher opacity when you need to spot the cursor quickly, such as on multiple monitors or when giving presentations. Here, we’ve set the opacity to 75 4. WINDOWS 11 Show time with…

Vodafone and Three have announced mid-contract price increases for April 2026, though they only affect new and renewing customers who signed up after 9 November. They are the company’s first “pounds and pence” increases under Ofcom’s new rules. Vodafone’s fixed broadband packages will rise £3.50 a month (up from £3), while SIM-Only Basics plans will rise by £1.50 (up from £1). Other SIM-Only products such as phone airtime and mobile broadband will rise by £2.50 (up from £1.80). Three’s 4GB plan will rise by £1.80 (up from £1), while all 5GB to 99GB plans will rise by £1.90. For more than 100GB the increase is £2.30 a month.…

NEW USB STICK THE SIZE OF A CUFFLINK SanDisk has launched a USB stick so small you can keep it permanently attached to your computer with little risk of damaging it. The Extreme Fit USB-C Flash Drive (pictured) measures 18.5x15.7x13.6mm (HxWxD) – about the size of a cufflink. Prices range from £9.99 (64GB) to £86.99 (1TB) – buy from www.snipca.com/56956. UPDATE POWERTOYS TO DISABLE LIGHT SWITCH Microsoft has released a PowerToys update that turns off Light Switch – a new tool in version 0.95 that automatically switches your computer between light and dark mode. Microsoft said it was accidentally turned on by default, confusing users whose PCs switched mode without warning. Install the new update (0.95.1) from within PowerToys – or download from www.snipca.com/56961. COMPARE APPS IN REVAMPED APPLE STORE…

WATCH OUT FOR… Fake LastPass ‘have you died?’ emails What’s the threat? Scammers are sending fake alerts that claim a LastPass user has died. The emails are being sent to LastPass users from alerts[@]lastpass and have the subject line ‘Legacy Request Opened (Urgent If You Are Not Deceased)’ – 1 in our screenshot. They add that a “death certificate was uploaded by a family member to regain access to the Lastpass account” 2, followed by the account in question 3 (redacted in our screenshot). The scammers know you haven’t died, so the email continues: “If you have not passed away and you believe this is a mistake, please reply to this email with ‘STOP’” 4. It also asks you to cancel your relative’s alleged request by visiting the website ‘lastpassrecovery’…

Is courier to blame for not leaving parcel in my safe place? Q I recently ordered an item from Amazon just before going on a two-week holiday, and gave instructions for the courier to leave it in my safe place behind a garden wall. They’ve done this several times before, with no problems. The area is sheltered and secure. However, this time the courier left it in front of the wall, which meant it was exposed to the elements. When I came home the parcel was soaked and the product inside ruined. Who’s to blame for this? Peter McIntyre A The courier is to blame, but Peter’s contract is with Amazon, so he should contact it to explain what happened. He should take a photo of the parcel to prove…

SYSTEM-ANALYSIS TOOL Glow 25.14 www.snipca.com/56896 What you need: Windows 10 or 11 This brilliant free system-analysis tool has been updated yet again, with a host of improvements and useful new features. These provide even more insights into your PC’s hardware and software. Several additions in Glow 25.14 relate to its analysis of your monitor in its Graphics Card section. It now detects the name, manufacturer and serial number of your monitor; the week and year it was built; the screen resolution and refresh rate; and even the type of cable connecting the monitor to your PC – such as HDMI. The Graphics Card section also now tells you the names of your DirectX drivers, in case you need to update them manually. Glow’s Battery section has been significantly expanded with…

SOFTWARE WARNING! Avoid fake FlyOOBE Windows 11 workarounds I was able to upgrade my Windows 10 laptop to 11, so I didn’t have to use FlyOOBE to beat Microsoft’s technical restrictions. But I know many of you are less fortunate, and have followed our instructions to use this clever program (most recently in Issue 720, page 38). You can tell it’s proved popular because scammers are now impersonating it. To get the real FlyOOBE, visit www.snipca.com/56373 then scroll down to the Downloads table and click the top-right link (see screenshot below). What you mustn’t do is download it from https://flyoobe.net. The creator of the genuine FlyOOBE says this site is an “unofficial mirror and may host tampered or malicious builds”. In other words, it’s a rip-off that might cripple your…

TABLET I £999 from Apple www.snipca.com/56870 At first glance, the latest iPad Pro may not seem particularly revolutionary. There’s certainly no huge redesign – you still get the same sleek premium aluminium chassis, the same 11in and 13in screen sizes and the same USB-C port. The real brilliance comes in what Apple has done to the components within. “Attach a keyboard and it feels more like a premium laptop than a traditional tablet” The company has replaced last year’s M4 processor with its latest chip – the M5 – and with it, comes huge improvements to general performance. In our tests the new chip was around 15-per-cent faster than its predecessor in tasks such as 4K video editing. It’s also far more capable at AI tasks, delivering over four times…

What are they? Headphone jacks are electrical connectors used to transmit analogue audio signals from a device to headphones, speakers and other audio equipment. Commonly found on laptops, phones and Hi-Fi systems, they come in a variety of sizes with 3.5mm and 6.35mm being the most common. How do they work? There are four parts to any analogue audio setup: A DAC (digital-to-analogue converter); a headphone jack (the socket on your phone, laptop, computer or other device); a compatible plug with cable; and a device that produces the audio. When headphones are connected via a cable to a device – such as FiiO’s QX13 Phone Headphone Amp/DAC (pictured right – see our review, page 26) – and audio is played through them, the DAC will convert the digital signal into…

What is it? The MetaKey from Chinese company Akko (www.snipca.com/56906) is a rugged phone case designed for the iPhone 16 and 17 Pro Max (pictured), with a built-in tactile keyboard, powered by USB-C. What does it do? The MetaKey protects your iPhone and allows you to type on a backlit physical keyboard, maximising screen space. The USB-C port also acts as a passthrough, so you can still charge your phone with the case attached, and it also has a magnetic back providing compatibility with MagSafe products. What’s the catch? It’s in high demand, often on back order, and costs £51 (£63 with postage). It also substantially increases the overall size of the already large iPhone Pro Max; the MetaKey’s dimensions measure 205x85x13mm (HxWxD). So can I do without it? Yes.…

CHROMIUM Hide or collapse Google’s AI Overviews We’ve previously recommended ‘Bye Bye, Google AI’ (www.snipca.com/55947) as an effective way to remove AI Overviews from Google search results. The new extension ‘Hide or Collapse AI Overviews’ (www.snipca.com/56792) offers an alternative and more flexible method. It automatically removes AI Overviews from the top of Google results, so you can focus on links to web pages, rather than (often inaccurate) AI summaries. But if you sometimes find AI Overviews useful, you can ‘collapse’ them instead. Click the extension’s toolbar icon and switch on ‘Collapse instead of hide’. This relegates the AI Overview to a button on the left-hand side of your results (see screenshot below). Click this to display its information. VIVALDI Search the browser from the address bar One of the most…

ANDROID Turn web pages into podcasts in Chrome Google has updated the ‘Read aloud’ feature in the Android version of Chrome (www.snipca.com/56805) with an ‘AI playback’ option. Rather than read the current page in a robotic voice, it uses two more natural-sounding male and female voices to summarise and discuss the content – effectively turning the article into a podcast. This is similar to the Audio Overviews feature in Google Gemini, and is powered by that AI tool. It provides a more immersive listening experience than standard ‘Read aloud’ and means you don’t have to hear every word on the page. To try the new feature in Chrome for Android, tap the three-dot menu icon when viewing a web page and choose ‘Listen to this page’ (1 in our screenshot below…

OUTLOOK.COM Mark emails as high importance One of the most useful rules you can set in Outlook.com is to automatically mark emails containing a specific word or phrase as important. Here, we’ll do this for emails containing the word ‘pension’. Click the top-right Settings cog then Rules on the left. Now click the blue ‘Add new rule’ button then give it a name (1 in top screenshot below). Next, click ‘Select a condition’ and choose ‘Message body includes’ under Keywords 2. In the box that appears, type the word you want Outlook to recognise in the email 3. Now click ‘Select an action’ followed by ‘Mark with importance’ and choose High in the dropdown menu that appears 4. Click Save. From now, any emails that contain your keyword will have a…

When Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a major global outage at the end of October, many of us initially feared Amazon itself had been hacked. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case because AWS is separate from the retail business, and the problem was caused by a software bug rather than hackers. Although Amazon has suffered a few security incidents – for example in 2018, when some customer information was exposed just before Black Friday (www.snipca.com/56886) – it has never been hacked in its 30 years of existence. Until now, that is, because we’re going to reveal the best ways you can hack Amazon. Before you call the cyber police on us, we don’t mean breaking into Amazon’s systems and stealing account data, but using secret tricks to improve your favourite Amazon…

Can I move my notes from Evernote to Joplin? Q In Issue 716 (page 62) Nick Peers explained his decision to replace Evernote with Joplin (Joplin (https://joplinapp.org), which supports a wide range of note types. I’ve toyed with the idea of leaving Evernote, but I’m worried about losing the notes I’ve created. How can I use the notes I’ve made in Evernote in Joplin? Jeremy Allum A Thankfully, this is pretty straightforward – you just need to export the notes you want to keep from Evernote, then import them from within Joplin. First, launch the Evernote desktop app, select the notebook(s) or specific notes you want to export, then right-click your selection and select Export. In the Export box that opens, select the ENEX format option, leave all the other settings as…

1080p High-definition video: 1920x1080 pixels. 2K A screen with 2048x1080 pixels. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 32bit 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. Access Point mode Allows a router or other Wi-Fi-enabled device to connect to your main router via Ethernet and broadcasts signals, extending your network. Administrator Someone who can make changes to a computer that will affect others who also use it. APK Android Package Kit. The file format Android uses to install apps. ARM Processors that are more energy-efficient than those made by AMD and Intel. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Buffering Downloading a certain…