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Every week I get many emails from readers worried that they’ve been targeted by scammers. When the number jumped from dozens to hundreds about a month ago, I knew that the crooks had upped their game. Readers were telling me that whereas scams were once easy to spot – emails were appallingly written, cold-callers could barely speak English – now they were almost impossible to detect. It’s an arms race. As people become more aware of scammers’ tactics, the criminals are forced to try smarter methods of deception. So scams have gone personal. Fraudsters are making more effort to use details like your name and address in order to appear genuine. The fightback starts in our Cover Feature (page 50), where we reveal scammers’ latest tricks. Staying safe from scams…

We were told Brexit would have no immediate effects, but the pound must have missed that memo. Prices of imported goods are going up, and that includes computer components, even when the computer itself, like this one, is assembled in the UK. So the Fusion Everest costs £50 more now than when it arrived at our office, but Chillblast told us that it hopes to avoid any further rises. “It looks good, performs well and has room for expansio” This impressive-looking tower PC (which runs Windows 10) still leaves you with change from £1,000, which you might not have expected given its specification. The highlight is AMD’s brand new Radeon RX 480 graphics card, one of several that have caused a lot of excitement this summer. This alone is worth…

Win 1 of 2 KitSound Hive Evolution speakers The KitSound Hive Evolution has two passive bass radiators to ensure a perfect acoustic balance, and to expand each and every brilliant note. Fully charged it can play music for eight hours. It comes with a carry case, and can be connected up to 20 metres over Bluetooth. To enter, email your address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘hive’ in the subject line by midnight 30 August. KitSound’s Hive Evolution is on sale now from www.kitsound.co.uk priced £130. For more information on KitSound products visit www.instagram.com/kitsounduk and ‘like’ their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/KitSoundUK.…

ANDROID Share paid-for Android apps and games with family and friends Google has launched a new Android feature called Google Play Family Library. This lets you share apps, games, films, TV shows and books that you buy from the Play Store with up to five family members (or friends) by simply adding their Gmail account to your Play Store account. Once you’ve done this, they can use what you’ve bought without paying for it. To set this up, open the Play Store, tap the three lines at the top left, then tap Account at the bottom. Next, tap Family, ‘Sign up for Family Library’, then tap ‘Sign up’ at the bottom(see screenshot below left). Now tap Continue (twice), then Set Up to choose a payment method. If you haven’t added…

Make your cursor clearly visible on any background Open the Ease of Access Center (click the Windows key, type ease of access and press Enter), then click ‘Make the mouse easier to use’. At the top of your screen you’ll see the ‘Mouse pointers’ section. Choose Regular Inverting (select Large Inverting or Extra Large Inverting for an even bigger cursor) and click Apply. You’ll now find that the cursor will change colour automatically depending on the colour of the background so that it always remains clearly visible (see screenshot below). Hear a tone whenever you press a Toggle Key It can be irritating to catch Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock (sometimes referred to as Toggle Keys) while typing. Hitting Caps Lock will mean you type capital letters; Num…

Flightradar24 app Format: Android, iOS Website: www.flightradar24.com Price: £2.49 (Android); £2.99 (iOS) Years ago, my father used to take me down to the viewing platform at our local airport (Manchester) so we could watch the planes as they came in to land or sped down the runway for take-off. In those days, keeping track of which plane was which involved an expensive radio that could scan the frequencies used by air-traffic control. If only back then we’d had Flightradar24 – a website and app that tracks all commercial flights in real time and charts their progress on a map. We’d have known exactly how fast the planes were flying and been able to monitor their flight long after they’d disappeared from view. There’s a free (albeit advert-littered) version of the…

Microsoft is facing two lawsuits from people who allege that their PCs were upgraded to Windows 10 without their consent. The lawsuits arrive just a month after Microsoft paid $10,000 in compensation to a US travel agent who took the company to court. She said that her business had been harmed because her PC had slowed down after Windows 10 was automatically downloaded to it. In one of the new lawsuits, three men in Florida are suing Microsoft on the grounds that the company’s messages urging people to upgrade were “unsolicited electronic advertisements”, and that automatically downloading Windows 10 was a “deceptive and unfair practice”. Richard Chosid, the lawyer working for the plaintiffs Ahmad Al Khafaji, Ahmad Abdulreda, and Robert Stahl, said: “Microsoft’s marketing scheme falls short of certain protections…

Tell us what’s on your mind Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive Twitter: @ComputerActive www.twitter.com/computeractive Pokemon ‘idiots’ are the new smartphone zombies I have never agreed more with a ‘Villain of the Fortnight’ than in Issue 481, when Jane Hoskyn picked the idiot who phoned 999 to report a stolen Pokémon. I don’t really understand what this Pokémon craze is. When I were a lad, I was lucky if I had a tin can to kick around (cue the violins). What I do know is that walking around staring at your phone makes you look stupid and arrogant, like you don’t care if anyone gets in your way. That’s always been the case of course – we’ve had smartphone zombies for years. But now you’re telling me that this new breed of…

SYSTEM TOOL PC Tasks Optimizer www.snipca.com/21314 What you need: Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1 or 10 Windows sabotages its own speed and stability by running processes you don’t need. Many of these are triggered by Task Scheduler, a Windows tool that started as a simple automation service in Windows 98 and gradually took on more roles until it became the intrusive, memory-hogging megalith we know today. What’s more, since Windows Vista you haven’t been able to disable it. PC Tasks Optimizer is free and lightweight (6MB) and gives you back control over these automated ‘tasks’ that slow down your PC. It’s very easy to use, with simple tickboxes to switch off unnecessary jobs such as automatic Registry backups, search indexing and Remote Assistance. It also guards your security and privacy by…

Vodafone is making quite a habit of launching high-spec smartphones at lower prices than the big tech brands. As Apple’s sliding sales figures indicate, however, it’s getting harder to sell smartphones now that everyone already has one. That means more companies are focusing on offering more features for less, so Vodafone faces plenty of competition. “A high-spec phone with low-end camera at a mid-range price” The Smart Platinum 7 is its most expensive phone, but still only half the price of the similarly sized iPhone 6s. You also need to factor in the difference in storage: Apple only gives you 16GB (unless you pay more), while Vodafone includes a sensible 32GB, plus a microSD slot for extra space. The Smart Platinum 7’s 5.5in screen has the higher resolution, at a…

How much does your monitor matter? It’s probably not the first thing you think about when planning to buy your next desktop PC. You’re more likely to see how much performance and how big a hard drive your money will buy, then make do with an existing screen or look for the lowest price on a new one. But remember it’s the LCD screen you’ll be looking at all the time: not only as a display unit when you’re working or watching videos on it, but as a sizeable piece of furniture when it’s switched off. “Works as a great screen and a beautiful piece of furniture” So there’s a good argument for spending more than the bare minimum on something like this 27in monitor. Functionally, although it’s not an…

360-degree photography is related to the ‘virtual reality’ phenomenon that we’re told is going to be huge just as soon as we all get used to the idea of wearing a big plastic helmet. But you can also view 360-degree pictures and videos on an ordinary screen, using your mouse or finger to rotate the view. It’s both fun to do and useful for purposes like showing a flat or house you want to sell. To see how it works, have a look at the video we shot with the LG 360 Cam at www.snipca.com/21337. You’ll need to use Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera. YouTube doesn’t yet display 360-degree video correctly in other browsers, such as Apple’s Safari. “If you like to video in the round it’s the…

Microsoft released the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (W10 AU) on 2 August. This is being released gradually – starting with new PCs – so you may not have it yet. In this Workshop, we’ll explain what preparations you should make before updating, and show you two ways you can do this – including how to jump the queue to get it earlier. We’ll also provide simple fixes for common problems that can arise during and after the update. STEP 1 Before upgrading your Windows 10 PC with the Anniversary Update, you should first back up your entire PC to an external hard drive and create a bootable drive, so you can restore your PC to the previous version of Windows 10 if something goes wrong during the update. We described…

WINDOWS XP, VISTA, 7, 8, 10 Find out whether a program will run on your PC If you notice that a particular program doesn’t work on your PC, it may mean you’ve downloaded the wrong system version or one that isn’t compatible with your Windows version. To check your PC’s system version (32bit or 64bit), right-click Computer (on your desktop or Start menu), click Properties, then look next to ‘System type’. ExeProperties is a new, free tool that tells you whether a downloaded program is compatible with your system version and Windows versions (XP, 7, 8 etc). To download the tool, go to www.snipca.com/21381 and click the Windows Download button at the top right. Run the downloaded setup file to install the tool. Now right-click any program, click Properties at…

What is it? An exciting new technology that builds a solid-state drive (SSD) on to a computer’s graphics card – the component that produces the images you see on your monitor. This will increase the amount of memory on a graphics card, leading to much sharper screen resolutions and smoother graphics. Remind me – what’s an SSD? It’s an advanced form of storage that doesn’t require any moving parts. Unlike a traditional hard drive that reads and writes data by spinning platters, an SSD stores data on flash memory processors. This reduces wear and tear, making SSDs last much longer than hard drives. They’re also much faster, meaning PCs start in seconds, and work without requiring a constant power source. Researchers have been trying for years to build one on…

As the 29 July cut-off loomed Microsoft bombarded Windows 7 and 8.1 users with its free Windows 10 offer – convincing as many as one in five Windows PC users to upgrade. While the company is falling short of its own target (one billion devices by 2018), it’s still an impressive achievement, even if it means that the majority of Windows users remain on an older version of the operating system. Many of those who didn’t take up the offer were probably quite happy with their current version of Windows. But for anyone who missed the deadline, or found they couldn’t update due to hardware restrictions – such as a lack of free hard-drive space or an incompatible Wi-Fi card – there is still a way to get Windows 10…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Wise Registry Cleaner Companies that make PC-cleaning programs seem disproportionately fond of loading their installers with junk. Maybe they want to give their creations something to practise on. System-boosting giants IObit, EaseUS and Avast have all featured on this page, and now they’re joined by Wise. Their flagship product Wise Care 365 (www.wisecleaner.com) doesn’t currently bundle any junk in its installer – it’s delegated that job to its little sibling, Wise Registry Cleaner. Wisdom grief Registry tinkering is a hazardous business, and tools like Wise Registry Cleaner want us to leave the job to them. But I’m not about to entrust my PC’s most sensitive cleaning task to a program that can’t even clean its own installer. You wouldn’t employ a cleaner who turned up…

Is Acer responsible for my hard-drive problem? Q A few months ago, the hard drive on my Acer Aspire PC packed up. Acer replaced it, but now PowerPoint 2016 won’t open. I’ve tried the troubleshooter, but it says it’s an ‘Incompatible program’. As I am paying for this feature as part of my Office 365 subscription, can I ask Acer to replace the hard drive again? Andrew Ward A Yes, Andrew can ask Acer to replace it again, but he may be able to demand a refund now. It depends on when he bought the PC. If he did so after 1 October 2015 (when the Consumer Rights Act came into force), he can claim a refund because the new law allows companies only one chance to repair a product.…

Let’s get the verdict out of the way first: this isn’t a very good phone. But don’t turn the page just yet. Even if you don’t buy the WileyFox Spark, it’s worth looking at what makes it different from other smartphones, and what it says about the industry that produces them. A generation ago, if you’d tried to sell people something to carry around in their pocket that was made of glass and cost a month’s rent, they’d have laughed. But, largely thanks to the internet, smartphones have proved so useful that we accept the cost and the risk. “It’s incredibly cheap, British and has a decent screen – but that’s where the good news ends” We also accept (grudgingly) that many of the services on our phones gather data…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2015 Back Issue CD: £15 fromwww.snipca.com/19124 LAPTOP Asus UX305 £570 from www.snipca.com/19439 Tested: Issue 447 13.3in is a practical size for a laptop, and this light but sturdy ‘ultrabook’ has a smart and slim design that does justice to its capable performance. Upgradeable to Windows 10, it’s limited mainly by its 128GB SSD, which makes it work fast, but might leave you needing more space. ALTERNATIVE Toshiba Satellite C40-C This 14in Windows 10 laptop looks like it costs a lot more. It’s not the most amazing PC, but it’s fantastic for the price. £210 from www.snipca.com/20245 DESKTOP PC Palicomp AMD Avenger £500 from www.snipca.com/20927 Tested: Issue 479 AMD’s Athlon X4 880K processor gives this PC solid performance with money left for…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Search for people you know in Google Photos I’ve been a huge fan of Google Photos (photos.google.com) since it launched last year. I was aware you could search your collection by different categories (panoramas, collages, videos, for example); subject matter (boats, sea, castles and so on); and the location they were taken. However, until recently I didn’t realise you could carry out this type of search for people you know. You first need to tell Google the names of your family and friends so that its facial-recognition technology can get to work. To do this, click the Albums icon at the top left, then click the People tab at the top. You’ll see images of all the people that Google Photos…

OUTLOOK Quickly find any email in Outlook By default, Outlook’s search field only lets you look for items in the mailbox you’re in at the time (your inbox or one of your folders, for example). If you’re not sure where a specific email is located, you should use Outlook’s Advanced Find option. To see this, click inside the search field at the top, click the Search Tools dropdown menu at the top right, then click Advanced Find. In the window that opens, change the Look dropdown menu to ‘Any type of Outlook item’, click the Browse button at the top right of the window, tick all your email subfolders, then click OK. Next, type the search term in the ‘Search for the word(s)’ field, then change the In dropdown menu…

Many of you will have heard about (and been targeted by) the Microsoft cold-calling scam. For those who are blissfully unaware, the con involves a scammer (claiming to be a Microsoft employee) ringing you to say they’ve detected an error on your PC. They will assure you not to worry because – for a fee – they’ll fix it. If you’re aware of this scam you’ll know to hang up the phone immediately. However, what if the scammer was armed with all kinds of knowledge about you? WHAT YOU’LL LEARN • How to spot even the most genuinelooking phishing email • Which tools let you check the location of hackers • How to avoid visiting a hacked website • What to do if hackers steal your details That’s exactly what’s…

Toolbar window has disappeared The Tools, History, Layers and Colors windows are crucial to getting to getting anything done in Paint.net, but if you happen to close one, it’s not entirely obvious how to open it again. This can leave you without access to the tool selection and the colour wheel. There are two ways to make any closed windows reappear. You can use keyboard shortcuts (press F5 for Tools, F6 for History, F7 for Layers and F8 for Colors). Alternatively, you can click the relevant icons at the top right of the Paint.net toolbar (see screenshot below). Not enough memory to paste from the clipboard If you see the error message ‘Not enough memory to paste from the clipboard’ when you try to paste an image into Paint.net it…

Smart TVs Bought a smart TV yet? I’d wager that the thought has at least crossed your mind. After all, who wants a stupid old dumb television when you could have a smart TV? Smart TVs are smart! I should know because a few Christmases ago I bought one. I guess that makes me smart. Because do you remember the olden days? Back then, all you could do was switch on your TV, hit a channel button and just watch TV. It was really dumb. “I faced a £250 bill to repair a four-year-old TV that has useless apps and takes 60 seconds to turn on” And in the olden days you might have had a TV capable of displaying Teletext (such as the BBC’s Ceefax). Anyone who used these…