Table of contents for 724 in Computeractive

Brits used nearly a fifth more mobile data in 2025 than the previous year, rising from just over 1 billion gigabytes every month to 1.2 billion. The figure comes from Ofcom’s annual Connected Nations report (www.snipca.com/57132), which analyses the UK’s broadband and mobile infrastructure and how the public uses the services available. Ofcom said 1.2bn GB is the equivalent of streaming 400 million football matches in HD, watching 315 billion videos on TikTok or sending 1.3 quadrillion text-only WhatsApp messages. It added that while 4G still accounts for most mobile traffic, 5G data grew by 53 per cent. The report also found standalone 5G – which doesn’t rely on 4G as a backup – now covers 83 per cent of the UK outside of homes. Ofcom said EE has the…

Virgin Media TV customers can now watch shows on demand on 11 channels that broadcast live. These channels are known as FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) and work like traditional TV, with scheduled programmes and advert breaks. It’s similar to Freeview, but delivered to the home through broadband cables, not beamed to an aerial. The launch brings Virgin more in line with existing FAST services like Plex, Pluto, Rakuten TV, Roku Live and Tubi. Virgin has picked its “most popular” FAST channels, which include History Hit, Homes Under the Hammer and Real Crime (see box left for all of them). The feature is available to Virgin TV customers with V6, Virgin TV 360 and Stream boxes at no extra cost. Viewers can access it through Virgin’s On Demand streaming app…

O2 knows it can get away with 39% price rise I agree with your comment that competition between phone networks is more effective than regulation at keeping prices affordable (Issue 723, page 6), but we don’t really have competition in the UK. That’s why O2 is confident it can increase mid-contract price rises by 39 per cent without losing many customers. You often recommend switching to a MVNO, and I agree they have better customer service. But many of them are owned by the big four mobile networks (EE, O2, Three, Vodafone), which thwarts effective competition. For example, O2 owns Giffgaff, Three owns Smarty and Vodafone owns VOXI. You can choose an independent MVNO such as Lycamobile (which I use), but like all MVNOs they piggyback on one of the…

I’m tempted to buy your new favourite Buy It! mini PC from Wired2Fire (see page 32) because I’ve had great service from the company in the past. I wanted to buy a desktop PC powerful enough to deal with Microsoft Flight Simulator, but didn’t know where to start. Thankfully the team at Wired2Fire said they’d had many similar requests and so knew which components to offer me. They gave me some differently priced options and explained what I’d be getting for my money. What impressed me is how easy it was to contact them by phone or email. I’ve been using the PC for over a year now and it’s fantastic. I don’t know whether Wired2Fire’s new mini PC (AMD R8845) will suit me, but I do know that the…

TABLET | £169 from OnePlus www.snipca.com/56982 Stream on If you’re looking for an attractive, affordable tablet for entertainment the OnePlus Pad Lite could fit the bill. It’s almost half the price of the basic Apple iPad and just a tad more expensive than the Amazon Fire HD 10, yet it gives you solid specifications, apps from the Google Play Store and OnePlus’s superb OxygenOS interface. The latter is one of the better adaptations of Android, with hardly any bloatware and a lean, focused approach. “The screen makes it ideal for watching films and TV” The design borrows heavily from OnePlus’s excellent Pad 3, with a slim well-built, light-blue aluminium shell that meets IP42 requirements for water resistance – enough to survive a light spill or the odd drop of rain.…

MOBILE ROUTER ❘ £456 from Amazon www.snipca.com/57028 Sends the right signal TP-Link’s mobile 5G router can connect up to 32 Wi-Fi devices to the internet over a 5G or 4G cellular connection without any being tethered to your smartphone. It’s a tempting option if you’re living off-grid, would like broadband for your caravan, or need something you can use while on holiday or working in the field. It’s powered by its own battery and won’t chew through your smartphone’s charge in mere hours. Moreover, using it gives you the kind of security and control you won’t get with public Wi-Fi. It’s a robust, rectangular box measuring 135x74mm and is 21mm thick. It isn’t waterproof, but it slips easily into a pocket or a backpack. The battery is removable and lasts…

SMART SCREEN | £180 from Amazon www.snipca.com/57072 Go fourth Amazon’s fourth-generation Echo Show 8 could be the medium-sized smart screen you’ve been waiting for. Amazon has completely refreshed the design, and from its larger 8.7in display (up from 8in) to its 3D knitted fabric base, the new Show 8 looks and feels very different to its predecessors. The screen now appears to float above the spherical base, and has slimmer 7mm bezels on all four sides. “The larger screen makes it easier to enjoy photos and video calls” The larger screen is also a very welcome edition, making it easier to interact with the Echo Show’s features and enjoy your photos and video calls, even if you’ll want the larger 11in version for streaming films and TV through your favourite…

What you need: Affinity 3.0, Windows 10 or 11 Time required: 40 minutes Until recently, Affinity Photo image editor was the best Photoshop alternative for anyone wanting to avoid Adobe’s pricey subscription, but its £60 one-off fee still put many people off. Now, with the release of version 3.0, the entire Affinity creative suite is available for free. Alongside AffinityPhoto, you get professional-level tools for vector illustration and desktop publishing. In fact, the only paid-for extras are AI-powered editing tools, which you can easily do without. In this Workshop, we’ll explain how to use Affinity Photo to repair and restore damaged photos. 1 STEP Go to www.snipca.com/57002, click ‘Download for Windows’ 1 and select ‘MSI/EXE (x64)’ 2 (unless your PC has an ARM processor, in which case click ‘MSI/EXE ARM64’ 3).…

Most reasonable people don’t expect to get an expensive new phone, laptop or smart TV for Christmas. But there are lots of useful tech gifts that won’t break the bank, and will be more gratefully received than a set of socks or scented soaps. Here we suggest 10 tech-themed stocking fillers, which are all available for under £20 – except one. All prices were correct at the time of going to press. SanDisk Extreme Fit USB drive From £9.99 from www.snipca.com/57048 Measuring just 18.5x15.7x3.6mm (HxWxD) – about the size of a cufflink – the SanDisk Extreme Fit (pictured below) is so small you can keep it permanently plugged into your computer, with no risk of knocking it. The cheapest version offers 64GB of storage for £9.99, but the best gift…

Emergency fix lets W10 users enrol in extended updates Microsoft has released an emergency update to fix a bug that was preventing Windows 10 users from enrolling in its Extended Security Update (ESU) scheme. The fix was part of the update KB5071959, released on 11 November. Microsoft said it solves a problem “where the enrollment wizard may fail during enrollment”. It was an ‘out-of-band’ (OOB) update, which is Microsoft’s description of updates that aren’t part of its monthly schedule. To check whether the update has been installed on your computer, first press Windows key+I to open Settings. Now click ‘Update & Security’ followed by Windows Update, then ‘Update history’ on the right. If it’s not there, click the ‘Check for updates’ button then install any updates that appear. Microsoft released…

Netgem has released the first Freely streaming device, priced £99. The Pleio (pronounced ‘play-oh’) lets you watch more than 55 live channels, including those from BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5, through the internet – like Freeview but without needing an aerial. It means you can now watch Freely without having to buy a new smart TV with the service built in. The Pleio also has Android TV’s app library including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+ and Netflix. The device itself is a small black puck (1 in photo), that responds to a remote control 2. It comes with a controller 3 for playing games through Netgem’s Cloud Gaming service. This costs £9.99 a month after a three-month trial. The subscription also includes more than 150 extra FAST channels,…

You may know that under Ofcom’s rules (www.snipca.com/57199), broadband providers have to pay you £31.19 compensation if an engineer fails to turn up at your home, or cancels with less than 24 hours’ notice. But what you might not realise is that they can also charge you if you’re not home when they call. Missed appointments work both ways. This came to the public’s attention in November when the website ISPreview got hold of a leaked internal email from BT. It said that in future customers could face a charge of £50 if they’re not in when an engineer calls. The email claims that customers miss around 10 per cent of appointments despite being reminded several times about them. “Customers miss around 10 per cent of appointments despite being reminded…

Search photos of Victorian prisoners By the 1870s, it was common practice to photograph prisoners for identification and recordkeeping. A number of archives and collections have preserved these images, giving us a rare glimpse of our ancestors behind bars. The National Archives holds licences for the early release of prisoners in the records PCOM 3 (males, www.snipca.com/57000) and PCOM 4 (females, www.snipca.com/57001). Issued under the Penal Servitude Acts of 1853 and 1864, licences were granted to convicts released early for good behaviour. The records span 1853–1887, with files from 1871 onwards often including photos. Many also contain letters or notes from the prisoner, medical histories and reports of any misconduct during their sentence. These records have been digitised and are available in Findmypast’s ‘England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment,…

LAPTOP | £1,199 from Currys www.snipca.com/56993 Game changer German manufacturer Medion’s latest gaming laptop gives you the specifications you need to run resource-hungry games but at a lower cost than you’d normally expect. It doesn’t make the best first impression, however. The plastics used in the chassis feel cheap and flex under pressure, while the plain design is hardly typical of gaming machines. Still, that’s arguably a bonus if you’re not fond of massive vents and RGB lighting. And, for all its 24mm-thick body and 2.25kg weight, the Erazer Deputy 15 P1 feels comparatively slim and light. There’s an unusually large gap between the screen and the keyboard section when it’s open, but this seems to help keep things cool and move heat away from the display. “A laptop with…

SMARTWATCH | £219 from Amazon www.snipca.com/57033 Wrist assured The Apple Watch SE3 gives you the essentials of Apple’s smartwatch range with fewer compromises than previous versions, thanks to an always-on screen and a faster S10 processor. The display only updates once a minute while inactive, but you can now see the time without having to lift your wrist. The processor upgrade is an even bigger bonus. Apps open instantly, navigation is quick and wrist flick and double-tap gestures add a new layer of convenience. Though battery life is still rated at just 18 hours (or 36 in low-power mode) we found it usually lasted a full day with moderate use and can recharge from 0 to 80 per cent in less than 60 minutes. 5G now comes as an optional…

Track RSVPs with Canva’s invitations There are plenty of tools for sending invitations and managing RSVPs, such as Evite (www.evite.com) – see Issue 703’s column. But if you already use Canva (for designing logos or creating flyers), you’ll be delighted that it now lets you embed an RSVP form directly into your design, so members can respond with a couple of clicks. Canva automatically collects all the responses in a spreadsheet, where you can easily sort them. It ’s all part of Canva’s new Creative Operating System (www.snipca.com/56963), launched in October, which also includes tools for designing email newsletters, editing videos and designing content. Some features have to be paid for, but plenty are free. Edit your invitation Log into Canva, or sign up for a free Canva account by…

Every year, tech companies bombard us with shiny, new products, while quietly consigning older devices, software and services to the scrapheap. Some are formally retired, following a long and distinguished product lifecycle. Some are replaced or absorbed into newer products. And others are inexplicably abandoned, leaving users scrambling to find a replacement. To help you plan ahead, here we reveal the tools, products and services that are destined – or highly likely – to stop working over the next 12 months. What will definltely stop working Office 2021 and Microsoft Publisher Microsoft routinely retires older versions of Office when they reach the end of their product lifecycle – October 2026 will see the curtain fall on Office 2021, for example. What’s different is that this year, Microsoft is killing off…

Why can’t I install 0patch’s Windows 10 updates? Q I’m 90 and want my six-year-old Windows 10 PC to last me out. Following your advice I subscribed to 0patch (https://0patch.com) and then tried to download ‘0patch Agent 22.11.11.10550’ several times. But I keep getting stuck with the message, ‘Installation incomplete. The Installation was interrupted…’. I’ve contacted 0patch’s support for help, but all I’m told is to read the Article ‘0patch Agent fails to install, see No. 7’. I’m worried 0patch might be a scam. Can you reassure me? Bob Coleman A First, rest assured that 0patch definitely isn’t a scam. It’s run by Acros Security, a reputable Slovenian company. We’ve installed it successfully on several PCs and it’s a very reliable, cost-effective way to keep using Windows 10. However, we…

An Essex couple have cut their monthly heating bills from £375 to £40-£60 after becoming the UK’s first household to warm their home using a data centre located in their garden shed. Terrence and Lesley Bridges, who live in a two-bed bungalow near Braintree, replaced their gas boiler with a new HeatHub system that captures warmth generated by more than 500 Raspberry Pi mini computers. As they process data they also generate lots of heat. This is then captured by oil and transferred into their hotwater system. The HeatHub was built by Welsh firm Thermify and is part of UK Power Networks’ Shield scheme (www.snipca.com/57113), which develops ways to help “low-income residents” switch to more environmentally friendly forms of energy. Mr Bridges (pictured), 76, said warming their home is vital…

WATCH OUT FOR… Fake Captchas that install malware What’s the threat? Cybercriminals are posting fake Captchas that trick you into installing malware on your computer. Rather than asking you to tick a box or identify parts of a photo, the Captchas say you need to paste a command or file into command-line tools in Linux, macOS or Windows. Earlier forms of this scam, spotted in May and called ClickFix, gave written instructions only. But a more recent version, seen by UK firm Push Security, adds a video tutorial (1 in our screenshot) explaining what you need to do. If you follow the instructions you install the malware Lumma Stealer, which steals sensitive data like passwords and cookies. The scam has a countdown timer to add urgency 2 and claims that a…

ALL-IN-ONE PC | £1,399 from Currys www.snipca.com/57034 Altogether now With its vibrant screen and slick, ergonomic design, the Lenovo Yoga U7 may actually convert some sceptics to the all-in-one PC. You can’t upgrade it like a desktop PC, but you get an elegant and space-saving system. In fact, the Yoga U7 is one of the most attractive Windows all-in-ones we’ve tested. The case is plastic, with 30-percent recycled plastics, yet it could pass for aluminium at a glance. The matching mouse and keyboard might be basic, but they look the part. The round base can pivot 90 degrees in either direction, while the display can tilt upwards by 10 degrees, downwards by five degrees and lift by up to 70mm. It’s easy to find a comfortable working height and angle.…

BLUETOOTH SPEAKER | £100 from Amazon www.snipca.com/57042 Party piece This British-designed Bluetooth speaker comes with a hidden side. Out front, its wooden case and studded grille give it a retro Hi-Fi feel, but at the back a strip of multi-coloured ambient lighting provides ‘party time’ quirkiness. The eight LEDs in the rear-facing panel create a halo of coloured light on the wall behind, which can be set to remain static or to change dynamically with the beat of the music. Like an ageing dad hitting the dancefloor after a beer or two, it’s eye-catching if not always quite on time. You connect to the speaker via Bluetooth 5.3 or a 3.5mm audio jack line-in, and the built-in battery pack gives you 30 hours of playback from one charge. In practice,…

What is it? No idea! You better ask Pavan Davuluri. Who’s he? Microsoft’s Vice President of Windows and Devices. In November, he posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Windows is “evolving into an agentic OS, connecting devices, cloud, and AI to unlock intelligent productivity and secure work anywhere” (www.snipca.com/57086). It was viewed over 1.5 million times and prompted nearly 500 comments. Not many were positive. I’m not surprised. Did anyone know what he was talking about? Very few. But we’re fluent in Microsoftspeak, having studied this obscure language for almost 30 years. An ‘agentic OS’ is an operating system that predicts what you want to do based on your current and past behaviour, and responds accordingly. For example, when you import photos into your computer, an agentic operating system will…

SAVE 39% 3 EASY WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE magazinesdirect.com/CAC/DJ84S 03303331113 Quote Offer Code: DJ84S Scan me PRINT EDITION £25.26 every 6 months DIGITAL EDITION £20.21 every 6 months Other great r e a s o n s t o subscribe • Get all the tips, product reviews and security updates early • Never miss an issue and get the handiest technology magazine delivered straight to your door every 2 weeks. • Get access to our product reviews, money saving tips and recommendations early Offer closes 31st December 2025. Price is guaranteed for the first 6 months, please allow up to 6 weeks for the delivery of your first subscription issue (up to 8 weeks overseas) the full subscription rate is for 6 months and includes postage and packaging. *After your first 3 issues…

1080p High-definition video: 1920x1080 pixels. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. Add-in Microsoft’s name for tools that can be added to Office software. AES-256bit A form of encryption based on a key length of 256 bits. API key Unique code identifying and authorising a user or app. ARM Processors that are more energy-efficient than those made by AMD and Intel. Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a screen and add virtual elements. Bandwidth A measure of how much data can be transferred through a connection at one time. Benchmarking Comparing hardware and software with an accepted standard. Beta Software that’s being tested. BIOS Software built into every PC that connects vital components. BitTorrent A technology for…

Because it’s been years since I lived in a shared student house, I don’t generally need to label my personal belongings or food. But the recent discussion in our Readers’ Tips section about the best way to label USB sticks gave me pause for thought. I often insert the wrong device when I need to copy files to my PC or boot a portable operating system, which wastes valuable working time. It’s not helped by the fact that I have two SanDisk USB sticks that look exactly the same. To solve this problem, I decided to buy a label maker and stick physical labels to my portable drives. I found a suitable device on Amazon called the Supvan E11 Bluetooth Label Maker Machine (www.snipca.com/56974, pictured right). Reduced from £39.99 to…