Table of contents for 684 in Computeractive

From the Editor

With the police cracking down on TV sticks that have been hacked to access programmes for free, you might think there are no legal ways to modify these devices to watch more than you thought you could. But that overlooks the joy of sideloading. This is a clever way of sneaking apps on to your sticks that are otherwise blocked. I know this sounds a little dodgy, but it’s entirely legal – as Robert Irvine reveals in his excellent Cover Feature. He also explains how to mirror channels on the sticks that don’t allow sideloading, and recommends the best VPNs to add to your devices, so you can watch anything anywhere. He even has a punt on a £50 Android TV box from Amazon. There are loads of these cheap…

1 min

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iPad Air comes in two screen sizes for first time

Apple has launched new versions of the iPad Air in different screen sizes for the first time. The models are the sixth generation of Apple’s cheapest tablet. There’s a revamped 11in version of the existing iPad Air, and a brand new 13in model. The biggest design change is that the front-facing ultra-wide 12-megapixel camera has been moved to the landscape edge of the tablet, which Apple says makes it “perfect for video calls”. They’re also the first iPad Airs to be powered by Apple’s M2 processor, which is 18 per cent faster than the M1 in the previous version of the tablet. Apple claims that when combined with speedier memory bandwidth, the new iPad Airs are nearly 50 per cent faster. The new 11in model starts at £599 for 128GB…

1 min

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Google blocked 2.28m risky apps in 2023

Google blocked 2.28 million risky and malicious Android apps from its Play Store last year, an increase from 1.5 million in 2022. It also blocked 333,000 accounts that offered apps containing malware or repeatedly broke its policy, and a further 200,000 that asked for unnecessary permissions from users, such as reading their text messages or accessing their location. Google claimed that investment in new tools to detect threats allowed it to spot more dodgy apps, as part of its ‘SAFE’ principles: Safeguard Users, Advocate for Developer Protection, Foster Responsible Innovation, Evolve Platform Defenses (see www.snipca.com/50361). It also uses a “more stringent” process for verifying the identity of app developers, and has started to indicate certain types of apps that have been independently verified as safe. VPN apps were the first…

1 min

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Have your details been stolen in huge Dell hack?

A favourite trick of scammers is to send emails warning you’ve been hacked and urging you to change your password immediately. You can confidently bin most of these, but you shouldn’t ignore one recent message which happens to be genuine. It comes from Dell and says that some of your personal information was stolen in a data breach. Dell does its best to downplay the leak. The email says it’s “currently investigating an incident involving a Dell portal, which contains a database with limited types of customer information related to purchases from Dell”. “We hope Dell will send emails to update customers, but telling them apart from scams will be difficult” Note the use of “limited”, designed to ease concerns. It adds that “there is not a significant risk to…

3 min

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Letters

Captchas are actually getting easier I was interested in Issue 683’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’ on why Captchas are getting harder. I’m not sure they are actually. I much prefer the visual-based puzzles that ask you to rotate an object than try to decipher squiggly words. It would often take me four or five attempts to decode these words, whereas moving an animated object with my mouse is easy. As an example, I was recently asked to move this animal so it was facing the same direction as the hand (pictured above right). Once you realise what you have to do, this is simpler than working out whether a distorted ‘S’ is actually a five. Chris Brookman Broadband providers deserve taste of their own medicine I’m pleased that Ofcom increased…

6 min

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Nokia replaces reader’s phone with upgraded model

When it’s difficult to prove that a fault is inherent, we often have to rely on the goodwill of the retailer or manufacturer. That’s what happened with Raymond Dalgleish’s case against Nokia, which we covered in Issue 680. It has agreed to replace his C01 Plus phone, which he bought in 2021 from Argos for £70, with the upgraded C22 (pictured), released last year and priced £120. Raymond got in touch with us when the phone stopped receiving texts containing PINs for multi-factor authentication (MFA). Nokia told us it couldn’t find a fault with the phone, adding that many models from all manufacturers occasionally have problems with MFA. It said the offer of a C22 was “exceptional and discretional”, and it represents a decent result because it had initially claimed…

1 min

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Best Free Software

SEARCH TOOL Listary 6.3 www.snipca.com/50390 What you need: Windows 10 or 11 The built-in Windows search tool is notoriously slow and unreliable, often failing to find files and pushing you to search the web instead. Listary provides a faster and more accurate alternative, which lets you find and open any file or program on your PC in seconds. Version 6.3 redesigns and improves Listary’s interface to make its searches even easier, speedier and more comprehensive. The biggest changes are to the File Search window, which you open by clicking Listary’s system-tray icon. Previously, when you searched for a file or folder, you could only view nine results at a time, out of a maximum of 50. The window has now been enlarged to show more results at a glance, which…

4 min

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Named & Shamed

SOFTWARE WARNING! Malwarebytes' ‘you’re at risk’ scare tactics If, like me, you’ve been hacked before, you often find yourself looking over your shoulder when surfing the web. I mean that both metaphorically and – when I’m using my laptop on the train – literally. I take all the necessary precautions, including two-factor authentication and use a password manager (1Password). But I’m still paranoid that my data is being sold somewhere on the dark web. So I was interested in a new tool from Malwarebytes that analyses your ‘digital footprint’ to see whether you’re at risk. I entered my email at www.snipca.com/50343 and Malwarebytes told me my passwords hadn’t been found, but that they ‘may still be exposed’ (1 in our screenshot above right). This was meaningless and vague, so I…

2 min

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Huawei MateBook D 16 2024

LAPTOP | £1000 from Huawei www.snipca.com/50311 Sponge flop We reviewed a Huawei MateBook D 16 back in Issue 639, but Huawei has revamped everything for this new version, including the case. What hasn’t changed is Huawei’s mission to make affordable laptops that run Windows well. The £1,000 model we’re testing here has an Intel Core i9-13900H processor, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. If that’s beyond your budget, there’s also a £499 model that comes with an older Core i5-12450H processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, but it won’t offer the same levels of performance. “Decent performance and stunning screen, but it’s not pleasant to type on” It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that the MateBook D’s 13th-generation mobile processors have been usurped by Intel’s latest Ultra…

3 min

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Contrast ratio

What is it? A screen’s contrast ratio is a measurement of how many times brighter its lightest white tone is than its darkest black. This is useful when watching scenes that are dimly lit, because a screen with high contrast can display very dark scenes while still maintaining definition. How does it work? The white light from a pixel is produced by turning its red, green and blue elements up to their brightest setting, which combine to make the screen’s brightest white light. Black is created by switching all the colours off. In the case of OLED screens (such as the one on the pictured Asus Vivobook S16 OLED, reviewed on page 22) it involves switching off the light in the pixel. Other types of screen can’t do this and…

1 min

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Epomaker x Aula F75

KEYBOARD | £80 from Amazon www.snipca.com/50289 True to type The x Aula F75 from Chinese manufacturer Epomaker is a mechanical keyboard that is fairly high quality, packed with features and reasonably priced. It’s excellent for both typing documents and playing games, comparing favourably with keyboards at twice the price. You can choose from four different colour schemes, but be aware that on Amazon the colours denote different switch types. We reviewed the light-blue F75 with Reaper switches, which proved excellent. The design is minimalist, though there are RGB lights on the keys that you can configure to your needs, as well as a volume-control knob. There’s a row of function keys along the top, but it does lack a number pad. The whole thing can be connected wired or wirelessly.…

1 min

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A tablet that only streams music?

What is it? The Motivo (www.snipca.com/50377, pictured), from Italian manufacturer Volumino, is a tablet dedicated to playing music from streaming services. What does it do? Although it looks like a tablet from the top, it’s much thicker at the rear. This is to accommodate its impressive range of connections, which let you hook it up to all manner of Hi-Fi devices, amplifiers and speakers, or simply plug in your wired headphones. It also has a physical dial, which is great for adjusting the volume. What’s the catch? It costs £1,499, which is a lot to pay for a tablet that only streams music, even if it does that job really well. So can I do without it? Yes. This has been designed for audiophiles who crave a tablet-style streaming interface…

1 min

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HOW TO… Hack your Fire tablet to install any app

What you need: Amazon Fire Tablet; Fire Toolbox Time required: 60 minutes We’re big fans of Amazon’s Fire tablets. They might not be the most powerful devices, but they are a great way to access Amazon content, browse the web, catch up on your email. They’re also excellent value for money. We found the cheapest Fire tablet – the Fire 7 – for £65 (www.snipca.com/50249, pictured above right), though we’ve seen it priced between £40 and £50 recently. For that you get 16GB of storage and ads on the home screen. You can double the capacity for an additional £10 and – if the ads annoy you – remove them for another £10. Refurbished Fire 7 tablets are even cheaper – around £39: www.snipca.com/50251. The most expensive model, which has…

9 min

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Browser Tips

EDGE Improve your writing style using Copilot Edge 124, released at the end of April, continues Microsoft’s integration of its Copilot AI tool with the browser, by adding the option to rewrite text. Previously, you needed to open the Copilot sidebar and either type (or copy and paste) the text you wanted the chatbot to rewrite. Now, you can access the feature directly from the email, social-media post, comment box or other online text you’re writing. Simply highlight the text you’ve written and either click the ‘Rewrite with Copilot’ button that appears or press Alt+I on your keyboard. Copilot will then generate a reworded version of the text, and suggest ‘Here is another way of writing this’ (1 in our screenshot below). If you’re not happy with its first attempt,…

5 min

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Make Office Better

LIBREOFFICE WRITER & MICROSOFT WORD Rotate text in documents Typing into a document normally means keeping your text fixed horizontally left to right. But you can use a text box to rotate your text for effect. In Microsoft Word, click Insert (1 in our screenshot below), followed by the Text Box button 2, then pick an option from the menu. In our example, we chose Simple Text Box. In LibreOffice Writer, click Insert then Text Box in the dropdown menu. Once you’ve typed your text, left-click and hold the rotation icon 3. Drag your mouse in a circle clockwise or anti-clockwise to rotate the box, then let go. MICROSOFT EXCEL ONLINE Export your file in CSV format Microsoft has updated the online version of Excel to let you export spreadsheets…

2 min

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WATCH ANYTHING ON YOUR TV STICK

With their affordable prices and compact designs, streaming sticks and boxes make excellent alternatives to smart TVs. They’re particularly handy for upgrading an old, ‘dumb’ TV set with the latest streaming services, and for taking your entertainment on holiday with you. In our ‘Don’t Buy a New TV’ Cover Feature in Issue 678 (get it from www.snipca.com/49970), we revealed a few tricks for improving your streaming device. These included disabling options that spy on you, freeing up storage and turning off auto-playing videos. But by digging deeper into your device’s settings, you can unlock extra apps, content and features that make your stick or box even better value. We don’t mean modifying your TV device to access paid-for services for free – an illegal practice the police and Federation Against…

22 min

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Problems Solved

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT How can I make TV subtitle file work? Q I wanted to watch a very old foreign-language movie that I couldn’t find on any of the main streaming services (or even any of the minor ones!). So, I found a way to download it from the web. I also downloaded an SRT file supposedly containing English subtitles. However, while the film plays fine off a USB stick inserted into the back of my Sony TV, the subtitles just appear as question marks. There are strings of strange symbols that do seem to appear ‘in time’ with the dialogue, so it feels like there’s just a missing font or something similar. How do I add fonts to…

16 min

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Easy when you Know How

Run Windows software on Android When Microsoft announced it was ditching the option to run Android apps in Windows 11, I wept for three days and considered retiring to a monastery. Not really, of course, I’d only tried the feature for the purpose of writing this column (see Issue 621, page 74), so instead I just ate some crisps and reminisced about the friars from the old KP adverts (www.snipca.com/50299). “Viewing software in Winlator was like squinting through the wrong end of a telescope” The concept of using Android apps on a PC was initially intriguing, but ultimately why bother? You can access services and games in your browser, without jumping through the hoops required to get mobile apps running on your PC, plus the selection offered by Microsoft –…

3 min

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Freely launches, but only has a handful of channels

New TV-streaming service Freely (www.freely.co.uk) has launched, but only channels from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, plus STV in Scotland and UTV in Northern Ireland, are currently included. The service, a collaboration between the UK’s main broadcasters, aims to bridge the gap between traditional TV through an aerial and streaming TV over the internet. It’s the first service that lets you stream live shows and on-demand content for free on a smart TV, removing the need for a dish or aerial. You can, however, connect it to both broadband and an aerial. Freely will combine shows from both into a single EPG (Electronic Programme Guide, pictured). It’s run by Everyone TV, which also manages Freeview and Freesat, and will eventually replace those two services. Everyone TV claims…

3 min

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IN BRIEF

RUSSIAN NAMED AS LOCKBIT HEAD HACKER UK police have named Russian citizen Dmitry Khoroshev (pictured) as the head of the LockBit ransomware group, which has launched over 7,000 attacks worldwide. The National Crime Agency said unmasking Khoroshev was part of an investigation with the FBI and other global partners. The UK, US and Australia have all sanctioned him. Read more at www.snipca.com/50378. NOKIA BRINGS BACK CLASSIC 2000s PHONE Finnish company HMD is releasing a modern version of the Nokia 3210 phone, which was popular in the early 2000s. Priced £74.99, it runs on 4G, and has a 2.4in colour screen, a two-megapixel camera and Bluetooth 5.0. It comes in three colours (pictured). Buy at www.snipca.com/50380. TOMORROW’S WORLD We knew Boston Dynamics’ robot dogs could walk, run and jump. Now they…

2 min

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UK bans device passwords that are easy to guess

The UK has become the first country to block manufacturers from using easy-to-guess passwords as the default on devices. Under the new Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure act, passwords such as ‘admin’ and ‘123456’ will be banned. It’s common for manufacturers to use these when making devices. Users can change them to something harder, but many don’t know how to, or even that they should. The law aims to improve the security of home devices that connect to the internet, including routers, baby monitors, TVs, video doorbells and voice-controlled speakers. These ‘smart’ devices are often called the ‘Internet of Things’. Hackers know that such devices often come with simple default passwords, making it easy for them to launch attacks that infiltrate home networks and steal personal information. As well as…

1 min

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Protect your tech

WATCH OUT FOR… Fake stamps being sold online What’s the threat? Websites are selling fake Royal Mail stamps made in China at “too good to be true” prices. An investigation from the Daily Telegraph found four Chinese companies offering to print up to one million counterfeit stamps a week. These are sold for as little as 4p each before being sent to the UK. Both consumers and small retailers are buying them without realising they’re fake. Royal Mail had been charging people who received letters with fake stamps a £5 fee, but has now waived this while it builds a scanner tool for its app that will let you check whether a stamp is genuine. During the pause, Royal Mail will add a sticker to envelopes that have a fake…

2 min

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Websites should show country of origin, but not high-street shops

Your feature on finding out where items are made before buying them was thought-provoking (Issue 683, page 62, pictured). I can understand the enthusiasm for new laws that force online stores to list the country of origin. But I’m worried that any law would also cover high-street shops, which would be a logistical nightmare for them. When you’re buying in a physical store, you can pick up an item and check where it was made. We don’t expect store owners to add flags on shelves to indicate this. You obviously can’t inspect items when buying online, so shoppers need more help. Country of origin should be shown as prominently as the price. Burying this information, as Amazon does on its Indian site, isn’t good enough. Much of your article focused…

1 min

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Silux Mobile helped me set up mobile broadband

I’d like to back up Alan Racheter’s recommendation of Silux Mobile (Issue 682, page 40), which he now uses for mobile broadband. When I saw its offer of £13.95 a month for two years, I wanted to double-check it was genuine. It seemed too good to be true. I phoned to ask, and they weren’t offended that I insinuated they might be a scam. The O2 router I selected arrived within 48 hours. I needed a little help setting it up, but they always answered the phone quickly to offer assistance. When I sent an email over the Easter weekend they replied within an hour of the next working day. From my conversations with them I get the impression they’re a smallish firm that prioritises customer service over the rush…

1 min

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SHOULD I PAY FOR…?

Ashampoo WinOptimizer www.snipca.com/50401 Price: £9.50 a year or £44 one-off purchase Free trial period: 30 days What you need: Windows 10 or 11 Ashampoo WinOptimizer is one of those all-in-one PC-tune-up suites that were all the rage 15 years ago. It’s certainly packed with features, but there are big differences between the free and standard editions. Ashampoo WinOptimizer Free takes having to pay to unlock premium features to ridiculous lengths. Far too many of its options are locked behind padlock symbols that prompt you to upgrade – even essential ones such as ‘Delete privacy traces’, ‘Manage system settings’ and ‘Check disks for errors’. Clicking these opens the ‘Buy now’ page on Ashampoo’s website, which quickly becomes very annoying. Thankfully, the free trial of the full program is completely unrestricted for…

1 min

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Yahoo Boys

This might sound like a youth club for kids with a passion for former tech giants, but it’s actually one of the world’s most technically advanced scam gangs. Based in Nigeria, it specialises in romance scams. Fraudsters contact victims on dating sites, then win their trust before tricking them into sending money – normally to help with an invented “crisis”. Its tactics have evolved recently to use face-swapping software, which adds a digital ‘mask’ over the scammer’s face, letting them impersonate facial expressions. It can even change the scammer’s skin colour. The name dates from the 2000s, when Yahoo Mail was popular in Nigeria. It was used by the infamous ‘419 scammers’, who bombarded strangers with emails promising riches for a small advance fee. Such crude tactics seem almost quaint…

1 min

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Acer Vero B7 B277E

PC MONITOR | £180 from Acer www.snipca.com/50262 World of ports We realise that not everyone has hundreds of pounds to splash out on a good-quality monitor, which is one reason our current (and long-time) favourite is the £120 Iiyama ProLite XU2492HSU-B2 (www.snipca.com/49491, reviewed in Issue 618). It has a fairly limiting 24in screen, however, so if you want more room to work without spending a small fortune, the Acer Vero B7 B277E will definitely appeal. “Less sharp than our favourite monitor, but has lots of ports, good speakers and handy controls” There will always be compromises when spending relatively little on a larger screen. Both monitors have the same Full HD 1920x1080-pixel resolution, but to stretch the same number of pixels across a larger expanse Acer has had to make…

3 min

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Anker 675 USB-C Docking Station

DOCKING STATION | £250 from Amazon www.snipca.com/50323 Get yourself connected The Anker 675 USB-C Docking Station is a true jack-of-all-trades solution that lets you plug in peripherals, charge your devices, raise your monitor to a more comfortable height and keep your desk tidy. It’s suitable for both laptops and desktop PC monitors, and while it might seem like an expensive way of adding a few ports to your computer, the clever design and thoughtful extra features make it worth it. “A sturdy stand for your PC that expands your connections and keeps your desk tidy” With dimensions of 90x540x220mm (HxWxD), the shelf doesn’t have a huge footprint and is made from rigid aluminium supported by two sturdy plastic legs. By raising your monitor off the desk it provides room for…

2 min

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Nothing Ear (a)

EARBUDS | £80 from Nothing www.snipca.com/50286 Makes all the right noises While the UK smartphone manufacturer Nothing may have an awkward brand name, there’s certainly nothing wrong with its Ear (a) earbuds. For a very reasonable price you get noise-cancelling buds that are among the best-quality we’ve tested recently, giving Sony’s market-leading WF-C700N earbuds (£89 from www.snipca.com/48438, reviewed in Issue 673) a good run for their money. If anything, Nothing’s active noise cancellation (ANC)is slightly more robust, while the audio output is every bit as energetic, detailed and vivid. Battery life is also impressive (42 hours with case without ANC; 24.5 hours with ANC). In our tests, the Ear (a) also scored highly for audio quality, clarity of calls, comfort in the ear, app usability and the responsiveness of its…

1 min

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Buy It

LAPTOP Dell Inspiron 14 Plus £899 from www.snipca.com/50079 Tested Issue 683 Has the same processor (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H) as our previous favourite (Acer Swift Go 4), but manages to squeeze more speed out of it. Has 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and a 14in 2240x1400-pixel screen. Excellent value overall. ALTERNATIVE Acer Swift Go 14 Still a fast and powerful laptop, with a great 14in screen. £899 from www.snipca.com/49733 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 £799 from www.snipca.com/50039 Tested Issue 667 With a much brighter screen than our previous favourite – the Galaxy Tab S8 – this is perfect for watching TV. It also has a faster processor, so tasks feel smoother, even with several windows open. £799 will get you the 128GB version. If you want 256GB you’ll need to…

5 min

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Sharpen old photos and fix imperfections

What you need: Handy Viewer Time required: 30 minutes Photos are among the most precious files any of us own. But unfortunately, physical photos degrade over time. And even if the colours haven’t faded through the years, the original images are rarely as sharp or detailed as those we’ve become used to in the digital age. You can enhance old photos using the excellent free image editor Handy Viewer (www.handyviewer.com), which was updated to version 2.0 earlier this year. It’s easy to use and packed with tools that can rebalance your photos’ colours, remove imperfections and sharpen up soft details. STEP 1 The key to effectively editing pictures is not to make small changes, see how they look, and only then make more tweaks if needed. Essentially, you want to…

3 min

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Phone and Tablet Tips

ANDROID & iOS View 3D buildings in Google Maps navigation mode Google Maps has long offered the option to view 3D renderings of buildings, which is useful for identifying where you are in unfamiliar areas. Tap the Layers button in the top-right corner of a map, select 3D under ‘Map details’ then zoom in to see 3D versions of certain buildings. Google has now added 3D buildings to the navigation mode in Maps, so you can see them when you’re travelling from one location to another. The new feature is also available to drivers who use Android Auto or Apple CarPlay in their cars. To activate 3D buildings, tap your profile picture in the top-right corner of the Google Maps app and select Settings. Tap ‘Navigation settings’ (just called Navigation…

6 min

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In The Club

Transcribe meetings using AI The rise of AI has helped with one of the most arduous chores of any meeting: producing an accurate transcript. In Issue 655, we explained how to do this using Otter (https://otter.ai), but you may be put off by its 30-minute limit for free users. By contrast, Fireflies doesn’t have any time limits, and lets you save up to 800 minutes of meetings. It also offers unlimited transcriptions when you use it in a certain way, as we’ll explain. Its paid-for tiers (https://fireflies.ai/pricing) give more storage and have features like recording videos, but the free version should be enough for most clubs. Set up your free account You’ll need to sign up for Fireflies with your Google or Microsoft account. This lets you set it to…

3 min

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CATCH BURGLARS WITH SPY-CAMS

Burglars don’t like to smile for the camera. Surveys suggest that most will avoid homes with CCTV installed outside. But many still take the risk because they’re confident of disabling cameras, or avoiding them. However, they won’t be able to do this if they can’t even see where the cameras are. The easiest devices to hide are so-called spy-cams. They can be as small as a credit card, or disguised as other home equipment such as a smoke detector, TV remote control or even an air freshener. You’ll need a device with a wide field of view so you can see as much of your target area as possible. It also needs to be high resolution, though there’s a balance to be struck. You don’t want the bother and expense…

6 min

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Reader Support

Is WinX DVDRipper really free? Q I was excited to read about WinX DVDRipper (www.snipca.com/50228) in Issue 671’s Problems Solved (page 69), but you didn’t mention that the “free download” is only a trial version limited to five minutes. Is that right? John Perkins A Yes, the free version has the time limit you mention and places a watermark on ripped movies. To remove these, you need to pay an annual subscription (around £32 a year) for DVDRipper Platinum Edition. We should have made this clear, so we apologise for any confusion. For a truly free alternative, try MakeMKV (www.makemkv.com). It rips DVDs and Blu-ray discs to MKV files, stripping out any region coding as it does. Movie files in this format should play back in most media players, including…

3 min

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Sign into your Microsoft accounts using passkeys

Microsoft has added passkey support to its ‘consumer’ accounts, letting you sign in without having to remember passwords. It means you can log into Office, OneDrive, Outlook, Skype, Windows and Xbox using your face, fingerprint, a security key like YubiKey or a code sent to your phone (see screenshot). Support for Microsoft phone and tablet apps will be added in the next few weeks. Microsoft had already added passkey support to Windows for logging into websites and software. It announced the news to mark World Password Day on 2 May, saying it’s part of the company’s ambition to establish “a world free of passwords”. Microsoft said attempts to steal passwords have risen from 115 every second in 2015 to more than 4,000 – a rise of over 3,370 per cent.…

1 min

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Netflix scraps Basic tier, so you’ll pay more to avoid ads

Netflix will scrap its Basic tier in the UK on 4 June, forcing viewers to pay more to watch without adverts. Priced £7.99 a month, it’s currently the cheapest for watching programmes without adverts. Netflix stopped new customers signing up to Basic last year, but continued to offer it for existing subscribers. It has now emailed customers to confirm that it will disappear for good soon. Sky and Virgin Media have already axed the Basic tier from their TV packages. Basic subscribers will be automatically moved to the ‘Standard with adverts’ package, which costs £4.99 a month (pictured). This launched in 2022 and includes adverts before, during and after shows, though Netflix says they are placed “during natural plot breaks for a more seamless experience” (see www.snipca.com/50357). There are no…

1 min

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Broadband cable thefts fall thanks to DNA markers

Broadband cable theft fell by more than a third last year thanks largely to Openreach using an invisible ‘DNA marker’ that links criminals to crime scenes. Engineers coated miles of underground cables with an ultraviolet marker (pictured) that uses synthetic DNA particles to create a unique code. Police use the code to locate where cables were taken from. The DNA transfers to hands and clothing, helping police identify suspects. It’s made by Kent firm SelectaDNA, which also makes DNA markers for people to protect their devices at home - see www.snipca.com/50334. Openreach hopes this will continue to act as a deterrent, following a rise in cable thefts before 2023. Criminal gangs had been attracted by the high price of copper after the Covid lockdowns. DNA markers were recently used to…

1 min

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ScamWatch

‘Not used KCOM account’ As a Hull resident I have little choice but to use KCOM for broadband. I don’t normally receive scam emails relating to the company, but in the past month I’ve had several. They all claim I’ve not used my account for weeks, which is nonsense because I spend many hours online every day, on lots of devices at home. Local forums have warned about it. One person who got scammed said that when you click the link in the email you’re asked to submit your personal details. It’s obviously a scam, but it may catch out many KCOM customers because they’re not used to emails impersonating the company. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

1 min

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Consumeractive

Am I liable for a laptop lost by Royal Mail? Q In March, I bought a laptop from Studio (www.studio.co.uk), priced £119.99. When it arrived I decided it wasn’t right for me, and Studio said I could return it as long as I didn’t open it. I returned the laptop by first-class post, but Studio says it never received it and is refusing to refund me. Royal Mail is only covering me for £20. Is this my fault? Surely the blame lies with Royal Mail or Studio? Francis McDermott A We’re afraid that the responsibility lies with Francis to guarantee that the laptop is safely returned to Studio. He returned it not because it was faulty or not as described, but because he had changed his mind about the purchase.…

4 min

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Grow Your Family Tree

Search Crown Dependencies records The UK has three Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey in the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. These are self-governing possessions of the British Crown, and their genealogical records are often distinct and kept separately from those of the mainland. Both Ancestry and Findmypast have census records for the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man from 1841 to 1911. On Ancestry, you’ll find the records in the site’s Card Catalogue: www.snipca.com/50234. On Findmypast, they’re part of the main England and Wales census results (www.snipca.com/50236). Findmypast also has the 1921 census (www.snipca.com/50235). Find digital copies of Jersey documents There are several other online records for Jersey. Start at www.jerripedia.org, where you’ll find details of baptisms, marriages and burials from the registers of…

3 min

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What should I download?

Should I switch from Clean Master? Q I’ve used Clean Master (www.snipca.com/50117) for several years after seeing it recommended in Computeractive. In March, the professional version stopped working. It encouraged me to buy another version, so I tried that and my payment appeared to go through. But I didn’t receive a code, and my emails to the company have gone unanswered. Are you aware of Clean Master being unreliable or hacked? Or is there a better alternative? Sylvia Nicholls A There’s no need to pay for system-optimisation software. You can get all the clean-up tools you need for free with Wintoys (www.snipca.com/50209). Once you open it, it shows a summary of your system – key hardware information plus details of installed software, running processes and more. The ‘Apps’ section lets…

3 min

Computeractive|684

Asus Vivobook S 16 OLED

LAPTOP | £1,200 from Asus www.snipca.com/50230 Sweet sixteen Our current favourite laptop, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (£899 from Dell at www.snipca.com/50079, reviewed in Issue 683), has an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor and a 14in screen. If you want to ‘upsize’ your screen you’ll need to pay a bit more – and the Vivobook S 16 OLED would be a good choice. It has the same 16-core processor, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, but offers a larger 16in OLED screen. “It’s solidly built, runs well and has an impressive screen” Paying £300 more, you get a sturdier chassis made entirely from metal. There’s a slight flex to the lid if you put a lot of pressure on it, but its otherwise solid. It’s larger overall than…

2 min

Computeractive|684

Brother HL-L8240CDW

PRINTER | £247 from Printerland www.snipca.com/50350 LED by example If you do a lot of colour printing that doesn’t involve photos, then a colour laser printer such as Brother’s HL-L8240CDW is certainly worth considering. It may seem expensive next to cheaper inkjet models, but compares favourably with ink-tank printers, such as our current favourite, the Epson EcoTank ET-2830 (£220 from www.snipca.com/50202, reviewed in Issue 676, see page 33). “Great-value colour prints at speed, but photos are flat” It’s a colour LED printer, meaning it uses a static array of LEDs rather than a moving laser to guide toner particles on to its drums, but otherwise it looks and behaves much like many colour laser printers, with its square, box-like design. At 16.8kg it feels very heavy and robust. It can…

2 min

Computeractive|684

Which printer handles A5 and C5 stationery?

Q Can you recommend a laser printer that can handle A5 stationery and C5 envelopes? My old HP printer could, but my current Brother HL-11110 model can’t. John Lindley A The problem with the Brother HL-11110 is that it doesn’t have a second tray for inputting thicker material such as envelopes. That’s probably because it’s the cheapest laser printer in Brother’s range, which also means it may not have all the features that you enjoyed on your previous HP model. Assuming that you moved from HP to Brother for other reasons, we’ll stick with the company for our recommendation. The next model up in the range – the HL-L2400DWE (pictured) – has a second tray that can handle thicker paper types and envelopes. It’s available from Argos for £130 at…

1 min

Computeractive|684

Samsung Galaxy XCover 7

PHONE | £289 from Amazon www.snipca.com/50373 Tough call Smartphones can be so expensive and yet so easy to break you might occasionally think twice about taking yours with you when you’re out and about. The Samsung Galaxy XCover 7 should allay such fears because it’s designed to withstand the odd knock or fall, and can survive a downpour and dust. That said, unlike many toughened models the XCover looks similar to most standard phones. Its slick and practical design doesn’t scream ‘phone for outdoor survivalist’. It does, however, make it easy to hold and all the buttons are where you might expect them to be. It has a 3.5mm audio jack at the top, and its flat underside with a textured pattern means the phone won’t easily slide out of…

2 min

Computeractive|684

Win 1 of 4 OneOdio A10 headphones

Winner of a Recommended award in Issue 680, OneOdio A10 headphones use advanced Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation to counter external sound. Dual noise-detecting microphones pick up and filter out up to 95 per cent of low and mid-range frequency external noises, preventing your music, podcasts and audiobooks from being ruined by the outside world. Its custom 40mm large-aperture drivers offer clear, natural and balanced audio quality. Compared with CD quality, Hi-Res audio brings punchier bass, richer details and wider dynamics. The sound is closer to the original detail, which can bring you an immersive experience and a fantastic musical journey. Turn on Transparency (Ambient Sound) Mode to lower music and amplify speech through microphones, making it easy to communicate with people without having to remove your headphones. The Premium Li-ion…

1 min

Computeractive|684

Readers’ Tips

Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Remove options from Files’ right-click menu The Files app (www.snipca.com/50045) has added some excellent new features in its update to version 3.3 (see Issue 682, page 19). It’s now an even better replacement for File Explorer in Windows. I learn new tricks every time I use it, including the option to remove everything you don’t need when you right-click a file. Files has a lot of options enabled by default when you right-click. To see them, click the top-right Cog icon followed by ‘Context-menu options’. There are probably more than you need. I clicked the sliders to turn off options like ‘Show option to copy path’ and ‘Show compression options’. The only actions I kept were to open folders in a…

6 min

Computeractive|684

Make Windows Better

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Install apps faster from the Microsoft Store Microsoft now lets you directly download the executable (EXE) files for apps in its store. This means you don’t have to click Install, then wait for your browser to open the Microsoft Store before clicking Install again. It’s a quicker way of installing apps from the Store to your computer. We downloaded the EXE file for Netflix as an example. First, on the app’s page (www.snipca.com/50312), we clicked Download (1 in our screenshot above). Next we clicked the pop-up that appeared just below the downloads tray at the top, followed by ‘Download unverified file’ 2. This is a security check that Chrome (and other Chromium browsers) run to make sure you’re not downloading a virus. The Microsoft Store is…

2 min

Computeractive|684

Browser tabs

What are they? Those little boxes that appear above your browser’s address bar, each containing a different web page. You can open one by clicking the plus (+) icon or pressing the Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut. They help you hop between web pages without having several browser windows open. But then you probably knew that because you most likely use them every time you browse online. However, we’re guessing that you’ve never had more than 7,000 open at one time. You guessed correctly. Surely that would be impossible? No, it’s entirely possible, as one Firefox user recently proved. Hazel, a software developer, had 7,470 tabs open on the browser. Wow. Why did she have so many? She told the website PCMag it’s “like a trip down memory lane”. Having “clusters of…

3 min

Computeractive|684

STOP USING GOOGLE MAPS

WHY YOU SHOULD DITCH GOOGLE MAPS Its maps are cluttered with pins and ads One of the best things about Google Maps is the ability to zoom in to see the names of shops, restaurants and other amenities, so you know what’s available in an area before you get there. However, in the last few years its maps have become overly cluttered with coloured pins and markers. For example, there are pink pins for hotels, orange ones for bars and eateries, light-blue markers for cultural venues and dark blue ones for shops. Some pins also have photos or logos (see screenshot below), or are square with a dot in the middle, which indicates that they’re ads for businesses who have paid to be included on the map. Individually, these markers…

6 min

Computeractive|684

Jargon Buster

1080p High-definition video: 1920x1080 pixels. 2K A screen with 2048x1080 pixels. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 720p A common resolution of high-definition video: 1280x720 pixels. 8K Video with a resolution of 7680x4320 pixels. Currently the highest resolution available. Active noise cancelling Method for reducing unwanted sound by adding a second sound specifically designed to cancel the first. AI Artificial intelligence. Intelligence demonstrated by a machine rather than a human being. APK Android Package Kit. The file format Android uses to install apps. Bandwidth A measure of how much data can be transferred through a connection at one time. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are…

6 min