Table of contents for 608 in Computeractive

When I’m planning to buy something online, my first instinct is still to check eBay before Amazon. It’s where I assume I’ll get a better bargain (though I also accept it will probably take longer to arrive). But this issue’s Cover Feature has shaken my assumptions. I had no idea that buried beneath Amazon’s confusing mass of categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories lurked so many ways to find cheaper prices. Robert Irvine’s tips should help me (and hopefully you) save several hundred pounds every year. I won’t abandon eBay though. I still like the challenge of tracking down auctions ignored by other shoppers, particularly for items like headphones, speakers, USB sticks and webcams. It’s incredible how many gadgets worth around £50 you can grab for a fifth of that price. It…

McAfee customers whose subscriptions were automatically renewed can now get refunds, following pressure from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). It follows a wider investigation by the CMA into the antivirus sector over concerns that some firms may be breaking consumer law by making “long-term customers” pay more than they should. This was triggered in 2018 by a ‘super-complaint’ from Citizens Advice. Until now, McAfee offered a full refund of the auto-renewal fee only within 60 days from the date money was taken. But McAfee has voluntarily changed this so customers can get partial refunds after 60 days, based on the remaining months left on the contract. It applies to customers who were initially refused a refund in 2020. The company has also agreed to make it easier for customers…

Openreach has nearly doubled the number of rural homes and businesses it plans to upgrade to full-fibre broadband. It now aims to connect 6.2 million premises by December 2026, up from the previous target of 3.2m. The new goal comes after BT announced its intention to deliver full-fibre speeds to 25 million premises by 2026, rather than 20 million by the “mid-to-late 2020s”. It said this will create 7,000 new jobs, including 1,000 new Openreach engineering roles over the next year. Openreach’s CEO Clive Selley said that its commitment to reach more rural homes means the Government will have to spend less taxpayer money on subsidising broadband in extremely remote areas where it’s not financially viable for companies to invest. He added: “This is a hugely complex, nationwide engineering project…

www.snipca.com/38472 Total Cookie Protection may sound like padlocking your chocolate hobnobs in an underwater vault, but it’s actually Firefox’s method of preventing sites from tracking you across the web. It keeps a site’s cookies locked inside their own ‘jar’, so they can’t be shared with other sites. It means that any personal information recorded by a site can’t be used by another site to build an advertising profile of you based on what you do online. Mozilla added it to Firefox in version 86, released in February, but it wasn’t turned on by default when you used the Private Browsing mode (which keeps your browsing secret from other people using your computer – read more at www.snipca.com/38473). Mozilla has changed this in Firefox 89, launched in early June, so your…

Not very long ago you mentioned a program that’s good at dividing and combining PDFs. I intended to download the program, but can’t recall which issue it was in. Can you help? Michael Kennedy CA SAYS Certainly. We think you mean PDF24 (www.snipca.com/37711), which Will Stapley recommended in Issue 603 (page 20). We get several similar requests every fortnight, so we’ve decided to answer them in the Letters page in every issue. Here are a couple more. You suggested an alternative to Windows’ Sticky Notes in a recent issue. Was it called Stickies? Roger Hearn CA SAYS Yes it was. We mentioned it in Issue 599’s ‘Remove All Windows Junk’ Cover Feature (page 53). Download it from www.snipca.com/37165. Can you help an 80-year-old find an article that answered a reader’s question…

Here’s a question that regular Consumeractive readers shouldn’t find too difficult: what does eBay offer for 30 days that PayPal offers for 180? Answer: buyer protection. It means that if you miss eBay’s deadline for a refund, you have another five months to try to get one via PayPal (assuming that’s how you paid). Reader Michael Oxlade has reason to be thankful for this. As we explained in Issue 607, an eBay seller refused to refund him for a faulty gas lighter because more than 30 days had passed since purchase. The seller was probably thinking of how long eBay’s Money Back guarantee lasts. What they clearly don’t realise is that consumer law overrides buyer-protection schemes run by retailers (and warranties from manufacturers). If a product is faulty, buyers always…

Is there a quick and easy way I can check for any key missing information from my family tree? Frank Turner If you load your tree into FTAnalyzer (https://ftanalyzer.com) and switch to the Errors/Fixes tab, you’ll see another row of tabs offering five types of check: data errors (such as births recorded after the mother’s death), duplicate entries, so-called ‘loose’ births and deaths (where the specific dates aren’t recorded), and a summary of all ‘loose’ info. Work through each tab to track down the errors and fix them manually in your main family history program. Have a genealogy question for Nick? Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with ‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.…

Ebooks may not have the same appeal as their paper-based counterparts (you can’t beat the feel and smell of an old book), but at least the bookmarks I use with them don’t fall out whenever I go to read one. It’s one of many reasons I love my Amazon Kindle (I have the basic model, which costs £70 from www.snipca.com/38452). As well as letting me take my personal library with me wherever I go, I can add as many bookmarks as I like so I never lose my place. I simply tap the top-right corner of the screen, then the ‘+’ button to add a bookmark on the current page or jump to an existing one. I can also mark sections using what Kindle calls ‘clippings’, which let you highlight…

Can you recommend a small monitor? Q I have an old HP monitor that I want to replace with something better. My present screen is a low-resolution 15in model, and because I have limited space, I’m not looking to increase the size. Do you know if there are any similar monitors still available? John Lynn A 15in monitors tend to be considered as ‘portable’ as they’re easy to set up and pack away, and have integrated fold-away stands. Our choice would be the Corprit 15.6 Inch Portable Monitor, which you can buy from Amazon for £166 (www.snipca.com/38394, pictured). This has a wide selection of ports, including USB-C and Mini HDMI, which should make it compatible with any PC or laptop you want to connect to it. It’s worth noting, however, that if…

PHONE | £329 from Amazon www.snipca.com/38395 The Poco F3 is the latest 5G phone from Chinese firm Xiaomi that attempts to rival top-of-the-range smartphones from the likes of Apple and Samsung, while keeping the price well below those models. And it rises to the challenge. The front of the phone is taken up by the 6.67in screen surrounded by a wafer-thin bezel. A pinhole camera is embedded at the top of the screen, and a fingerprint reader is built into the power button on the right-hand side. The screen is an AMOLED display, so has perfect contrast, excellent colour accuracy and high brightness levels. It’s phenomenal for the price. It’s also capable of a 120Hz refresh rate, though it’s limited to 60Hz by default to save battery life. The phone…

What is it? Samsung is known for its smart TVs, but now also offers a Smart Monitor series. Like its TVs, these connect to your Wi-Fi and use apps to provide additional tools. There are four models available, in 24, 27, 32 and 43in sizes. What does it do? It lets you use a range of apps from TV streaming to Microsoft 365 without switching on your PC. The monitor can connect wirelessly to Android and Apple devices for screen sharing. They come with a solar-powered remote control that’s compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant. What’s the catch? Not all the prices have been announced yet, but the 32in model is around £399. That’s about twice the price of Samsung’s standard monitors of the same size. So can I do…

What you need: Logitech Z207 speakers (or similar); APO Equalizer Time taken: One hour In Issue 607’s How To we explained how to improve how you sound in video calls. Now it’s time to improve the audio you hear – whether that’s during a video call, when streaming video or while listening to music. Although it’s convenient to use the speakers built into your laptop or those that came with your desktop PC, they’re often very poor quality, producing tinny audio with little bass. The good news is that buying new speakers needn’t cost a fortune and some come with features you’ll wonder how you ever did without. As well as showing you how to choose and set up your new speakers, we’ll reveal the tools that guarantee you get…

Being a gadget freak, I was seduced by Apple’s AirTags (www.snipca.com/38323, see Issue 607, page 28), and accepted the offer of a free engraving of my initials to personalise it. It connected with my phone in seconds. And what I use instead However, the Tile (www.thetileapp.com) wins hands down, partly because it’s better designed and slimmer. It also has its own attachment ring, unlike Apple’s. If you buy an AirTag, you’ve then got the extra expense of buying an accessory to attach it to a keyring. David Stevenson Tell us why you stopped using a website, app or program: letters@computeractive.co.uk…

LifeAR Free Android www.snipca.com/38400 iOS www.snipca.com/38401 New from TeamViewer, LifeAR uses augmented reality (AR) to let you add annotations – handwritten scribbles, 3D arrows, emojis and more – to the world around you, while you’re video chatting with up to six people. It’s a great (and fun) way to get remote assistance, feedback and more. SoftMaker Office 2021 Free* Android www.snipca.com/38403 SoftMaker has released a free Android office suite, available as separate apps: TextMaker (word processor, pictured), PlanMaker (spreadsheets) and Presentations. The essential features are free to use, but printing, exporting to PDF and tracking changes are among the functions that require you to pay an 89p-per-month subscription. One Swipe Notes 59p Android www.snipca.com/38402 As with other note apps, One Swipe Notes lets you jot down ideas, set reminders and…

Whether you have multiple hard drives installed in your PC or a single hard drive split into partitions, Windows lets you choose which one to use when saving files such as documents, music and video. Open Settings (press the Windows key+I), then select System followed by Storage. Scroll down the options on the right-hand side and click ‘Change where new content is saved’. You’ll now see a list of file types along with the drive Windows currently saves new files to. By default, these will all be set to the same drive where Windows is installed (usually C: drive). To change the location for one of the file types, click the dropdown menu next to it, then select from the available drive letters and click Apply (see screenshot). When you…

Collaborate on spreadsheets in real time Large spreadsheets can take time to put together, so when you have to share one with your club’s members you may worry about changes made by others. Google Sheets (www.google.com/sheets - sign up for a free Google account if you don’t already have one) lets you not only share your spreadsheets, but also control what people can do with them. If you have an existing spreadsheet that you want to share, click the folder icon (top left of the Google Sheets home page), select the Upload tab, then click ‘Select a file from your device’ or simply drag the spreadsheet into the Upload section. Alternatively, create a new spreadsheet by selecting one of the templates at the top. With your spreadsheet open, make sure…

Use augmented reality to preview items in your home Rather than risk buying an expensive item of furniture from Amazon only to find it doesn’t go with your decor, you can use augmented reality (AR) to preview how it will look in your home. This tool is available in the Amazon app for Android and iOS, for selected large products including smart TVs and furniture. Just tap the ‘View in your room’ option below the photo carousel, then point your phone’s camera at the area of the room where you plan to locate the item. The app places the product on screen with your target area in the background. You can drag the item with your finger to try different positions and align it with the wall (see screenshot below).…

Get Freeview in your caravan The cheapest way to receive live TV broadcasts while caravanning is via Freeview, which is broadcast from digital, land-based transmitters across the UK. Along with TV, you’ll need a Freeview box and suitable aerial. If you already have a Freeview box at home you could simply unplug it and take it with you. Otherwise, the cheapest option is the Manhattan T1 (£35 from www.snipca.com/38433, pictured above right). This no-frills box can receive all Freeview channels (including HD), but it can’t record programmes. To watch and record, we recommend the T3-R, also from Manhattan (£169 from www.snipca.com/38434), which has a 500GB hard drive – enough to store up to 300 hours of programmes. Find the nearest transmitter Once you have your Freeview box, you’ll need to…

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Why do emails capitalise new lines? Q I have a problem with my emails, as every message I write starts each new line with a capital letter – even though I type the letter in lowercase. I just cannot find how to stop it happening. I would be so grateful if you could help with this. Malcolm Lawton A We’ll confess that this one took us a bit longer to figure out than it should’ve done. Then, suddenly, a light bulb came on above our heads – and we think we know both the cause and the solution. You didn’t tell us which email tool you’re using but we’re sure it’s Outlook, because this has a feature…

Kobo has launched its biggest ever ebook reader, which is also the first that lets you take notes using a digital stylus. Described as a cross between an iPad and a Kindle Pro, the Kobo Elipsa has a “glare-free” 10.3in screen and 32GB of storage, which is more than any previous Kobo device. It has a ComfortLight setting that adjusts the screen’s brightness to make it easier on your eyes at night, and for the first time on a Kobo there’s a Dark Mode for white text on black. Kobo claims the Carta 1200 E Ink technology provides a “faster display, quicker page turns, and deeper contrast”. The stylus lets you take notes and draw diagrams within ebooks and PDFs, and also on blank screens. You can convert handwritten notes…

The amount of power that USB-C can handle is set to more than double to 240 Watts, letting you charge devices such as bigger laptops, docking stations and 4K monitors. USB-C’s current limit of 100 Watts is increasingly seen as too restrictive, particularly by those who need more power for fast gaming laptops. The increase was announced in May by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), which develops USB technology. It said the new power level will be called Extended Power Range (EPR), adding that it expects compatible devices to be available in the second half of 2021. You’ll also need to buy new USB-C chargers and cables. The USB-IF said these will be marked by an industry-standard icon so you can tell they’re capable of carrying 240 Watts. Lower-power cables…

‘New Payee’ HSBC warning I got a text apparently from HSBC telling me a ‘New Payee request was attempted from a unregistered device’. The ‘a’ rather than ‘an’ was clearly suspicious, but what made it obviously a scam is that I don’t bank with HSBC. I didn’t click the link telling me to “confirm or cancel this request”, but I can imagine that less vigilant people would be fooled, particularly if they do bank at HSBC. The bank does actually identify this scam as one to look out for (www.snipca.com/38329), so it must be quite common, though I’d never received it before. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

I’m writing in response to recent letters about how confident older people feel using computers. Last year, during lockdown, I wasn’t sure about hosting our Salvation Army Sunday worship session on Zoom. Most of our congregation are over 70, which made me cautious. However, I made enquiries and received a very positive response. Many of the folk who I believed hada mobile phone for emergencies also hada tablet or laptop that they used regularly for talking to family members and watching ‘old time’ movies. All they needed from me were the meeting details. In one case, I was asked to contact a lady’s family carer to enable her to join in while the meals were being prepared. When we finally made it back into our hall for real services, just…

I’ve subscribed to your magazine for several years and when I wanted a new computer I settled for a Palicomp Mercury (pictured) because it has been your recommended PC in your Buy It section for over a year. We were very pleased with it until it developed a display fault. When I tried their helpline I found it was closed because they were short-staffed due to the pandemic. So I emailed their support team and had an answer back within seven minutes, which must be a world record. After an exchange of emails we diagnosed a faulty RAM stick. I posted it back to them and they dispatched a new one within a day. There were problems with their courier, which delayed delivery for a few days, but after fitting…

VIDEO TOOL OBS Studio 27.0 www.snipca.com/38495 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 OBS Studio is a powerful open-source broadcasting tool that lets you record and stream video from multiple sources, such as your webcam, a browser window or files on your computer. You can arrange your feeds from the various sources and adjust their size in the Preview window on the left. Once you’re happy, click Transition to move the video to the live Program window on the right. This live feed can then be broadcast to services such as YouTube Live (click Live Stream), recorded to a file on your computer (Start Recording) or even used as a virtual camera (Start Virtual Camera). The virtual camera option is ideal for video chats because it lets you display…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Express Rip CD Ripper Search the web for a CD-ripping tool and you’re likely to see a link for Express Rip CD Ripper among the first few results. It boasts that it’s “the fastest CD ripper in the world” – ideal if you have a big stack of discs to digitise. It also claims to be one of the most stable, easy-to-use and comprehensive CD rippers available”, and is free for non-commercial use. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right? Except that Express Rip is made by NCH Software. I’ve encountered tools from this Australian company before and they tend to follow a similar pattern. Install one and you’ll invariably discover that a second has been added to your computer (one that you almost certainly…

ALL-IN-ONE COMPUTER | From £1,249 from Apple www.snipca.com/38426 It’s been nine years since Apple’s iMac last had a makeover, but it’s finally happened thanks to the addition of Apple’s M1 processor. This chip has already been added to the MacBook Pro (see our review, Issue 596) and the Mac mini (see Issue 600), though their overall designs didn’t change that much. That isn’t the case with the iMac, which has undergone a complete overhaul. “Apple’s latest all-in-one PC gets an upgrade in design and performance” The iMac is now available in a range of fruity colours that hark back to Apple’s original models from 1998. Where the previous iMac bulged gently out at the rear from very thin edges, the new version is a flat slab, measuring just 11mm thick…

PHONE | £320 from Nokia www.snipca.com/38411 Like the Xiaomi Poco F3 above, the Nokia X20 is a 5G smartphone, and has a similar price. However, it’s significantly larger, weighing 220g and is a chunky 9.1mm thick. It has a 6.67in IPS screen, with a resolution of 2400x1080 pixels. The screen is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, and its contrast and colour accuracy fell short of the Poco F3 in our tests, though it is brighter. Inside it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 processor, a choice of 6GB (£300) or 8GB (£320) of RAM, and 128GB of expandable storage, thanks to its microSD card slot. Performance scores in our tests lagged behind the Poco F3, coming in closer to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T (see our review, Issue 600). Note, however,…

LAPTOP PRICE DROP Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (256GB)  £749 from www.snipca.com/38429 Tested Issue 601 Weighing just 1.16kg, this is an excellent lightweight laptop with a great screen and an AMD processor faster than many Intel rivals. It has two USB-C ports, two USB 3.0 ports and a microSD card reader. Battery lasts nearly 16 hours. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 New Intel CPUs and a taller screen make this a more powerful, all-round slim laptop. Prices start at £780 from www.snipca.com/36642 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite £299 from www.snipca.com/35795 Tested Issue 582 Competing with Apple’s cheapest 10.2in iPad, this slim aluminium tablet comes with an S Pen stylus and a generous 64GB of storage at a reasonable price. It’s less powerful, but a great buy if you prefer Android. ALTERNATIVE Amazon…

If your desk is short on space, a soundbar might be a better idea. Normally used with TVs, soundbars house their speakers in a single elongated case – usually with a separate subwoofer to provide the bass. This design also makes them well suited to sitting below a PC monitor. They’re more expensive than standard speakers, but at £100 the Creative Stage V2 (www.snipca.com/38488, pictured) is a great value option. It measures 680x 78x100mm and comes with a separate subwoofer. Unlike the soundbar, which you should position directly in front of you, the subwoofer can be hidden away under your desk without affecting sound quality. Connection options include USB, Bluetooth, optical audio and a 3.5mm jack socket. At 80W, the Stage V2 is much more powerful than the Z207 speakers,…

£599 from Currys PC World www.snipca.com/38241 I had been interested in buying a Chromebook, and was underwhelmed by a second-hand model I bought from CeX (www.snipca.com/38371). It had a very basic Intel Celeron processor and, as you pointed out in Issue 604 (page 60), such machines struggle even when only having to cope with Chrome OS. However, that didn’t put me off Chromebooks, and last year, having seen many favourable reviews, I bought the Acer Spin 713. It’s been a revelation. Having an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of memory and 128GB NVMe drive, it starts up almost instantly and handles pretty much everything I throw at it, whether that’s browsing, emails, social media, YouTube or catch-up TV. It’s not perfect. The speakers are almost unusable and I still need…

Gardenize Free* Android www.snipca.com/38404 iOS www.snipca.com/38405 Billed as a ‘plant diary’, Gardenize helps you look after your plants by logging them–adding photos, notes and more so you can track their growth rate and health at various times of the year. Get your friends and family to install the app and you can follow their gardens, too. Best For Tracking your garden’s progress PictureThis Free* Android www.snipca.com/38408 iOS www.snipca.com/38409 Picture This helps you sort the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, by letting you identify plants, wildflowers and weeds simply by pointing your camera at them. It also offers plant-care reminders, weeding tips and more. The app is free to try for seven days, after which it costs £2.89 per month. Best For Distinguishing weeds RHS Grow Your Own Free…

MICROSOFT EXCEL & LIBREOFFICE CALC Make formulas easier to create Spreadsheet formulas are usually made up of confusing cell references. To make formulas easier to create and understand in Excel and Calc, you can give cells (individual ones and groups) a name. First, select the cell or highlight the group of cells you want to name. Next, click the Name box in the top-right corner of your spreadsheet (to the left of the formula bar) and replace the text (this will be the cell reference by default) with the name you want to use. Make sure you press Enter once you’ve entered the name, otherwise it won’t be saved. Repeat the process to name any other cells. Once you’ve finished naming cells you can start using them in formulas. So…

Catchy name. What is it? A new way of confirming you’re a human when signing into websites. With some luck it might lead to the death of CAPTCHAs. Remind me – what are those again? They’re security systems websites use to prove you’re a real person, and not a robot. At their most annoying they were squiggly, distorted letters and numbers that you had to type. Why were they squiggly? So they couldn’t be understood by automated software – called bots. Hackers use bots to sign into websites, blogs and forums in order to steal email addresses or leave spam. Bots can read ordinary, upright letters, but not when they’re leaning forward as though staggering home drunk. The problem was that humans also struggled to read them. Thankfully, Google came…

Amazon has already announced some Prime Day deals, ready to grab now. You can read its press release (www.snipca.com/38498) for full details, but here are some highlights. Most deals are available only to Prime members. These include a free four-month subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited (www.snipca.com/38516); three months of Kindle Unlimited (www.snipca.com/38517) for no extra charge; and three months of Audible (www.snipca.com/38518) for just 99p. Prime members can also get 50 per cent off films and TV on Prime Video (www.snipca.com/38519), plus four months free at podcast service Wondery+ (https://wondery.com/plus). As for physical products, it has promised up to50per cent off its Echo smart speakers, potentially including the new Echo Show 8 (www.snipca.com/38372), its Fire TV streaming sticks (www.snipca.com/38522) and Ring smart doorbells (www.snipca.com/38491). Our sister site Expert Reviews will…

If you already have a TV licence for your home address, this will cover you when watching TV in a caravan (along with other ‘moving vehicles’, such as cars and boats). However, if you have a static caravan that you use as a second home, you’ll need to either get a second TV licence or complete a form confirming that you won’t watch or record live TV (nor stream via the BBC iPlayer) at both your home address and the static caravan simultaneously. To avoid getting a fine (up to £1,000), you need to complete the ‘Non-simultaneous use declaration’ form at www.snipca.com/38445. Bear in mind that you won’t be able to claim non-simultaneous use if anyone at your main address (such as a family member or friends) watches or records…

BT has launched its first set-top TV box that supports HDR, showing programmes in “up to four times the detail of HD, offering vivid, pin-sharp detail”. Called the TV Box Pro (pictured), it has 1TB of storage – double the capacity of BT’s previous leading box, the Humax DTR-T4000 – enough to record 600 hours of shows. For now it works only through an Ethernet cable connected to your router, though an update later this year will add Wi-Fi. It also has four tuners, letting you record up to three shows while watching a fourth at the same time. The Bluetooth remote control offers a “quicker, smoother experience”, allowing you to store the box out of sight if you prefer. However, to start with it’s available only to customers on…

THREE RAISES COST OF OVERSEAS CALLS Phone network Three is increasing the cost of calls from the UK to non-EU countries that fall outside your allowance. These will jump from £1.75 to £2.75 on 1 July (see www.snipca.com/38480), while sending texts to non-EU countries will rise from 35p to 65p. The cost of Three’s ‘Additional services’, such as making video calls, are also rising – visit www.snipca.com/38481 for the full list. BAGPUSS MAKES DEBUT ON BBC iPLAYER All 13 episodes of the much-loved children’s TV show Bagpuss are available on BBC iPlayer for the first time, though they’ll be removed on 29 June. It was first broadcast in 1974, and was last aired in 1986. Visit www.snipca.com/38490 to watch the episodes. ROYAL MAIL ‘SCAMMER’ CHARGED AFTER RAID A man from…

Microsoft has boasted that its Edge browser is now “the best performing browser on Windows 10” despite Google claiming that Chrome is now 23 per cent faster than before. Both companies announced speed improvements to mark the release of the 91st version of their respective browsers. Microsoft said the tools Startup boost and sleeping tabs, both added earlier this year, have made Edge faster. Startup boost launches Edge quicker by running core processes in the background without affecting any browser windows you have open. Sleeping tabs frees up system resources from tabs you haven’t clicked in a while, letting the rest of Edge run more smoothly. However, Google says that new JavaScript code used to build Chrome makes the new version nearly a quarter faster than previously. Both companies have…

WATCH OUT FOR… Fake phone giveaways ‘from Currys’ What’s the threat? There’s been a surge in emails offering a Samsung Galaxy S21 phone as a reward for joining Currys PC World’s ‘Loyalty Program’. The emails look reasonably convincing, with the Currys PC World logo at the top, and a stylish photo of the S21 below (pictured, and at www.snipca.com/38456). The ‘Answer & Win’ headline is well designed also, while there’s no spelling or grammatical errors in the text: ‘You have been chosen to participate in our Loyalty Program for FREE! It will take you only a minute to receive this fantastic prize.’ If you click the ‘Get Started Now!’ button below, you’ll go to a genuine-looking site that asks for your personal and banking details. However, there is a clue…

Don’t forget local broadband providers In Issue 607’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’ (‘Will you get full-fibre broadband sooner than expected?’, pictured right), you don’t mention developments beyond the BT Openreach network. In recent months many other small and local companies have started building their own full-fibre networks. In the small town where I live, just south of Hull, every house is being networked by underground full-fibre cables installed by Kcom (the privatised company stemming originally from Hull Corporation telephones). Of course, only those who choose to change will actually be able to use the new connection. Moreover, Kcom isn’t the only supplier of competing fibre networks. Peter J Large Forcing people to use 2FA discriminates against the old I fully agree with the readers in Issue 607 who are concerned…

Are Tyl and Smartpay covered by Section 75? LEAD CASE Q In Issue 607, you explained how buyers lose Section 75 protection if they use PayPal to buy goods. You told us to bear this in mind when using other payment services such as Worldpay. But what about services such as NatWest’s Tyl (www.tylbynatwest.com, pictured) and Barclays’ Smartpay (www.snipca.com/38335)? George Dunston A George has touched on a grey and extremely tricky area of law when buying goods and services online, over the phone or from a catalogue. To recap, Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act makes the bank issuing a credit card “jointly and severally responsible for any breach of contract or misrepresentation by a retailer or trader”. So, if you’ve bought faulty goods with a credit card and…

Track down school admissions records School admission records provide useful information about our ancestors’ early lives. They can reveal their birth date (handy if you can’t track down a birth certificate) and the date when they began or ended their education at a particular school. They also reveal their father’s name and home address during that period. Records started to be kept in 1870, when the Government made provisions for a national education system. Ten years later, another act made school compulsory for all children aged five to 10. Even then, truancy was common – in the 1890s as many as 18 per cent of children never set foot in a school, so don’t be surprised if some ancestors don’t appear in these searches even if their area is covered…

What can I use to check for duplicate files? Q Can you recommend a tool that will tell me which files in specific folders on two separate drives are duplicates? Andrew Walker A The easiest tool to use is Auslogics Duplicate File Finder (DFF, www.snipca.com/38540) – just take care during installation to avoid sending data to Auslogics about how you use the program (untick the ‘Send anonymous info…’ box) and decline the offers to install other Auslogics tools. When you launch the program, use the drive and folder tree to specify which folders you want DFF to check for duplicates. Click the Next button at the bottom to continue through the installation process, changing settings such as the type of files you want to include in the search (narrowing it down helps…

It takes a lot to impress me, but I’ve been genuinely blown away by the NHS’s Covid vaccine rollout. It’s a truly awe-inspiring effort that’s made all the more impressive when you consider how many scammers have been attempting to take advantage of it. Take Teige Gallagher, for instance. This 21-year-old Londoner is the youthful mastermind behind a nationwide scam aiming to steal thousands of people’s financial details via bogus text messages claiming to be from the NHS. They linked to an equally fake website, designed to look like an official GOV.UK page, which asked victims to enter personal information and bank details so they could verify their eligibility for the vaccine. Thankfully, we won’t need a vaccine to protect us from Gallagher’s vile scams. He pleaded guilty to fraud…

What does it do? The processor is the brain of your device, performing all the complex calculations that let your computer, smartphone or tablet operate. You’ll also find processors in a range of other devices, from routers to televisions, but it’s in computers and mobile devices where the processor speed is most important, as it effects the performance of the device. How does it work? Processor clock speed is a measure of how many instructions can be performed per second, and is measured in hertz (Hz). Because modern processors can perform billions of these instructions, it’s common to see the speed as gigahertz (GHz). 4.6GHz is another way of writing 4,600,000,000Hz–which means 4.6 billion instructions a second. What are the specs? Intel’s latest 11th-generation processors vary in clock speed depending…

BLUETOOTH SPEAKER | £150 from Huawei www.snipca.com/38422 The Huawei Sound is ideal for providing a bigger sound to tracks on music-streaming apps such as Spotify. It needs to be plugged into the mains, so it isn’t suitable for taking with you on a day out. The speaker itself is 187mm tall, 147mm in diameter and weighs 2.2kg. The upper section of the speaker’s case is made of a highly reflective plastic, while the bottom section is wrapped in cloth. “Home-based speaker pumps up the volume” It has four buttons (pictured below right) that illuminate when your hand reaches to within a few centimetres. There’s a mute button (though you can also mute/unmute by covering the entire top panel with your hand), buttons for adjusting volume, and a multi-function button, which…

Winner of a Recommended award in Issue 598 (page 26), Lindy’s BNX-100XT headphones have advanced noise-cancelling technology for a superior listening experience. They have noise-detection microphones on the earpieces (Feedforward) and inside the speaker driver assembly (Feedback). This hybrid system lets the headphones suppress noise over a wider range of frequencies regardless of the direction of the sound. They’ve also been built to deliver superb quality hi-fi sound using advanced aptX technology, providing deep bass, perfect clarity and crystal clear-treble. Its brilliant Auto Pause feature turns off the audio when you remove the headphones, then resumes when you put them back on. Equally clever is Audio Pass-Through, which you can set to reduce playback volume when you need to hear something important, such as a train announcement. To enter this…

The speakers built into my Dell laptop are just about adequate for basic use (short video calls and the like), but lacking any bass and with a tendency to produce the occasional high-pitched squeal, they’re not great when listening to music or streaming video. I recently bought Logitech’s Z207 and although squeezing them on to my already cluttered desk wasn’t easy, they provide much more immersive audio. They’re also significantly louder than I expected. I have mine connected to both my laptop and Amazon Echo Dot smart speaker. As explained below, connecting both via Bluetooth would mean I’d hear audio from only one device at a time–so if I’m listening to the radio on my Echo Dot, I wouldn’t hear notifications (or any other audio) from my laptop. I’ve therefore…

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Add Chrome tips to its Help menu As a Chrome user, I was somewhat envious to read about the ‘What’s Next’ page (www.snipca.com/38033) that Microsoft has introduced for Edge (Issue 605, page 6). Where’s my equivalent for Chrome tips, I thought? I found that you could see something similar by typing chrome://flags/#chrome-tips-in-mainmenu into Chrome’s address bar (1 in screenshot), then pressing Enter and selecting Enabled in the dropdown menu next to the top result 2. This adds a link to www.google.com/chrome/tips to your Chrome menu. To see this, you’ll need to relaunch Chrome, then click the three vertical dots at the top right and select Help, followed by ‘Tips for Chrome’. I found loads of useful tweaks on the site. I…

ANDROID Check whether your device supports improved messaging In Issue 601 (page 69), we explained that Rich Communications Services (RCS) was a more up-to-date version of the SMS and MMS messaging technology offered by older phones. To recap briefly, RCS has a number of benefits over traditional messaging services, including the potential to add iMessage and WhatsApp-style features to Android’s messaging apps, such as Google Messages. It lets you send messages over any internet connection (not just mobile networks) and also send and receive texts that are longer than 160 characters. But we also mentioned that not all Android devices currently support RCS. Thankfully, there’s a quick way to find out whether yours does. You’ll need Google Messages installed for this so get it from Google Play Store (www.snipca.com/38421) if…

WINDOWS 8.1 & 10 Set different wallpapers for multiple monitors If you have more than one screen attached to your computer (such as an external monitor and your laptop’s built-in display), you can set a different background image for each. Right-click an empty section of the desktop on either screen, then select Personalise. If the wallpaper images you want to use aren’t displayed in the ‘Choose your picture’ section, click Browse to locate and add them. Next, right-click the image you want to display on your first screen then select ‘Set for monitor 1’. Repeat this process until you’ve added wallpaper to all your desktops. Alternatively, you can set a single image to stretch across all your desktops. First, click your chosen image from the list – this sets it…

Still typing documents using your keyboard? Why not dictate them instead? You’ll need a Microsoft 365 subscription to use the Dictate tool in the offline version of Word, but it’s also available in the online version at www.office.com (you’ll need just a free Microsoft account to use this). Whether you’re using the offline or online version, open anew document, then select the Home tab in the ribbon menu at the top and click Dictate. A small window will now appear at the bottom of your document with a red microphone icon indicating Word is listening. Start talking and Word will generate words as you speak. When you pause, Word will scan what it’s produced, then apply suitable edits (capitalisation and so on). You can add punctuation as you speak (such…

As success stories go, Amazon is hard to beat. What started out in 1998 as a simple online bookshop is now a multi-billion pound company that wants to sell you everything from Bluetooth headphones to baked beans. The company is showing no signs of slowing down, either. While the coronavirus pandemic was bad news for high-street shops, the various lockdowns and work-from-home orders saw Amazon’s global revenue last year soar to a record £272 billion, with a staggering 84 per cent increase in net profit (www.snipca.com/38367). Although we know from your emails that many of you – like us – use Amazon almost every day, the company’s rapid expansion has come at a cost. Its once-simple website is now a sprawling mess of menus, sub-menus and ads for sponsored items.…

Like a travelling circus of bargains, Amazon’s Treasure Truck (pictured) tours the UK to deliver what the company calls “awesome” goodies (discounted products to the rest of us) at free events. The pandemic put the brakes on the truck, but it is still offering special discounts through its website (www.snipca.com/38337) and the Amazon mobile app. You don’t need to be a Prime member and there’s an exclusive new deal every day – when we visited, there was a 22 per cent saving on a Corsair gaming mouse. There’s often limited stock, so you need to claim your bargain fast. When Treasure Truck is due back on the road later this year, you’ll be able to text TRUCK to 65018 to receive alerts about events in your area. Follow Treasure Truck…

Signing up for survey sites usually results in spam flooding your inbox and lots of time wasted answering dull questions for little reward. Run by the market-research company Ipsos, i-Say (https://social.i-say.com) is one of the better options and awards you points based on the length of the surveys you complete (usually about specific brands). The amount of points you get per survey varies, but is typically between 45 and 90 (each survey takes around 15 to 30 minutes to complete). Once you rack up 490 points, you can exchange them for a £5 Amazon voucher. You could also apply to become an Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) worker (www.snipca.com/38360). Complete ‘Human Intelligence Tasks’ in your spare time, such as web searches and image identification, and receive payment in Amazon credit directly…

If your TV signal occasionally breaks up, a device such as the One For All Signal Booster (£9.99 from www.snipca.com/38444, pictured) may help. Simply insert the cable from your aerial into the underside of the box, then attach the cable from your TV to the socket on the front (the booster box also needs to be plugged into a mains socket). Booster boxes can’t work miracles, however. If the campsite is in a weak-signal area, a booster will probably just amplify nearby interference, making the signal even worse. However, at under £10, it’s worth having one to hand just in case it can make a difference.…

Why won’t PDF24 work for me? Q I installed PDF24, from www.snipca.com/37711, following Will Stapley’s recommendation in Issue 603 (page 20). However, when I opened it, I found that it was impossible to choose or drop files for processing, which makes it useless. I even tried changing it to Windows 10’s default program for PDF files but this did not help. I am using Windows 10 Pro (20H2) on a PC with plenty of memory and storage. I raised this in PDF24’s help forum but have had no reply from the developer, though there was a reply from another user with the same problem. A Michael Clary We don’t know what the problem is here and, despite trying, we can’t replicate it. We’ve installed PDF24 on multiple computers over the years, and…

Since I received my second Covid jab, I’ve been a lot less worried about my health and more preoccupied with the sort of mundane matters that troubled me before the pandemic. Is it safe to drink milk that I opened four days ago? Are people legally allowed to ride electric scooters on the pavement? And, most importantly, is my laptop still working OK or is it about to conk out and take all my non-backed-up files with it? “Stop, you’re killing it!’ I panicked, before the fan settled down to a less alarming speed” I’ve had my trusty HP Pavilion for two-and-a-half years and it runs very smoothly, but my inner pessimist frequently reminds me that nothing lasts forever. With Windows software becoming increasingly resource-intensive, I fear that my system…