GET ONLINE ACCESS WHY WE SWITCHED

WHEREVER YOU ARE FROM LASTPASS FREE

ONLINE
This was the final straw p21
Set up a portable Wi-Fi router p35
ST 2023
ISSUE 663 [ 2 – 15 AUGU

STORAGE
Learn ALL the
tricks to get
every issue
OVER 100GB!
Learn something new in
s – p11 p62
Beware these Facecrook

Reverse the 10 worst changes Microsoft

has made – and improve Windows instantly!
1. Restore the Start menu
2. Uninstall Edge permanently
3. Improve the taskbar
4. Bring back desktop gadgets
5. Resurrect Movie Maker
Every Windows setting you must change NOW!
6. Add right-click options
7. Take better screenshots
8. Disable OneDrive for good
9. Update Media Player
10. Get rid of Bing Chat
p50

PLUS
ADD BBC iPLAYER TO KEEP BLOCKING ADVERTS p60
YOUR TV REMOTE p74 Don’t let sites disable your ad-blocker
WELCOME
EDITORIAL
Group Editor in Chief Graham Barlow
Group Editor Daniel Booth
From the Editor
Deputy Editor Robert Irvine
Production Editor Graham Brown Sometimes Microsoft needs a bit of tough Robert explains all these, then reveals
Art Editor Katie Peat
Contributors Keumars Afifi-Sabet, Judith Batchelor, Dinah
love. We’ll always offer praise when it ways to enhance Windows tools that
Greek, Jonathan Parkyn, Nik Rawlinson, Andy Shaw improves Windows, but it also needs to be Microsoft has neglected. He ends by urging
ADVERTISING
told the mistakes it has made. And there you to tweak settings that boost your privacy
Advertising Manager Alexandra Thomas have been plenty of them over the years, as and security – and disable adverts too.
MARKETING AND CIRCULATION
Robert Irvine recalls in his Cover Feature. Along the way he even shows how you
Subscriptions Juber Ahmed But for every error, there’s a clever fix can bring Clippy back to your desktop,
For subscription enquiries ring 0330 333 9493
that reverses it. Sometimes it means should you want to relive the days when
PRODUCTION downloading software from developers Microsoft thought you wanted to be
Head of Production
Stephen Catherall
happy to clear up Microsoft’s mess. Other pestered by animated stationery. I’m happy
Senior Production Manager solutions involve running batch scripts, to leave it rusting in the bin.
Lawrence Brookes
editing the registry, or diving deep into Daniel Booth
INTERNATIONAL LICENSING AND SYNDICATION your hard drive to click forgotten files. editor@computeractive.co.uk
Computeractive is available for licensing and syndication.
To find out more contact us at licensing@futurenet.com or
view our available content at www.futurecontenthub.com.
Head of Print Licensing p21
Rachel Shaw

ONWARD RESALE
This publication may not be resold or otherwise
distributed, whether at, below or above face value. Nor p35
can this publication be advertised for sale, transfer or
distribution.

PERMISSIONS p62
Material may not be reproduced in any form without the
written consent of the publisher. Please address such
requests to editor@computeractive.co.uk.

LIABILITY
While every care was taken preparing this magazine, the
publishers cannot be held responsible for the accuracy
of the information or any consequence arising from
it. All judgments are based on equipment available to
Computeractive at the time of review. Computeractive
takes no responsibility for the content of external websites
p50
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were reported to in Microsoft’s new type them into your browser address
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Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 3

 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

6 News New File Explorer shows if files are Roam free?

local or online
p10
10 Question of the Fortnight How can you
avoid a huge roaming bill this summer?

11 Protect Your Tech

Facebook buyers using fake bank apps

12 Letters I’ll stop watching YouTube if it

shows too many ads

14 Consumeractive
Can HP refuse refund for PC it can’t repair?

16 Grow Your Family Tree

Join a Facebook genealogy group

18 Best Free Software

Thunderbird 115 GMKtec NucBox K1
21 Named & Shamed
p22
LastPass’s endless panic-inducing blunders

Reviews
22 GMKtec NucBox K1
Dynamic mini PC means no Windows pain

23 MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo

Summit two-in-one is peak performer

24 Google Pixel Tablet

Tablet/smart speaker is put in the dock

25 Asus Zenfone 10
Mini phone makes big impression Google Pixel Tablet

26 Netac ZX20 1TB p24

Portable SSD may not survive the trip

28 Sony WH-CH720N
Headphones for the ear and now
WiZ Smart Plug
Smart plug goes back to basics

29 Canon PowerShot V10

Video camera takes its best shot

30 Buy It/Competition Win a C3TN Colour

night-vision security camera

4 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

 Subscribe now!
See page 58 for our special subs offer
FRE
GIFTE
!

Workshops & Tips Cast your net wide

p35
35 How to… Use a portable router to
get online anywhere

38 Check your PC’s health and

fix problems quickly

40 Readers’ Tips Skim through

magazines in Google Books

42 Browser Tips Control the type of ads

you see on websites

44 Phone and Tablet Tips Chat to

people who aren’t contacts in WhatsApp

46 Make Windows Better

Perform more tasks using your voice
CO
47 Make Office Better FEATVER

MAKE
Allow your images to overlap UR
P50 E
48 In the Club
Use AI to create free images

49 What’s All the Fuss About?

Aptos
WINDOWS
50 COVER FEATURE
Make Windows great again
Microsoft has made some big mistakes
GREAT AGAIN!
with Windows 10 and 11 – here we highlight Reverse the 10 worst changes Microsoft has
some of the worst and what you can do to made – and improve Windows instantly!
overcome them

60 Keep your ad blocker working

How to stop websites that force you to turn p60
off your advert-blocking tools

62 Store your files online for free

Beat the rising cost of online storage and
keep your files in the cloud without paying

64 Problems Solved Can I transfer recording

from an old digital voice recorder?

71 Reader Support
Can I set up a virtual PC with just 4GB RAM?
KEEP YOUR
72 Jargon Buster AD BLOCKER
74 Easy When You Know How
Robert Irvine adds iPlayer to his TV’s remote
WORKING
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 5
 News The top stories in the world of technology

New File Explorer shows

if files are local or online
M
icrosoft is working
on a “modernised”
search bar in
Windows 11’s File Explorer
that shows which files and
folders are saved on your
computer, and which are
saved online in OneDrive.
The new search arrived on
WHAT WE THINK
As more people store files
online (despite rising prices –
see page 62), we’re pleased
that File Explorer will start
to distinguish these from
what’s saved on your PC, and
show more info about your
OneDrive account. These are
useful additions, not the kind
of gimmicks or clutter we
criticise in our Cover Feature.
And with every new tool, the
gap between Windows 10
and 11 widens. The former
still works well and is safe
to use, but the latter has
now evolved into a superior
operating system.
21 July in Build 22631.2050,
a preview version of the
operating system available
only to Windows Insiders.
On its blog (www.snipca.
com/46964) Microsoft
published a screenshot (right)
showing ticks to represent
files stored on your computer
(or ‘locally’)that have been
synced online, and cloud icons
for files stored on One Drive 1 .
There’s a new address bar too,
with a menu showing whether
your OneDrive files are being
synced 2 , and how much of
your storage you’ve
used 3 .
Microsoft has
also added a new
details pane, 1 been shared online
which is the
panel that appears
on the right when
you press the
keyboard shortcut
ALT+Shift+P in
File Explorer. 2 access related
Currently, if
you select a
document
1
2
3
and press this shortcut, you’ll collaborate without even
see information including its opening a file”.
title, size and when it was last Build 22631.2050 also
edited and saved. reinforces Microsoft’s
The new details emphasis on passkeys, which
pane shows whether are methods of logging into
the document has accounts without using
passwords. It now lets users
( 1 in our screenshot sign into any website or
left) and whether service that supports passkeys
anyone has added using Windows Hello, which
comments to it 2 . recognises your face,
Microsoft says this fingerprint or PIN. Microsoft
will “help you easily has repeatedly predicted in
the past few years that the
content, stay up to future will be “passwordless”.
date with file
activity, and
• Reverse Microsoft’s 10 worst
Windows mistakes – page 50

NEW-LOOK OUTLOOK APP TO REPLACE MAIL AND CALENDAR

A new-look Outlook app is coming to
Windows 11, Microsoft has confirmed,
replacing the Mail and Calendar apps.
Called ‘Outlook for Windows’ (pictured),
it lets you synchronise your work and
personal emails, calendars and contacts
“in one secure place”.
It’s available now in Build 23506,
which was released to Windows Insiders
on 19 July (see www.snipca.com/46953).
Microsoft will start moving users to the
new app in August, though there will be
a temporary option to go back to the
current apps.
Microsoft announced the tool in 2022,
claiming it was a “modern and simplified”
way to access your emails on Windows 11.
At the time it said that the tool would be
pre-installed on all Windows 11 computers
from early 2024 as the default email
program. It added that the separate Mail
and Calendar apps will remain available to
download from the Microsoft Store until
the end of 2024.

You’ll like this… but not this…

The Plexamp audio app is now free for all Scammers are offering free ‘phone
(www.snipca.com/46958) giveaways’ (www.snipca.com/46955)

6 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

Apple threatens to axe apps in
UK over new encryption laws
A pple has said that it
would rather close apps
such as FaceTime and
iMessage in the UK than
comply with “deeply
troubling” laws allowing the
Government to access
messages sent by users.
Under the existing
Investigatory Powers Act
– called the ‘Snoopers’
Charter’ by critics – the Home
Secretary can issue Technical
Capability Notices ordering
messaging services to break
end-to-end encryption (E2EE)
when it might aid terrorism
investigations. These orders
are made in secret, and it’s
unknown whether any have
been issued to date.
Apple’s messaging apps use
end-to-end encryption, which
means messages can’t be
accessed by third parties once
they’ve been sent.
Tech companies say E2EE is
vital to preserve the privacy of
users, but security services
have criticised it because it
Emergency phone alerts could
happen every two years
Y our phone could receive
emergency alerts from the
Government every two years
to test they work, a senior
official has said.
Roger Hargreaves, director
of Cobra, the Government’s
emergencies committee, said
technical issues from the test
conducted on 23 April have
been fixed, meaning the
system was ready for wider
use.
The alert, which is part
of a new national system to
warn the public about
emergencies such as natural
disasters and terrorist attacks,
included a short message
(pictured) and was
accompanied by a loud
makes it more
difficult to
intercept
messages sent
by criminals.
Apple called
the law a
“backdoor” into
its messaging
apps, and said
being ordered to
break encryption
would force it
to “publicly
withdraw critical security
features from the UK market,
depriving UK users of these
protections”.
It made the comments
in a consultation with the
Home Office over the
Government’s plan to change
the Investigatory Powers Act.
Ministers want to
strengthen the law to force
tech giants to reveal changes
they are planning to make to
messaging apps.
They also want to force
companies to comply with
10-second noise and vibration.
An estimated 60 million
devices received the alert,
reaching around 93 per cent
of compatible devices in the
UK. However, five million
people on the Three mobile
network didn’t receive it.
Mr Hargreaves told MPs
on the Commons Public
Administration and
Constitutional Affairs
Committee that Three
“understood immediately that
it had not worked and were
hugely cooperative with us”.
He added that the network
needs to carry out more tests,
but it has done the necessary
work to ensure future tests
reach more phones.
orders to break encryption
before seeking approval from
a judge. Under current law,
companies can refuse to
follow Government orders
while it appeals.
Apple said the legislation
would “create serious
conflicts” with EU and US law
and put a “worldwide gag
order” on messaging apps.
A Government spokesman
said “investigatory powers are
an essential tool for protecting
our citizens”, but that no
decision has been made about
changing the law.
He also explained that the
UK had fallen behind other
countries who already used
similar emergency alert
systems “because no one was
willing to pay for it”.
“I think there’s a case for
doing it every two years but
we haven’t got a ministerial
decision on that,” he said.
Do you want to receive a test
alert every two years? Let us
know: letters@computeractive.co.uk
IN BRIEF
SHARP & ROKU TEAM UP
FOR ‘AFFORDABLE’ TVs
Sharp and Roku have
teamed up to launch a range
of “affordable” smart TVs
(pictured). Prices range from
£150 for a 24in screen to
£450 for 65in. They come
with HDR10, Dolby Vision
and several apps, including
Amazon Prime Video, Netflix
and YouTube. They also
have a Freeview tuner for
watching terrestrial TV and
Freeview Play, so you can
watch catch-up services such
as BBC iPlayer and ITVX.
For details visit www.snipca.
com/46952.
UPDATE NVIDIA GRAPHICS
FOR DISPLAYPORT
Nvidia has released a Graphics
Firmware Update Tool for
older video cards so they can
use the latest DisplayPort
1.3 and 1.4 technology. It
said that without the update
computers connected to
DisplayPort 1.3/1.4 monitors
could suffer blank screens
or delays after starting up.
For details and to download
the update visit www.snipca.
com/46941.
TOMORROW’S
WORLD
Google is building an AI
tool to help journalists
write headlines and stories,
but insists it won’t replace
writers (see www.snipca.
com/46940). Instead it
claims the tool will boost
“work and productivity” in
newsrooms. We’ll reserve
judgement, but for now
you can trust that this issue
of Computeractive wasn’t
written by robots… bleep,
error, shutdown.
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 7
 News
IN BRIEF
NEW LOCATIONS FOR
COPPER SWITCHOFF
Openreach has named the
next 15 areas that will be
moved away from copper-
based phone lines to digital.
They include exchanges in
Accrington, Batley, Leeds,
Wolverhampton and
Wellingborough. For the
full list, visit www.snipca.
com/46912 and click the
green ‘here’ link below the
table. This will download a
spreadsheet of all exchanges
announced since 2019. Scroll
down to the latest additions –
from row 850 to 864.
GET ‘LOWCOST’ PHONE
DATA FROM EASYSIM
The ‘easy’ group of
companies has launched
easySim, selling eSIMs that
offer “low-cost mobile data”
for when you’re travelling
abroad. Packages start at
£3.50 for 1GB for seven
days, though prices vary
between countries. To check
if easySim works with your
phone, visit www.easysim.
global and look under the
‘Is my smart device eSIM
compatible?’ heading.
THE WORLD’S
GONE MAD!
This 4GB
edition of the
first iPhone
cost around
£450 in
2007. At
auction last
month a
sealed, boxed model sold
for $190,372 (£147,780).
That’s not due to inflation,
but the fact that 4GB iPhones
are extremely rare because
they were discontinued after
only two months. Time to
check your drawers for any
unopened devices.
8 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
Netflix axes its cheapest
advert-free package
N etflix has removed its
£6.99 Basic package for
new customers, forcing them
to choose the £4.99 plan with
adverts or one of the two more
expensive subscriptions.
Existing customers can
stay on the Basic plan until
they choose to switch to a
new subscription, or cancel
their account.
Netflix now shows only
three plans on its pricing page
(www.snipca.com/46918).
The cheapest remains the
£4.99 ‘Standard with adverts’
deal, which was launched last
year as ‘Basic with adverts’
before being renamed. It
contains around 95 per cent of
the films and programmes
available on the other packages.
Next is Standard, priced
£10.99, which doesn’t contain
adverts and lets you watch on
two devices at the same time
in Full HD (1920x1080 pixels),
as well as download on two
devices.
The top tier is Premium,
also without adverts, which
lets you watch on four devices
Vodafone launches
73Mbps social-tariff deal
V odafone has launched a
social-tariff package
with speeds of up to 73Mbps,
making it one of the fastest
available.
It’s called Fibre 2 Essentials
and costs £20 a month.
Vodafone’s other social tariff
is called Fibre 1 Essentials and
gives you 38Mbps for £12 a
month.
Both packages are available
to anyone on Jobseeker’s
Allowance and Universal
Credit, as well as those on
Employment and Support
Allowance, Reduced Earnings
simultaneously in Ultra HD
(3840x2160 pixels), as well as
download on six devices.
Both Standard and
Premium let you pay to share
your account with people
who don’t live with you.
Netflix had given hints that
it was planning to ditch the
Basic package. In April, it
upgraded the ‘with adverts’
tier by improving the video
quality from HD (1280x720
pixels) to Full HD and letting
subscribers watch on two
devices simultaneously.
This brought the tier more
Allowance, Disability
Living Allowance, Personal
Independence Payment, or
Pension Credit.
Eligible customers can join
without a setup fee and leave
for free at any time. Vodafone
won’t raise the price during
the contract.
At 73Mbps, the new
package is faster than the
social tariffs offered by BT, Sky
and Virgin, though some
smaller local firms beat it,
including WightFibre
(100Mbps, Isle of Wight only)
and RunFibre (100Mbps,
in line with the Standard
package, making the Basic
ad-free tier less attractive.
Then in June, it scrapped
the Basic package in Canada,
prompting many to predict it
would do the same in other
countries.
Netflix’s aim seems to be
to make the ‘Standard with
adverts’ deal by far its
cheapest in order to increase
viewer numbers, allowing it to
charge advertisers more.
Are you planning to cancel
Netflix? Let us know: letters@
computeractive.co.uk
South Gloucestershire only).
Vodafone also offers a
social-tariff mobile deal
called Voxi For Now (www.
voxi.co.uk/for-now), offering
unlimited data, calls and texts
for £10 a month for six months.
Visit Vodafone’s site for
details: www.snipca.com/46915.
Ofcom has a full list of
broadband and phone social
tariffs at www.snipca.
com/46916.
Ofcom probes whether Virgin
makes it too hard to cancel
O fcom will investigate
whether Virgin Media has
been making it too difficult
for customers to cancel their
contract after growing
concerned by the number of
complaints it has received.
It said some customers have
struggled to get through to the
company on the phone.
Others said their call was cut
off while they were talking to
an assistant, or they were put
on hold for long periods.
Customers also had to make
“lengthy and repeated
OFCOM TO PUBLISH SOCIAL TARIFF DATA
Ofcom will soon publish
figures showing how many
people have signed up to
the social tariff deals each
internet provider offers. The
information will be part of its
7.1m scam emails reported to
UK cyber chiefs in 2022
M ore than 7.1 million
suspicious emails were
reported to the National Cyber
Security Centre (NCSC) in
2022 – roughly 19,500 a day
and an increase of over 33 per
cent from 2021.
The figures refer to emails
that businesses and individuals
sent to the NCSC’s Suspicious
Email Reporting Service
(SERS) using the address
report@phishing.gov.uk.
In 2022, these emails led to
the removal of over 72,000
malicious website URLs across
40,000 scam campaigns, the
NCSC said in its annual Active
Cyber Defence report (www.
snipca.com/46850).
It took cyber experts an
average of six hours to take
requests to cancel”,
Ofcom said, because
Virgin ignored their first
attempt to leave.
Ofcom will also investigate
whether Virgin has failed to
meet its requirements on
handling complaints.
The regulator’s chief
executive Dame Melanie
Dawes said its rules exist to
“protect people and make
sure consumers can take
advantage of cheaper
deals that are on offer”
(www.snipca.com/46842).
annual report on pricing trends.
Dame Melanie Dawes has also
written to company bosses
asking them to raise public
awareness of social tariffs
(www.snipca.com/46844).
down a site once it had
been reported.
The NCSC, which is
part of GCHQ, launched
the email-reporting
service in 2020 during
the first Covid lockdown.
It received more
than 5,000 emails in
the first day and
over 10 million in the
first two years. In total, the
NCSC has removed 242,000
malicious URLs since the
launch of SERS.
It says that some emails
don’t reach the SERS inbox
because they are recognised
as spam and blocked. In these
cases, it advises taking a
screenshot of the email and
forwarding that instead.
She added that the
investigation will examine
whether Virgin is “putting
unnecessary barriers in
the way of those who want
to switch”.
Ofcom has the power to
fine Virgin if it concludes
that the company has
breached its rules.
Virgin responded by saying
complaints relating to
“difficulties leaving” had
halved over the past year. For
details on cancelling, visit
www.snipca.com/46863.
Have you had trouble cancelling
your Virgin contract? Let us
know: letters@computeractive.co.uk
It also says
that you don’t
need to forward any
suspicious emails that you
find in your spam or junk
folder. If you’ve actually been
scammed online or through
an email, report it at www.
actionfraud.police.uk or by
calling 0300 123 2040.
Read more about SERS at
www.snipca.com/46853.
IN BRIEF
WATCH CINDERELLA IN
4K ON DISNEY+
Disney+ is launching a 4K
restoration of the classic 1950
film Cinderella (pictured) as
part of its ongoing centennial
celebrations. The new
version will be available on
the streaming service from
25 August. Disney said the
film has been restored to
its “original grandeur” and
“looks and sounds better
than ever”.
INTEL STOPS MAKING
NUC MINI PCs
Intel won’t make any more
mini PCs in its NUC range,
but will continue to build
processors that other
manufacturers can use in
their own mini computers.
It launched NUC models in
2013, with the most recent
machines being powered by
13th-generation processors.
The NUC 13 Pro is still on
sale on Amazon priced £950
(www.snipca.com/46337).
See our review in Issue 660,
page 22.
TESCO BEST NETWORK
FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE
Tesco Mobile is the telecoms
company with the best
customer service, according
to a new survey of 10,000
consumers. The Institute of
Customer Service’s latest UK
Customer Satisfaction Index
ranks the firm seventh. Sky
Mobile (16th) and Giffgaff
(34th) are the only other
telecoms companies to make
the top 50. Other tech firms
in the top 50 include Amazon,
Apple and eBay. The bank
First Direct came top.
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 9
 Question
Questionof
ofthe
theFortnight
Fortnight
How can you avoid a huge
roaming bill this summer?
Ofcom wants firms to offer better protection for travellers in Europe
S
ince Brexit one item has
been added to your
pre-holiday to-do list.
Along with making sure you
have passports, sunscreen and
flip-flops, you now need to
check with your mobile network
how much it will charge you
for using phone data abroad.
This is particularly relevant
when travelling within the
European Union (EU). The
‘roam like home’ rule applied
to UK travellers when the
country was part of the EU,
meaning you could send
messages, make calls and go
online at the same cost as
you would at home.
This ended on 1 January
2021, since when three of the
UK’s four main networks – EE,
Three and Vodafone – have
started charging for using data
Since Brexit EE, Three and
Vodafone have all started charging
for using data in the EU
in the EU. The fourth network
giant, O2, still lets you roam
for free up to 25GB a month,
after which it costs £3.50 per
gigabyte. BT Mobile and
Virgin Mobile, meanwhile,
have both kept free roaming
– compare prices at www.
snipca.com/46961.
Many Brits still don’t realise
that free roaming has ended,
leading to some unexpectedly
large bills. Indeed, research
from Ofcom shows that nearly
one in five holidaymakers have
never even heard of roaming
charges. A similar percentage
said they never check roaming
10 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
fees before travelling.
With so many people
unaware of the costs, Ofcom is
proposing new rules to force
networks to send texts to
customers to tell them they’ve
started roaming. The regulator
says these messages should
explain how much roaming
costs and what people can do
to limit how much they spend.
This should be straightforward
for networks, Ofcom claims,
because they were already
required to send roaming
alerts before Brexit, and many
now do so voluntarily anyway.
Ofcom wants these alerts to
contain details relevant to each
customer, not just general tips.
They should include any fair-use
data limits the customer has,
and the time period that
applies to daily charges. It
published the image above as
an example of the kind of
message you could receive.
The regulator also wants to
tackle ‘inadvertent roaming’,
which is when a device
connects to a network in a
nearby country even when
you’re in a different one. This
happens when you travel close
to a border, whether or not
you’re on holiday.
Ofcom’s research shows
that 22 per cent of phone
users in Northern Ireland
were unintentionally
connected to networks in
the Republic of Ireland. In
England, two per cent of
customers have connected to
French networks while on the
south coast.
Ofcom plans to make a
decision in early 2024. Even if
it does introduce alerts, you
should still take measures to
limit how much you pay.
Before travelling, always ask
your network whether you
can set up a spending cap for
your roaming data, or a
mobile-bill limit for the
THE FACTS
• EU ‘roaming’ rules that let
you use your call, text and
data allowances in other
countries for free no longer
apply to British travellers
since Brexit
• Research from Ofcom
shows that nearly one
in five holidaymakers
are unaware of roaming
charges
• The regulator is proposing
new rules to force networks
to tell customers when
they start roaming and how
much it will cost them
duration of your trip.
You should also consider
turning off mobile data in
your phone’s settings. You’ll
still be able to make calls –
for which you’ll be charged –
but to use apps you’ll have to
connect to local Wi-Fi. This
should be free at hotels. And
don’t stream music or video
when abroad – download
them before you leave instead.
Another option is to buy a
separate SIM card that allows
free roaming in Europe on a
month-by-month basis.
Prices and deals frequently
change, but see what’s on
offer at Giffgaff, Lebara,
Lycamobile and Smarty.
At the time of writing,
for instance, you can get
12GB from Smarty for £8 a
month (www.snipca.
com/46963). Take these
precautions and you’ll
hopefully avoid a bill shock
that threatens to ruin any
holiday memories you’ve made.
Protect your tech
Scams and threats to avoid, plus new security tools
WATCH OUT FOR...

Facebook buyers using fake bank apps

What’s the threat?
Facebook Marketplace (pictured) has seen an increase in
fraudulent buyers using fake banking apps that appear to show
they’ve paid for an item being sold.
UK police forces said the scammers often turn up at a seller’s
house and use the app on their phone to make it look as if the
money has been transferred. This prompts the seller to hand
over the item without checking to see whether the money has
actually appeared in their account. The scammers then block
the seller on Facebook.

How can you stay safe?

The surest way to stay safe is to insist on a cash payment.
That does mean you’ll have to meet the buyer, which can
feel uncomfortable for some people, and limits the range of
potential customers to those who live locally, but it should
deter fraudsters.
It’s notable that the recent scams reported by the police are
for high-value items such as laptops and phones. That’s because
buyers can reasonably argue that they can’t get their hands on
large sums of cash, and ask to transfer money using an app
instead. Be wary if a buyer tells you this, and never let a buyer
rush you into handing over your goods. A common trick is to
say they need the item urgently for an upcoming birthday.
When a buyer first contacts you about your listing, check
for warning signs that their account is fake. Look at their
profile page for regular posts or photos, and ask for their real
name. Also search for their name and location on Google for
evidence that they’re genuine.
If you’ve been scammed on Facebook Marketplace, whether
as a buyer or a seller, report it to the company using the
instructions at www.snipca.com/46792.

New tools Proton Pass ScamWatch

https://proton.me/pass Readers warn readers

As fans of Proton’s privacy-focused Mortgage for just 2.39%

tools, such as its online storage service
(Issue 653, page 38) and VPN (Issue
650, page 19), we were pleased to hear
that it has launched a new password
manager, Proton Pass. It’s available as a
browser extension for Brave, Chrome,
Edge and Firefox, as well as an app for
Android and iOS.
Like all Proton tools, it uses end-to-
end encryption (E2EE) for maximum
security, and covers not just your
passwords but also email addresses,
website URLs and any notes you make.
To install the extension, visit https://
proton.me/pass, click Get Proton Pass,
create an account, then choose the
Proton Free package. This gives you
unlimited passwords and lets you use
Proton Pass across unlimited devices.
To install the app, visit www.snipca.
1 off my mortgage so I didn’t pay too
2 more than double that, it was
com/46795 (Android) or www.snipca.
com/46796 (iOS).
Once the extension is installed, click
its icon ( 1 in our screenshot above) and
choose one of the four options: create a
login, set up an email alias, write an
encrypted note and import your
passwords from other browsers 2 .
Read Proton’s blog for more details:
www.snipca.com/46793.
I’m fortunate enough to have paid
much attention to an email offering
me a 30-year fixed deal at 2.39 per
cent. With current interest rates
obviously too good to be true, so I
sent the scam email straight to my
junk folder and blocked the sender.
Apparently I had to “lock in” this low
rate today, although it didn’t explain
what would happen if I failed to take
up the offer. Would the promised rate
suddenly shoot up to six per cent?
Thankfully, the scam looked very
amateurish, so I think it’s unlikely to
trick anyone.
Simon Miller
Warn your fellow readers about scams
at letters@computeractive.co.uk

Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 11

 Letters
Tell us what’s on your mind
Amazon still
trying to
‘manipulate’ us
Despite the
efforts of US
regulators (Issue 662,
page 9), Amazon still
does everything it can
to nudge us into
signing up for Prime. I
recently bought a
toolkit on Amazon,
and before I reached the checkout, it gave
me two options (see screenshot above).
My eye was instantly drawn to the
prominent box on the right, just as
Amazon intended. Click the bright yellow
button and it signs you up to Prime.
I bet some customers don’t even realise
there’s an option on the left to confirm
your purchase without signing up. The
link to ‘Order without Prime. Decline
Fastest Delivery’ is barely noticeable.
I’m not sure this counts as a misleading
trick from Amazon, but it’s unquestionably
manipulative.
John Shrigley
Anyone who wants to can
already learn digital skills
The House of Lords committee
asking for more digital skills
training (Issue 662, page 9) makes the
typical error that elites always make,
which is to assume they know what’s
best for the ‘lower orders’.
There are already plenty of digital
courses available for anyone who wants
them. These are offered by charities,
libraries, tech companies, banks, councils
and Citizens Advice. I live in a small town
of 15,000 people, and I can think of
four such schemes off the top of my
head. I’ve been involved in two of them,
and both currently have lots of space for
new members.
When I’ve encouraged people to
join, they usually shrug and say they’re
happy with their existing digital skills, or
that they can’t see why their job would
ever require them. I’m sure the Lords
committee means well, but they probably
imagine there’s an untapped army of
workers just dying to learn how to ‘Zoom’
each other for work projects or memorise
formulas for Excel spreadsheets. But
these skills aren’t needed if you work part
time in a cafe, or do night shifts in a
12 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
factory, or run a fruit and veg stall.
Frankly, anyone who wants to learn a
new digital skill has more than enough
opportunity to do so, and usually for free.
But many people decided long ago
that such skills are worthless to them. I’m
not sure it should be the job of the Lords
to try to persuade them otherwise.
Pauline Love
Won’t it cost more to update
cashless parking machines?
In response to councils saying
that removing cash payment
machines saves them money because
they won’t have to update them (Issue
661, page 6), surely they’ll still need to
update cashless machines in future? They
rely on software, so they’ll presumably
need more frequent updates than the
older cash machines.
Councils might claim they also save
money by not having to hire people to
empty cash machines, but these workers
served another purpose, which was to
provide a visible level of security in the
car park.
Finally, how much more will it
cost to link these machines up to the
What’s the Issue…?
I recall an article explaining
which old cables to keep and
which to ditch. When was that?
Michael Clarke
CA SAYS In Issue 629, page 60.
I’ve got a knackered old PC
that I want to revive using
Chrome OS Flex. When did you
explain how to do this?
Peter Wilson
cloud, and how much will the servers
cost for these machines? It’s another
ill-considered move by councils looking
to save a quick buck but ending up
having to pay a lot more.
Andy Hickerman
Your recent features on councils
forcing us to use a phone to pay for
parking made me wonder why they can’t
introduce a pre-pay card system. Many
households near me use these to pay for
utilities. There are also examples around
the country of local shops offering top-up
payments to add to the cards. I accept
that ultimately society is going cashless,
but pre-pay cards might be an acceptable
way to soften the change, especially for
the older generation.
Keith Thomas
CA SAYS Many readers are infuriated by
councils forcing drivers to use parking
apps, but we doubt the old ‘pay and
display’ machines will return. The brutal
truth is that you need a smartphone to
participate fully in modern life. However,
you don’t have to spend a fortune to get a
device that does everything you need. In
Issue 662 we recommended the best
phones for under £150, both brand new
and refurbished. Buy it at www.snipca.
com/46804.
I had to ‘gift’ myself
an iTunes track
I couldn’t have been more
delighted to read ‘What’s the
difference between Apple Music
and iTunes?’ in Issue 661 (page 69). For
years, iTunes was one of my favourite
?
CA SAYS In Issue
638, page 35. Read it
and the above feature
on our 2022 Back Issue CD: www.
snipca.com/44660.
When did you explain how to
get free phone data?
Paul Rodgers
CA SAYS That was Issue 657, page 60
– buy it from www.snipca.com/46742.

apps. It used to be so easy to use. Then,
gradually, it began to distort into
something alien and almost hostile. The
last time I bought a track, rather than
letting me click on the price to make the
purchase, it forced me to buy it as a ‘Gift’
from the dropdown menu. So, I did just
that and gifted it to myself by email! How
ridiculous is that?
Susan Platter
Limit free TV trials
to fewer episodes
I understand the concerns of
Disney and their TV-streaming
rivals about people signing up for free
trials and binge-watching everything
they can before cancelling without
paying (‘Question of the Fortnight’,
Issue 661).
However, surely it’s not beyond these
streaming giants to put all trial
subscribers on a reduced package where
they’re only permitted to watch (for
example) the first eight episodes of a
10-part series, or a limited number of
films and documentaries. I’m pretty sure
that if I was unable to finish watching a
series during my trial period, I would
subscribe to that service.
Andy Ryan
Cordless BT phones won’t
work in power cuts
Those worrying that their
phones won’t work during a
power cut when we switch to fibre in
2025 should be aware that if they
have a cordless phone, it’s unlikely to
work in those circumstances now.
I bought the very popular BT 4600
phone several years ago because of its
advanced call-blocker abilities. You can
still buy it today (£72 from www.snipca.
com/46779, pictured below). It’s a
fantastic phone that blocks nuisance
calls, but it has never worked during a
Views expressed don’t necessarily reflect those of Computeractive
Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive
STAR LETTER
I’ll stop watching YouTube if it shows
too many ads
If YouTube stops me using an ad
blocker, I’ll simply stop watching
it (Issue 662, page 8). I fully understand
YouTube’s argument that adverts help
to keep it free for “billions of users
worldwide”. But what YouTube fails to
understand is that viewers see adverts
as a necessary annoyance, not part of
the entertainment. This is markedly
different to, say, TV adverts in the 70s
and 80s, which were often funnier and
more interesting than the programmes
themselves. The crucial thing about
adverts is that it’s all about balance.
Don’t show enough and a site can’t
make money. Show too many and
viewers will stop watching. YouTube is
guilty of the latter at the moment.
I recently watched a 28-minute video
about the making of the film Blade
Runner (www.snipca.com/46807). If it
had been on TV, I’d have expectd a
single ad break in the middle, lasting
two to three minutes. But YouTube
interrupted my viewing five times,
with two 10-second ads in each break.
These ads appeared without warning,
often in the middle of someone talking.
The Star Letter writer wins a Computeractive mug!
power cut. This isn’t mentioned on the
box or BT’s website. Only on page 87 of
the User Guide, in small print, does it say:
“Warning. You won’t be able to call 999
from this phone if there’s a power cut, so
make sure you’ve got another way to call
for help in an emergency.”
I’ve been assured that this phone
will continue to work when connected
to the new VoIP system, so the switchover
won’t affect me much other than
making me move my phone closer to
my router. I suspect that will be the
case for many people.
Ethel Trueman
How noisy are mini PCs?
I enjoyed your round up of mini
PCs in Issue 660, but I couldn’t
find any mention of one issue that
matters to me: how noisy are they? As
they’re really tiny, cooling them requires
Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Twitter: @ComputerActive
www.twitter.com/computeractive
As I see it, YouTube has two
options if it wants viewers to tolerate
adverts. It either needs to stick to one
unskippable advert at the start of a
video, so people know their viewing
won’t be interrupted. Or it should
introduce a rule that there will be just
one set of adverts every 15 minutes,
similar to what we’d expect on TV.
Tony Chambers
CA SAYS Tony is referring to
YouTube’s new warning that it’ll
stop you watching more than three
videos unless you disable your ad
blocker (see screenshot above).
Several readers have asked us
how to get around this, so on
page 60 we reveal ways to
prevent sites turning off
your ad blocker.
tiny fans, and we all know that tiny
fans are whiny fans! This would be a
problem in many household settings,
but especially in the living room where
other people might be sharing your
space. Perhaps some of the less-powerful
models might be quiet enough. It
would be good to know.
Dave Bancroft
CA SAYS That’s a good question. When
recommending mini PCs in previous
issues, we’ve pointed out that most of
them now have SSDs, which are much
quieter than hard drives. Even mini PCs
with fans are quieter than desktop
computers because they don’t perform
such resource-intensive tasks – and
therefore don’t have to spin noisily to cool
the components. A good fanless choice is
this £240 mini PC from Chinese firm
MeLE: www.snipca.com/46819.
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 13
 Consumeractive
We stand up for your legal rights
Can HP refuse refund
for PC it can’t repair?
I bought a new TE02-
Q 1000na desktop PC
(pictured) from HP and
paid for a three-year care package.
It arrived on 24 May, but quickly
developed a fault. HP couldn’t repair
it initially because it didn’t have the right
replacement part, though its customer
support told me the PC might still be
repaired. HP refuses to refund me, so
what are my options?
Paul May
Paul probably has the right to
A demand a refund, regardless of
HP’s failure to find the right
part. He could have asked for this when
he originally reported the fault a few
days after recieving the PC and HP would
have had to refund him. The Consumer
Rights Act (CRA) gives you
30 days to reject inherently faulty goods.
Paul gave up that right when he agreed
that HP could attempt to fix the PC,
though the CRA says repairs must be
carried out within a “reasonable time”,
which is usually put at 30 days. So if HP
can’t fix the PC during this time, we’d
argue that he has regained the right for
a full refund.
CASE UPDATE
Kensington cuts refund due to ‘restocking fee’
Reader Clive Bonner has
accepted a partial refund from
Kensington Domestic Appliances
(www.kensingtonappliances.
co.uk) for an air fryer he bought online for
£169 (see Issue 659), even though we have
doubts about the company’s reason for not
returning all his money.
He returned the item because its LED
icons had stopped being readable after only
a couple of uses. Kensington’s manager then
inspected the fryer and claimed it wasn’t
14 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
LEAD
CASE
What Paul should do now depends
on whether he wants to wait for HP to fix
the PC. Its customer support said there’s
an “engineering hold” on the PC while
the company looks for the replacement
part, but it didn’t say how long this
might take. If he’s keen on a repair, he
should at least tell HP that it has taken
too long and that he’s entitled to a
refund. That might speed things up.
We’ll back him up by explaining his
rights to HP.
CASE ONGOING
faulty, though he did agree to a refund of
£126.74, saying he knocked £42.26 off as a
25-per-cent “restocking fee”.
This raises several questions. First, if
Kensington thought the fryer wasn’t faulty,
why did it agree to a refund? Second, did the
manager have the technical expertise to
inspect the air fryer, and therefore decide
whether it’s faulty? Only an inspection by
the manufacturer has legal standing.
And third, does Kensington think a
25-per-cent restocking fee is fair? The law
Why has TalkTalk
changed my
contract?
In April, I signed a two-year
Q contract with TalkTalk paying
£29.99 a month, which included
free unlimited calls. Just three months
later, my bill shot up to £45.45.
TalkTalk told me I’m now being
charged £15.47 for the ‘free’ unlimited
calls. Is that fair?
Douglas Brown
It doesn’t seem fair, because
A Douglas thought he was paying
£29.99 a month for two years,
and that free unlimited calls wouldn’t
affect the price. We’ve asked him for a
copy of his contract to check whether it
lets TalkTalk charge this fee or amend
his terms.
By law TalkTalk had to give Douglas
30 days’ notice that his bill was
increasing. Douglas should check his
spam and junk folders for an email from
TalkTalk confirming this.
He has now cancelled the free unlimited
calls, so his bills will go down to £29.99
again. But we’re not convinced TalkTalk
had the right to increase his subcription
so soon after it began. We may be able to
persuade it to credit the £15.47 towards
his next bill.
CASE ONGOING
does let retailers take money off a refund
when a working item has been rejected as
compensation for not being able to sell it as
brand new, but this must be a “reasonable”
deduction. It must reflect costs the retailer has
to pay to repackage the item, and the loss it
would make selling the item second-hand.
We’ve asked Kensington whether these
costs amount to 25 per cent of the original
price, though there’s little we can do now
because it has resold the fryer, making it
impossible to prove it was inherently faulty.

Can I get refund for unwanted subscription?
I joined genealogy site
Q MyHeritage (www.myheritage.
com) in 2021, but I didn’t find it
easy to use. I then became ill with Covid
so only used it four times. I forgot I was
on an automatic
subscription and in
May this year a third
annual subscription
was taken, and the price had gone up to
£200. I cancelled the subscription, but
MyHeritage then took another £200! Can
you help me get my money back?
Ken Dunn
How can
Microsoft say I
damaged laptop?
I bought a Windows 11 Surface
Q laptop (pictured) from John
Lewis in November 2022, but it
stopped charging in April. John Lewis
said Microsoft examined the PC and
claimed I’d caused the damage by spilling
water on it, which is utter nonsense.
I’ve actually got proof that Microsoft
never opened the laptop. What should I
do now?
Rob Leitch
CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE
O2 assistant helped me downgrade to more suitable deal
I had been on the
same O2 tariff for
longer than I could
remember, but
had always put off changing it
because I wasn’t sure what I actually
needed. I don’t really understand all this talk
of megabytes and gigabytes. But when I did
finally phone O2, I spoke to a very patient
assistant who explained just how much data
I needed for different tasks on my phone.
She asked whether I use my phone for
Contact us so we can investigate your case
Email: consumeractive@computeractive.co.uk
Please include your name, phone number and address.
We’ll do our best because it seems
A that something has gone wrong
with MyHeritage’s billing system.
There’s nothing legally we can do about
MyHeritage taking a third subscription
because Ken didn’t
cancel within 14
days of the contract
renewing. This is
how long the Consumer Contract
Regulations give you to claim a full refund,
as long as you haven’t used any of the
services provided by the subscription.
However, MyHeritage clearly shouldn’t
A
Rob should go back to
John Lewis and say that
it must take responsibility
under the Consumer Rights Act
(CRA) to deal with his case.
Instead, it seems to
expect Microsoft’s
warranty to come
into effect. But the CRA takes priority
over warranties, so John Lewis must
prove to Rob that he damaged the laptop
and that the fault isn’t inherent.
Rob told us that he paid to have the
laptop inspected by an independent
computer-repair company, which told
him Microsoft hasn’t even opened the
laptop to examine it. The repair shop
streaming live TV. I said I’d never done that,
and only used it for staying in touch with
friends and family through messaging.
She realised that I didn’t require the
250GB package I was on, and talked
me through how to downgrade to a
15GB deal. It means I’m now paying
about £10 less a month.
What impressed me most is that she
Has a company impressed you with its
customer service? Please let us know:
editor@computeractive.co.uk
have charged him another £200. This had
nothing to do with his subscription. We’ll
ask the company to return this money,
and also ask it to consider a refund of the
annual subscription it took in May
(which would only be a goodwill gesture).
Hopefully, this kind of case will
become a thing of the past when the
Digital Markets, Competition and
Consumers Bill comes into effect,
expected in the second half of 2024. It
will force companies to make it easier for
customers to cancel subscriptions that
automatically renew.
CASE ONGOING
warned Rob that if it opened
the laptop to check it, this
would void the warranty.
Failure to inspect the laptop
properly means neither
Microsoft nor John Lewis has
legal proof of accidental damage.
If Rob decides to pay for an
inspection that does invalidate the
warranty and no damage is found, then
both companies would need to act.
He could force Microsoft to reinstate
the warranty because it gave misleading
information. John Lewis, meanwhile,
remains liable for the repair of the
laptop and any costs incurred by Rob
for examining it.
CASE ONGOING
didn’t try to convince me that I should stay
on the more expensive deal. Her attitude
was to get me the most suitable deal, not
make money for O2.
Sheila McAdam
Contact
O2
• Online www.o2.co.uk/contactus
• Phone 0344 809 0202
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 15
 Grow Your
Family Tree
Reaching out to people on social media is an effective way to
extend your research. Judith Batchelor explains how to…
Join a Facebook genealogy group
T
here are thousands of Facebook
groups you can join to help you
grow your family tree, allowing you
to connect with others who share the
same interests – and maybe ancestors,
too. Members can help you break through
walls by identifying mystery photos,
deciphering illegible handwriting and
unravelling confusing DNA results.
Some groups are public, so anybody
can see who’s a member and what
they’ve posted. Others are private, and
you can join only by emailing a request.
Administrators can choose to make their
group visible or hidden. Most genealogy
groups are visible, so you can find them
by searching. To join hidden a group, you
need to be invited.
Create an account and
search for local groups
If you haven’t done so already, create
an account on Facebook (www.snipca.
com/46743). Next, open your page,
click Groups, then type an appropriate
keyword or phrase into the search box.
Your best starting strategy is probably
to search for a location. Many groups
exist to bring together people who
have the same geographic research
Your Genealogy Problems Solved
My great-grandfather George Holmes
was born in 1870 and appears in the 1891
census living in Norfolk with his wife and
children. The wife and children then
appear in the 1901 census living with a
different man whose surname they
subsequently used. But there’s no sign of
George. What happened to him?
Tony Macklon
It looks as though your great-
grandparents split up and found other
16 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
interests. Because many members will
be local, you may also find someone who
is willing to search a churchyard or visit
the county archives on your behalf.
For example, I’m a member of ‘Kent–
Ancestors and Genealogy’ (www.snipca.
com/46749, pictured above), a private
group that has over 4,000 members.
Once you’ve joined a group, click the
magnifying-glass icon ( 1 in our screenshot
above) to search for information that
members have already posted. To browse
related groups, click the ^ symbol 2 .
Search military and
DNA groups
There are lots of Facebook groups to
help you research military ancestors,
including ‘WW2 Stories of Chaos and
partners, though they didn’t divorce or
remarry. In the 1901 census, George
Holmes is living at 21 Cobholm Road,
Great Yarmouth, with Elizabeth Holmes
(wrongly recorded as his wife) and
daughters Ada (2) and Edith (1). The family
were still living in Great Yarmouth in 1921,
and George was buried on 17 February,
1932, at Yarmouth Cemetery.
Have a genealogy question for Chris?
Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with
‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.
Next issue: Search new database of railway accidents
Search for info
that members
have already
posted, and
browse related
groups
1
2
Courage’ (www.snipca.com/46750),
‘World War One 1914-1918 The Great War’
(www.snipca.com/46751), and ‘UK
Military History/Military Genealogy and
Military Photography’ (www.snipca.
com/46752).
My uncle was a pilot in the Battle of
Britain, so I’m a member of the groups
‘The RAF in Colour in WW2’ (www.
snipca.com/46754, pictured below) and
‘The Battle of Britain. Summer 1940’
(www.snipca.com/46755).
DNA is another area of genealogy that’s
well served by Facebook groups. If you’re
having trouble interpreting your DNA
results, ask a member and you may get
some valuable advice. This might be
particularly helpful if you’re adopted or
are seeking more details about ancestors
with unknown paternity.
Some of the most active UK groups
include ‘DNA Help for Genealogy UK’
(www.snipca.com/46753), ‘DNA
Detectives UK’ (www.snipca.com/46815),
and ‘DNA for Genealogy – UK’ (www.
snipca.com/46816). Combined, they
have over 23,000 members.
Judith’s uncle was a Battle of Britain pilot, so
she joined ‘The RAF in Colour in WW2’
 Best Free Software
Robert Irvine recommends new programs that won’t cost you a thing
EMAIL CLIENT

Thunderbird 115
www.snipca.com/46835
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11, macOS or Linux

Thunderbird 115 – or Supernova, as Mozilla has dubbed it – is
a major refresh of the popular free email client, complete
with a new logo (see above right). It redesigns the program’s
interface and adds several useful features to make
Thunderbird faster, smarter and even easier to use.
One of the biggest changes is the introduction of a Unified
Toolbar, which sits along the top of the main window above
the tabs bar. This customisable toolbar lets you add shortcuts
to your most frequently used options in different sections
of Thunderbird, which it calls Spaces. These include Mail,
Address Book, Calendar and Settings, and the displayed
options will change according to which Space you’re
viewing. For example, you can add shortcuts such as Reply,
Delete and Print to the toolbar for the Mail Space. Right-click
the Unified Toolbar and choose Customise, then drag the
desired shortcuts to the relevant toolbar, and click Save.
Supernova offers more ways to adjust the program’s
appearance to suit your needs. Click the
View menu and choose Layout to switch
between Classic, Wide and Vertical layouts, and
select Density to change the default design to Compact
or Relaxed (more widely spaced).
There’s also a handy new Cards View, which displays
message details including the sender, subject line and
date/time in a single column, like in an email mobile app.
To enable this option in the Vertical layout, click the ‘Message
list display options’ icon, to the right of the Quick Filter
button, and choose Cards View.
Other notable improvements include a new Tags section
in the Folder sidebar, which lets you quickly filter your
emails by tags such as Important, Personal and To Do;
and a revamped Calendar with a condensed ‘mini month’
layout. Note that this is the last version of Thunderbird to be
compatible with Windows 7 and 8.

1
4
3

1 The big new feature in
Thunderbird 115 is the
Unified Toolbar, which
you can tailor to suit your
working needs. Right-click
the toolbar and choose
Customise to add shortcuts
for different ‘Spaces’
including Mail, Address
Book and Settings.
2 The main Thunderbird
menu has been simplified to
remove unnecessary options
and include only essential
features such as Account
Settings, ‘Add-ons and Themes’
and View options. You can
now navigate the menu using
your keyboard, as well as your
mouse.
3 Supernova offers several
ways to customise
Thunderbird’s interface
via the main menu. In our
screenshot above, we’re
using the Vertical layout,
which has the message
preview pane on the right,
and the Relaxed density
view.
4 The Vertical layout has a
new Cards View, which
condenses all the important
information about your
emails into a single column,
rather than spreading it over
several. Click the ‘Message
list display options’ icon and
choose Cards View.

18 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

SYSTEM TOOL
SHOULD I PAY FOR…?
Microsoft PowerToys 0.71 Choose the right version of software
www.snipca.com/46924
What you need: Windows 10 or 11
Proton Drive Plus
The latest version of www.snipca.com/46923
PowerToys makes Price: €4.99 (£4.33) a month or €47.88 (£41.63) a year
several improvements Free trial: None
to Microsoft’s What you need: Windows 10 or 11, Android or iOS
brilliant system-
utility suite. These Proton Drive, which lets you store and share files securely
include updating the using end-to-end encryption, has just launched a Windows
Peek tool (which lets app, so we decided to see how the service’s plans compare
you preview files with rivals.
without opening Proton Drive Free promises you 1GB of encrypted online
them) with support storage, but this is an ‘up to’ figure and the actual amount is
for archive files. This means you can now view the contents of only 500MB. You can double it by performing certain tasks,
ZIP files without needing to extract them first. Simply select a such as protecting your account with a recovery method,
ZIP and press Ctrl+Space (see screenshot) to list all the items but Proton only gives you 30 days after you sign up to
it contains in a Peek preview window. The Registry Preview complete these actions. Otherwise you’re left with a measly
tool has also been improved to make it easier to edit registry 500MB of free space, which makes even Dropbox’s 2GB
files. It now offers the option to set Registry Preview as the limit look generous.
default app for opening ‘.reg’ files, though this is aimed at Upgrading to Proton Drive Plus increases your storage to
advanced users and the usual caveats apply about tweaking a more appealing 200GB, but at £4.33 a month this costs
the registry. Additionally, the PowerToys Settings window has almost twice as much as Google One’s equivalent plan.
been restyled to match Windows 11’s design. You can reduce the price to £3.46 per month by paying
annually. The cost can be attributed to the extra security
DEVICE MANAGER offered by Proton, which claims that its encryption “goes
beyond other secure cloud solutions”. All your files are
DeviceRescue 1.1 encrypted both on your device and in transit to ensure no
www.snipca.com/46925 one but you can access them, or even see their names. The
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11 company is also protected by strict Swiss privacy laws.
The Proton Drive app is easy to use and keeps your files
DeviceRescue automatically synced online (see screenshot), though
provides a versatile currently not with its mobile app. The Plus plan includes
alternative to the ‘version history’, which lets you roll back files to older
Windows Device versions, but you don’t get much else for your money.
Manager. It offers a
simpler way to view
and manage all the
devices connected to
your PC, providing at-
a-glance information
about each one. This includes the dates device drivers were
installed, the driver manufacturers and version numbers,
and whether they’re working properly. Right-click a device
to uninstall, reinstall or restart it; update its drivers; and scan
for hardware changes. We particularly like the option to look
up a device’s name and hardware ID using Google to ensure
you don’t remove or disable anything important. When you OUR VERDICT: Don’t pay for it
first run DeviceRescue, it offers to create a driver backup so Unless you have lots of highly sensitive files, you don’t need
you can easily revert any changes you make – you can also to subscribe to Proton Drive. It’s very basic and you can’t
do this manually by clicking Backup (see screenshot). See sync files stored on your PC with your phone. See page 62
our Cover Feature on page 50 for more about improving for our comparison of the best free online storage services.
Windows tools that Microsoft ignores.

Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 19

 Best Free Software

What should I download?

We advise you which software and apps to use
How can I plan my road trip?
Can I recover my My summer 1
product keys? Q holiday this
year is a
I’ve just replaced my hard drive and now need complicated road trip
Q to reinstall and reactivate Windows and Office,
but I’ve realised I forgot to make a note of the
across Europe. I read
once about a browser
product keys. Are there any tools for recovering them? extension for Google
Kevin Lanister Maps that helps you
organise routes, but I
If you’ve replaced the drive on which Windows can’t remember what
2
A was installed, it’s too late to recover your product
keys from that. Don’t panic, though, because your
it’s called. Can you?
Richard Duncan
Windows licence may be linked to your Microsoft account,
in which case you should be able to find those details by Try the Routora
logging into your Orders screen at www.snipca.com/46734.
You’ll also find your Office keys there if you bought it
A extension for
Google Chrome
directly from Microsoft. (www.routora.com). In
If instead you activated your copy of Windows by typing a screenshot 1 we
unique code, check any documentation you have, including planned a fairly
the box Windows arrived in (assuming it wasn’t haphazard road trip to six of Britain’s most striking cathedrals,
preinstalled) and the back of the DVD sleeve. If the PC which would have seen us driving 1,296 miles and sitting in the
builder set up Windows for you, check the case for a car for almost 23 hours. But the extension sorted our stops
Certificate of Authenticity carrying the product key. more logically, reducing our journey time by seven hours 2 .
Many PCs come with Windows preinstalled and don’t
require you to activate it manually. In this case, the product
key may be stored securely in the BIOS/UEFI. If so, you Have I bought a fake SSD?
should be able to reinstall Windows without using a key, as
long as you use the same version you had on your PC in the I’ve got a horrible feeling that I’ve just bought a fake
first place.
As a last resort, you can extract the key from Windows by
Q SSD from Amazon. Is there any software that would
help me check this?
installing ShowKeyPlus – free from the Microsoft Store at Anthony Felton
www.snipca.com/46738. Once installed, launch it and click
Home on the left ( 1 in our screenshot below) to see your Try ChipGenius (www.snipca.com/46739), which
product key listed beside Installed Key 2 . A provides details of any USB devices connected to
your computer, including keyboards, mice and
1 storage devices such as SSDs. As you can see in the screenshot
below, ChipGenius gave us the manufacturer’s name and
the model number of an SSD we attached to one of our USB
ports. We
were then
able to check
these details
against the
specifications
for our device
to make sure
2 they were
what we
expected.

20 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663 Email us your questions at letters@computeractive.co.uk

Named & Shamed
Keumars Afifi-Sabet puts the boot into tech villains,
jargon-spouting companies and misbehaving software

SOFTWARE WARNING!
LastPass’s endless panic-inducing blunders

R
ecently I’ve been
asking myself why I
subscribed to LastPass
Premium for so long.
If I’m honest, I find the process of
switching any account exhausting –
whether it’s a bank, energy firm or
internet service. But I knew that coping
with LastPass’s endless blunders would
prove even more tiring.
The final straw came in May, when
LastPass asked me to reset my multi-
factor authentication (MFA) method. I
entered my username and password as Keumars ditched LastPass after it Saying good riddance to LastPass is easy when Bitwarden
usual and typed my new MFA code (see wouldn’t let him reset his account makes it simple to import your passwords
screenshot above right), but LastPass had
other ideas and locked me out after chaos of last year’s data breach. LastPass phone numbers, email addresses
several ‘failed’ login attempts. admitted it had been hacked last August, and IP addresses. They could also see
LastPass later admitted this was a bug, but claimed this didn’t involve customer website URLs from LastPass vaults,
but I didn’t know that at the time, when I data or passwords. Then in December it showing them which websites users
was scrambling to remember passwords revealed that the attack was used “to had visited.
for sites I needed there and then. target another employee, obtaining So it’s good riddance to LastPass. I’ve
Normality was restored a few hours later, credentials and keys, which were used to switched to Bitwarden’s excellent free
but I’d had enough. I needed a new access and decrypt some storage password manager (https://bitwarden.
password manager. volumes” (www.snipca.com/44653). com), which makes it easy to import your
You may think I’m overreacting, but Decode this jargon, and it means LastPass details (see screenshot above). I
this panic-inducing error followed the hackers were able to steal usernames, urge you to follow suit.

WHAT ARE THEY KEUMARS’ VILLAIN OF THE FORTNIGHT

TALKING ABOUT?

WHAT THEY SAY

Lenovo www.snipca.
com/46745
“Fueled by increased digitalization and
demand for IT infrastructure upgrades,
Lenovo is simplifying the often-complex
implementation of new AI capabilities by
delivering AI to the source of data and
harnessing its vast network of best-in-
class partners to build next-generation
turnkey solutions that enable computing
intelligence directly at the edge.”
WHAT THEY MEAN
If only we could use AI to simplify our
often-complex and endless sentences.
David Aves
Prolific fraudster David Aves
has certainly moved with
the times. He has
committed around 200
crimes since the Seventies,
the latest of which saw him
flogging fake tractors,
diggers and machinery on
Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree.
The 64-year-old from Nottingham
was jailed in 2021 after swindling
10 people out of nearly £35,000.
He was released in August 2022,
but started scamming more victims
just months later,
stealing over £15,000.
He was promptly arrested
again, confessed to his
crimes, and is now serving
three years behind bars.
When he’s eventually
released, he’ll be subject
to a Serious Crime Prevention
Order that restricts him to one
phone and one email address, and
bans him from selling any goods
online. We doubt he’s had any
good feedback anyway.

Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 21

 Reviews
MINI PC | £299 from GMKtec www.snipca.com/46740
GMKtec NucBox K1
Windows of opportunity
The latest mini PC from Chinese
manufacturer GMKtec is the NucBox K1,
an AMD-powered unit that defies its
low price. As with the NucBox G1
(reviewed in Issue 659), this is currently
only available to buy via GMKtec’s
website. It’s priced in US dollars, so
double-check you’re prepared to pay the
final price, including whatever your
credit-card company adds to carry out
currency exchanges.
A budget pocket
dynamo of a PC for
Windows work, but not
for playing games
If you go for it, however, we think you’ll
be impressed. There are three versions
available on the site, all with an AMD
Ryzen 7 6800H processor. Our $380
(£299) review unit comes with 16GB of
RAM and a 512GB SSD. You’ll get 32GB of
RAM and a 1TB SSD for $430 (£338).
Alternatively, choose one without RAM
and storage, then buy and fit your own,
for $309 (£243).
This is a highly efficient design in terms
of space, with a case that fits snugly
around the small motherboard within. It
has ports on the front and back, while the
sides have grilles that allow air through to
keep everything cool.
The main body is metal alloy and is
therefore very robust, with a plastic base
and lid. We were particularly impressed
with the lid that can be removed without
REAR
22 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
New products tested by our experts
needing to undo any screws. You simply
prise it off should you need access to the
RAM or drive.
The front of the unit (pictured above)
has a USB-C port (which can send video
to a DisplayPort monitor), two USB 3.0
ports and an audio jack. On the back
(pictured below) there’s another USB 3.0,
one USB 2.0, two HDMI and a 2.5GB
Ethernet port.
The Ryzen 7 6800H is a previous-
generation processor – presumably
included to keep the price down. It’s
instructive to compare our performance
tests with our current favourite mini
PC, the Beelink SER6 Pro 7753HS
(reviewed in Issue 661). The SER6 was
available from Amazon for £595 at the
time of writing, so pretty much twice
the price of the NucBox. It also comes
with twice the RAM and a more
powerful Ryzen 7 7753HS processor,
which is the latest generation.
In raw performance tests, the SER6 is
around 21-per-cent faster. This is useful
for resource-intensive jobs, but the
difference is less pronounced with
everyday Windows tasks, where the
gap drops to around five per cent. So
if you only use your PC for Windows
work, you should probably opt for
the NucBox.
As far as games and video software
are concerned, neither PC is ideal,
because they both use the AMD Radeon
680M graphics hardware built into
the processor. However, the SER6
manages to run games around 66-per-
cent faster, which makes it a superior
all-rounder.
SPECIFICATIONS
Eight-core Ryzen 7 6800H processor • 16GB RAM •
AMD Radeon 680M graphics • 512GB SSD • Wi-Fi 6 •
2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port • 2x HDMI ports • 1x USB-C
port • 3x USB 3.0 ports • 1x USB 2.0 port • Windows 11
Pro • 43x123x112mm (HxWxD) • One-year warranty
www.snipca.com/46740
VERDICT A decent mini PC for running
everyday Windows tasks for a very
tempting price
+++++
ALTERNATIVE Beelink SER6 Pro
7753HS £594 More expensive but with
a faster, more modern processor that’s
better at running games

LAPTOP-TABLET | £1,300 from Scan www.snipca.com/46761
MSI Summit E14 Flip Evo
Flex machine
The Summit E14 Flip Evo is a
two-in-one device that you can
use as a regular laptop or convert
into a tablet by flipping its screen
over. It comes with a stylus that
lets you write notes by hand and
edit photos with ease, among
other uses. It’s not as sleek an
experience as using an iPad or an
Android tablet such as the Google
Pixel Tablet (reviewed on page
24) but as a Windows laptop that
offers additional ways to interact with it,
it’s a very attractive option. However, this
versatility makes it significantly more
expensive than our current favourite
laptop, the Acer Swift 3 14in (£899 from
www.snipca.com/44367, see page 30).
A well-designed
Windows laptop with
the added versatility
of a tablet
The laptop has a sleek aluminium
chassis. The keys are a lighter colour
on the sides than the top, giving the
keyboard some contrast, and they’re
pleasant to type on. The ports are well
built, and there’s a decent range on offer
including HDMI, two USB-C, one USB 3.0
and a microSD card slot.
Measuring 14in across the diagonal,
the IPS screen has a 2560x1600-pixel
resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio,
making it taller than more typical 16:9
screens. We found this useful when
browsing the web and working on
documents because we could see more
of the page on screen. It’s less of an
advantage when watching movies,
however, because the black bars at the
top and bottom of the screen are larger
than they would be on a 16:9 screen.
The stylus is one of the E14 Flip Evo’s
highlights. It has three buttons that you
can easily set to operate various functions
in your favourite software. It’s pressure
sensitive, which means it responds to
how hard you press it against the
touch-sensitive screen, and offers tilt
control, so if the software you’re using is
compatible, the angle at which you hold
it to write makes a difference.
It connects magnetically to the side
of the laptop for easy storage, but charges
separately over USB-C, lasting up to 65
hours on a single charge. We found it
easy to use and handy for jotting down
notes rather than having to resort to
using the keyboard.
The Summit E14 Flip Evo works well as
a traditional laptop, but its flexibility is its
real strength.
SPECIFICATIONS
12-core Intel Core i7-1360P processor • 16GB of RAM
• Intel Iris Xe graphics • 14in 2560x1600 pixels IPS
screen • 1TB SSD • Wi-Fi 6E • 2x USB-C ports • 1x USB
3.0 port • 1x HDMI port • 1x microSD slot • Windows 11
Home • 17.9x314x228mm (HxWxD) • 1.49kg •
One-year warranty www.snipca.com/46761
HOW WE TEST
Computeractive is owned by Future PLC,
which employs a team of specialist
technical reviewers. You’ll often read
references to our benchmark testing,
which is a method of assessing products
using the same criteria. For example, we
test the speed of every PC and the battery
life of every phone and tablet in exactly
the same way. This makes our reviews
authoritative, rigorous and accurate.
Future PLC also owns the magazines
Maximum PC, PC Pro and T3, and the
websites Laptop Mag (www.laptopmag.
com), TechRadar (www.techradar.com)
and Windows Central (www.windows
central.com). This means we can test
thousands of products before choosing
the most relevant for Computeractive.
FAIR AND IMPARTIAL
Our writers follow strict guidelines to
ensure the reviews are fair and impartial.
The manufacturer has no involvement in
our tests.
OUR AWARDS
We award every product
that gets five stars our
Buy It! stamp of approval.
It means we were
extremely impressed by the product, and
we think you will be too.
Every product that gets a
four-star review is given the
Recommended award. We
highly recommend these
products, although they just fail to meet the
high standard of our Buy It! winners.
PRICES
Our reviews contain a link to the best price
we found online at the time of press.
VERDICT A versatile Windows laptop
with a screen that flips over into tablet
mode, but it’s a lot more expensive than
our current favourite
+++++
ALTERNATIVE Acer Swift 3
14in £899 A more affordable
option if you’re looking
for a laptop, rather
than a convertible
laptop-tablet hybrid
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 23
 Reviews
TABLET | £599 from Google www.snipca.com/46773
Google Pixel Tablet
What’s up, dock?
Google’s new Android tablet is
unusual in that it comes with its own
charging dock. This device attaches
to the tablet using magnets, and provides
a base with a built-in speaker. Thankfully,
this addition hasn’t made the tablet too
expensive – at £599, it costs £100 more
than the current basic iPad.
The cheapest Pixel Tablet comes with
128GB of storage. If you want more, you
can boost that to 256GB by paying
an extra £100. However, you’d really
only need to do that if you plan to fill it
with movies and TV programmes to
watch offline.
A powerful Android
tablet that doubles as a
smart speaker
Google sells additional speaker
docks for £139 (www.snipca.com/46806)
if, for example, you want to save yourself
the trouble of unplugging and moving it
from the bedroom to the kitchen. It’s
worth noting, however, that you can also
charge the tablet using a regular cable
plugged into its USB-C port.
A major benefit of the charging
dock is that it converts the tablet into
something more like Google’s Nest Hub
Max (£219, from www.snipca.com/46774)
– a screen attached to a decent speaker
that you can use for everything from
smart home control to managing your
schedule and asking Google questions.
Unlike the Nest, however, you can
lift the Pixel Tablet off the dock and
take it away with you. The downside is
24 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
that the speaker dock doesn’t do
anything on its own, so you can’t use
it as a Bluetooth speaker for other
devices, for example.
You might expect a tablet with an 11in
screen to be quite big, but the Pixel Tablet
is actually rather petite because it has a
short 16:10 aspect ratio. That’s even wider
than the 16:9 screens we see on many
Android tablets, and loses a lot of height
compared with the 4:3 aspect ratio Apple
uses for its iPad, giving the Pixel Tablet
less screen area overall than Apple’s
10.9in devices. It’s an inch shorter than
the 11.6in screen on the OnePlus Pad
(£449, reviewed in Issue 659, www.
snipca.com/46075), and not as sharp as
either the OnePlus Pad or the Samsung
Galaxy Tab S8 (now available for a similar
price, reviewed Issue 634, www.snipca.
com/42211).
That said, it’s probably one of the
best smart-home displays you’ll find,
and when sitting on the speaker dock,
it’s exceptional at showing off photos
and displaying smart-home controls.
Combine it with a security camera or
doorbell, for example, and you’ll really
get the most out of it.
The tablet itself packs plenty of power,
thanks to its Google Tensor G2 processor.
While some Android tablets have
underpowered processors, Google has
SPECIFICATIONS
Eight-core Google Tensor G2 processor • 8GB RAM
• 10.95in 2560x1600-pixel resolution touchscreen •
128GB or 256GB storage • 8-megapixel rear camera
• 8-megapixel front camera • Wi-Fi 6 • Bluetooth 5.2 •
USB-C port • Android 13 • 169x258x8.1mm (HxWxD,
tablet only) • 493g • One-year warranty
www.snipca.com/46773
used its best – it’s the same processor as
in the Pixel 7 Pro smartphone. It runs
Android software smoothly, even when
playing demanding games.
Both the 128GB and 256GB versions
come with 8GB of RAM, which is
adequate. It may not be quite enough
to run multiple apps in Android’s
split-screen mode, but for some reason
that feature works less well here
than on Samsung and OnePlus
tablets, so if that’s important to you, it’s
probably worth considering those
alternatives instead. We expected that
Google would have perfected the
Android tablet interface with this
device, but unfortunately it still
lags well behind iPadOS on Apple’s
devices.
The most disappointing thing about
the tablet is that it feels a bit cheap.
The back is plastic and although Google
has finished it with a ‘nano-ceramic’
coating, it attracts dirt like a magnet.
VERDICT Good value if you want a
tablet that doubles as a smart speaker,
but rivals are arguably better at running
Android with multiple apps at once
+++++
ALTERNATIVE Samsung Galaxy Tab
S8 £599 After a recent price drop,
our favourite
Android tablet is
a better option for
the price if you
can live without
a dock
SMARTPHONE [ £750 from www.snipca.com/46838
Asus Zenfone 10
Great and small
Smartphone screens seem to get bigger
with each new generation. It’s nice to
have a large screen to look at – especially
if your eyes aren’t what they were – but
not everyone wants a phone that’s too big
to fit comfortably in a trouser pocket.
We’ve recommended previous versions
of the Asus Zenfone for people who want
a smaller Android device that doesn’t
compromise on performance. This latest
model follows the same path, combining
a diminutive 5.9in screen with the latest
and best Android-friendly processor, and
either 8GB or 16GB of RAM.
A neat little phone
that outperforms its
oversized rivals
It’s smaller than any other phone in
its class, measuring 147x68x9.4mm
(HxWxD) and weighing just 172g. Phones
with 6.1in screens, such as the Google
Pixel 7a (£399, www.snipca.com/46332,
reviewed in Issue 660) add another
half a centimetre to both the height and
the width. Those with even larger
screens, such as the 6.7in Motorola
Edge 40 Pro (£800, www.snipca.
com/45802, reviewed in Issue 657),
seem positively gargantuan next to
this mini marvel.
The screen may be small, but Asus
hasn’t skimped on its quality. It’s an
AMOLED model, with a resolution of
2400x1800 pixels and a refresh rate of
up to 144Hz. Movies and television
programmes look crisp and bright.
Our impressions were backed up by
the results of our benchmark tests,
which showed that it can display
124 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour
standard. That’s an excellent result
and better than the Pixel 7a. We
measured a brightness of 772cd/m²,
which is good but not as phenomenal
as the Pixel 7a’s 1024cd/m².
The Zenfone’s impressive performance
is thanks to its Qualcomm Snapdragon
8 Gen 2 processor. It feels quick and
smooth in use, and performed well in our
benchmark tests, too. According to
our processor tests, it runs around
60-per- cent faster than the Pixel 7a.
Our games benchmark showed an even
greater improvement, with the Zenfone
working more than twice as fast as the
Pixel 7a. It’s a stellar performance.
The battery kept going for an
amazing 12 hours and 41 minutes
during our web-browsing test, which
is a couple of hours longer than the
Pixel 7a managed.
If you’re looking for a smaller
phone, the Zenfone 10 offers blistering
performance in a neat and tidy package,
but it’s expensive. Despite being
outclassed in almost every category, the
Pixel 7a still offers better value for money.
SPECIFICATIONS
Eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor
• 8GB or 16GB RAM • 256GB or 512GB storage •
5.9in 144Hz 2400x1800-pixel AMOLED screen •
50-megapixel rear camera • 13-megapixel wide
camera • 32-megapixel front camera • Android 13 •
147x68x9.4mm • 172g • One-year warranty
www.snipca.com/46838
VERDICT A brilliant Android phone for
anyone who wants lots of power in a
smaller package
+++++
ALTERNATIVE
Google Pixel 7a £399
Still our favourite
Android phone. Larger
and less powerful, but
great value for money
CHOOSE THE RIGHT SPECS
Keyboard
travel
What does it do?
It tells you how far a key moves when
pressed, measured in milimetres. It’s
sometimes broken down into ‘initial
travel’, which is how far you need to
press the key before it registers, and
‘total travel’, which is the maximum
distance the key moves.
How does it work?
There are two types of keyboard:
membrane and mechanical. Membrane
keyboards are cheaper, because
they use air-filled bubble pads under
each key. When you press a key,
it compresses the membrane and
completes a circuit, which registers
the key press.
Mechanical keyboards use
individual switches and springs,
which provide more tactile feedback
while typing. These mechanical
parts are more finely tuned for a better
typing experience.
What are the specs?
In general, the more travel a
keyboard has, the easier and more
comfortable it is to type on. Some
of the best mechanical keyboards,
such as the Cherry MX3.0 Wireless
(pictured below) have a total travel of
up to 4mm, and you have to press by
2mm before they register a key
press. Logitech’s mechanical keyboards
have a little less travel (3.2mm).
Membrane keyboards have hardly
any travel in comparison, with some
moving as little as 1mm.
Can I change it later?
Some of the most expensive
mechanical keyboards let you exchange
their switches, but if you have one of
these, it probably already has a travel
of around 4mm, so you’d only need to
replace a switch if it breaks.
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 25
 Reviews
PORTABLE SSD | From £86 from Amazon www.snipca.com/46811

Netac ZX20 1TB

Slim pickings

The Netac ZX20 is a portable SSD anything much slimmer.

that’s fast, compact, lightweight,
reasonably robust and has an orange
carabiner hole that reminded us of the
SanDisk Extreme (£74 for 1TB, www.
snipca.com/46812, reviewed Issue 613).
That hole is a useful addition to a
portable device, particularly if you
need to carry it everywhere.
A tiny portable
storage drive that’s
fast enough, but isn’t
protected against
drops or dust
That certainly wouldn’t be a problem,
because the device is tiny, measuring
just 72x43x8mm (HxWxD) and weighing
23g. It’s about as thin as a USB
device can be, because it would be
impossible to fit a USB-C port in
SPECIFICATIONS
512GB and 1TB capacities • 1x USB-C port (USB 3.2
Gen 2x2) • USB-C-to-USB-C and USB-C-to-USB
3.0 cables included • 72x43x8mm (HxWxD) • 23g •
Three-year warranty www.snipca.com/46811
Its plastic casing doesn’t have
the premium feel you get from a
metal enclosure, but it’s lighter
and less prone to scratching.
It comes with a bare minimum
of accessories: just a
couple of USB cables and a
pouch, with no software.
It’s available in 512GB and
1TB capacities, which are
rather low by today’s standards.
Although it looks reasonably tough,
the ZX20 hasn’t been rated for water or
dust resistance and isn’t drop-proof. In you have a computer with the latest
contrast, the SanDisk Extreme can USB-C ports.
survive a drop of three metres and is
IP65-rated against dust and water.
Netac claims the drive can reach VERDICT A small, speedy portable
read speeds of up to 2GB/s and write SSD drive, but rival devices offer more
speeds of 1.7GB/s, provided your features for the same price
computer has the correct type of USB-C
port (USB 3.2 Gen 2x2). In our tests it
+++++
proved to be more than fast enough ALTERNATIVE SanDisk Extreme 1TB
for everyday use. £74 Similar in
The ZX20’s biggest problem is its size, shape and
price. The SanDisk Extreme costs design, but it’s
slightly less for the same capacity, but is more likely to
also better protected against falls and to survive being
damage from water and dust. It’s limited dropped and
to Gen 2 speeds rather than Gen 2x2, dunked in water
but you won’t even notice that unless

WHAT SHOULD I BUY? We solve your buying dilemmas

Can I connect my keyboard to two PCs?

I recently bought a mini PC
Q to replace my old Linux
computer and free up desk
space. It sits under the monitor of my
Windows PC. Is there a wireless mouse
and keyboard that I can connect to
both PCs without having to move the
USB adapter between the two?
Paul Staniforth
There are a few wireless
A keyboards and mice that
connect to multiple devices, as
long as those devices support Bluetooth.
Logitech makes a number of products
that support Easy-Switch, which lets you
hop between Bluetooth devices at the
touch of a button. Our favourite is the
Logitech K380 keyboard (£30 from www.
snipca.com/46822, reviewed Issue 648).
However, it seems there are some
complications with getting Easy-Switch
to work with Linux, so we wouldn’t
recommend this option in your case.
Instead, consider buying an affordable
USB switch, such as this Ugreen model
(£19 from www.snipca.
com/46824, pictured). This
connects to USB ports on two
computers, and lets you plug in up
to four devices, making it easy to
share keyboards, mice and printers
between them. Connect your current
keyboard and mouse to the switch
(using their dongles if they’re wireless)
and press the button on the top to
swap between the PCs.
Do you need advice on what you should buy?
Email us at letters@computeractive.co.uk

26 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

 Reviews
WIRELESS HEADPHONES | £99 from Amazon www.snipca.com/46782
Sony WH-CH720N
Sound judgement
Sony’s new WH-CH720N wireless
headphones are a direct replacement
for the previous CH710N model, adding
new features and upgrading the sound
quality and noise-cancelling power.
At £99, they’re impressively cheap
for such feature-packed headphones,
especially a set that offers multi-point
pairing and app support. However, while
the sound quality is better than before,
it still doesn’t quite live up to the
impressive feature list.
At the default settings, we found
the bass somewhat overwhelming.
However, once we’d connected to the
Sony Headphones app and switched
off the ‘Excited’ preset, they delivered
a more balanced sound. At just 192g,
SPECIFICATIONS
30mm dynamic driver • 10m range • 1.2m USB-C
charging cable • Bluetooth 5.2 • 192g • One-year
warranty www.snipca.com/46782
SMART PLUG | £18 from Amazon www.snipca.com/46781
WiZ Smart Plug
Home help
The WiZ Smart Plug is a basic but
reliable Wi-Fi plug that automates
any device that you can control directly
from a mains socket. This makes it ideal
for switching lamps on and off while
you’re away, for example. It’s not
particularly loaded with features,
but it does most of the things you’d
need from a smart plug.
The white plastic device feels robust
and fits snugly into a mains socket. It has
a pass-through socket on the front, into
which you plug the device you want to
automate. A small LED on the top shows
you when the device is switched on.
SPECIFICATIONS
2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity • 220-240V • App available
for Android and iOS • 73x52x31mm (HxWxD) •
One-year warranty www.snipca.com/46781
28 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
they’re lighter and comfier to wear
than higher-end headphones that have
more features built in.
The noise cancellation effectively
reduces the volume of outside sounds
but doesn’t block them completely
as the very best (and most expensive)
headphones can. It was good at
dampening traffic noise while we were
walking down a busy street, but we
were still able to hear the engine drone
of an aeroplane when we wore the
headphones on a flight.
Sony’s claimed battery life of 35 hours
at normal listening volumes with noise
cancellation on was in line with our
experience – if anything, our headphones
lasted a little longer. There’s no
auto-pause when you take them off,
though, so be careful not to run the
battery down accidentally.
Overall, these are among the best
Before you can add the Smart Plug
to your network, you’ll need to install
the WiZ app on your smartphone or
tablet – it’s available for both Android
and Apple devices. We found the
instructions quite confusing, as they
refer to the plug as a light. It only works
with 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, so if you have a
dual-band router and use the same
name for both networks, you may find
pairing the device with the app tricky.
Wi-Fi connectivity is essential, however,
because that’s what allows you to
control the device remotely.
Once you’ve set up the Smart Plug,
it works well. Other than scheduling,
the app offers few advanced features.
This is a shame, because even cheaper
competitors such as the TP-Link Tapo
sub-£100 headphones around. They’re
comfortable, they sound good, their noise
cancelling is effective and you get a lot of
smart features for your money.
VERDICT While they won’t bathe
you in silence as more expensive
models do, these affordable wireless
headphones are excellent value
+++++
ALTERNATIVE Anker
Soundcore Life Q30 £49
Has three levels of noise
cancellation
P100 can do a few useful things beyond
the basics, such as automatically
switching lights on every day at dusk.
VERDICT A reasonable smart plug,
but better alternatives are available
for less
+++++
ALTERNATIVE
TP-Link Tapo P100
£8 Much cheaper
and has several
more useful
features

VIDEO CAMERA | £419 from Amazon www.snipca.com/46865
Canon PowerShot V10
Vlog on
Not too long ago there was a huge
selection of personal video
camcorders available to buy, but the
video-capturing smartphone has all
but nudged this product into an
early grave. Canon clearly believes
there’s still life in the concept, however,
with this new PowerShot V10. The
company is aiming it at ‘vloggers’ –
people who make videos to upload to
social-media channels such as YouTube.
However, there’s no reason why regular
folk who just want to capture precious
moments from holidays or family
gatherings shouldn’t make the most of it.
Offers superior
video footage and
impressive photos
Unless you have an expensive flagship
smartphone, the sheer quality of images
captured by the PowerShot V10 will be
superior to what you’re used to. Inside it
uses a 1in sensor, which is larger than the
sensors you’ll find in most phones (due to
them having to allow room for other
features) and can therefore capture more
detail. The V10 is also smaller than most
phones at a pocket-sized 90x63x34mm
(HxWxD) and weighs just 211g.
Reviews
DO I REALLY NEED...
A router with
built-in VPN?
What is it?
ExpressVPN has launched
a Wi-Fi 6 router called
Aircove (pictured),
which has its VPN
built in, to protect
all devices on your
network. VPN software usually has to
be installed on each device, and isn’t
usually compatible with TVs and smart
speakers.
What does it do?
It has a built-in stand that you can pop It does everything a standard VPN can
out of the back, so you don’t have to find do, including disguising your location
something to prop it up, as you might and stopping spies from identifying
with a smartphone. It has a screen on the online activity with your devices. This
back that’s hinged at the top (pictured could be particularly useful for watching
below left), which can be lifted up for streaming international TV that’s
viewing from the front if you’re filming blocked in the UK.
yourself.
Recordings can be made in resolutions What’s the catch?
up to 4K at 30fps, or – if you’re happy As well as buying the router, which is
with Full HD – 60fps. To start filming you expected to cost around £146, you’ll
simply press the red button on the front. also need a subscription to ExpressVPN
What the camera lacks is a zoom lens. Its (£10.41 a month).
fixed lens is good at capturing people
within a few metres, but may struggle at So can I do without it?
greater distances. Probably. However, it is a convenient
The quality of photos taken by the way to get VPN protection on more of
camera is particularly impressive, with your devices.
plenty of detail and sharp automatic
focus. As with most cameras, it’s better in
good light than low light. Its automatic NEXT ISSUE
settings are excellent, making it perfect
for taking impromptu video snapshots. On Sale Weds 16 Aug
SPECIFICATIONS
1in sensors • Captures 4K at 30fps or Full HD at 60fps Lenovo Tab P11 Pro
• 15-megapixel camera • 2in monitor • 1250mAh (2nd Gen)
battery • MicroSD card slot • 90x63x34mm (HxWxD)
An Android tablet
• 211g • One-year warranty www.snipca.com/46865
with a stunning
11in OLED screen
VERDICT A handy automatic 4K video Minisforum NPB7
camera, but it’s expensive Powerful mini PC
for casual users with Intel’s latest
Core-i7 processor
+++++
ALTERNATIVE Insta360
X3 £436 For only a few These and much more...
pounds more you can film Subscribe to Computeractive at
in 360 degrees www.getcomputeractive.co.uk
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 29
 Buy It
Our pick of products that have won the Buy It award
LAPTOP
Acer Swift 3 14in
£1,050 from www.snipca.com/44367
Tested Issue 648
Comes with a powerful 12th-generation
Intel processor and 1TB SSD to make
Windows tasks feel incredibly fast.
Also has a decent 2560x1440-pixel
IPS screen and comes with plenty
of ports, including two Thunderbolt
4-compatible USB-C.
ALTERNATIVE Lenovo Yoga 6 Gen 7
Has a slower processor, and half the
storage and RAM, but remains a good
laptop for the price. £599 from
www.snipca.com/44950
ANDROID TABLET P APPLE iPHONE
DRRIC
OP E
Samsung Galaxy Tab S8
£599 from www.snipca.com/42211
Tested Issue 634
Samsung has replaced its own Tab S7+
to become our favourite Android tablet.
It’s fast with a stunning 11in screen, and
has a longer battery life than the iPad.
This model gives you 128GB – you’ll
need to pay around £649 for 256GB.
ALTERNATIVE Lenovo Tab P11 Pro It’s
slower than the Tab S8 and the screen is
duller, but has a detachable keyboard so
you can use it as a laptop. £378 from
www.snipca.com/45244
30 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
Find out which other products we liked.
Buy our new 2022 Back Issue CD:
£17 from www.snipca.com/44660
DESKTOP PC
Palicomp
AMD Cobra
£400 from www.snipca.com/43515
Tested Issue 643
This fast PC is a mouth-watering
bargain, with 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD
and a six-core processor – though it
lacks USB-C ports and built-in Wi-Fi.
ALTERNATIVE Wired2Fire Ultima WS
Home Office Workstation Blisteringly
fast PC, powered by an overclocked
eight-core processor and 1TB SSD.
£623 from www.snipca.com/41500
Apple iPhone 13
£749 from www.snipca.com/43498
Tested Issue 627
Now £30 cheaper than its 2021 launch
price, the iPhone 13 has a superb screen,
long battery life and an excellent camera -
particularly for taking quick snaps without
blurring. You could pay £100 more for the
newer iPhone 14, but we’re not convinced
it’s worth the extra money.
ALTERNATIVE iPhone SE With a single
camera and smaller screen but the
same powerful A13 processor and 64GB
storage as the iPhone 11, it’s great value.
£449 from www.snipca.com/34773
NEW!
APPLE iPAD
Apple iPad 10.2in
£369 from www.snipca.com/36178
Tested Issue 623
The 9th-generation of the basic iPad,
released in 2021, is now the best-value
Apple tablet. The 2022 version looks
better and has a faster processor, but
it’s not worth paying £130 extra for.
ALTERNATIVE iPad Mini With an even
better, but smaller, screen than the
10.2in iPad, the Mini also supports
the Pencil and has 64GB of storage.
£569 from www.snipca.com/33050
ANDROID PHONE
Google Pixel 7a
£449 from www.snipca.com/46332
Tested Issue 660
A cheaper version of Google’s flagship
phone, this uses AI to add clarity to
photos, and lasts an impressive 10
hours. Has a fast processor and 8GB
RAM to supercharge performance.
ALTERNATIVE Xiaomi Poco F3 This
remains an excellent phone, with 6GB
RAM and 128GB storage. The only phone
under £450 that’s faster is the iPhone
SE. £259 from www.snipca.com/44553
 Buy It
Our pick of products that have won the Buy It award
EBOOK READER
Kobo Libra 2
£169 from www.snipca.com/40645
Tested Issue 624
A fantastic 7in screen, 32GB of storage
and Bluetooth connectivity make this a
rival to Amazon’s Oasis ebook reader,
yet it’s much cheaper. Battery life is
superb – we managed 54 hours of use
per charge. It supports OverDrive, so
you can borrow ebooks from libraries.
ALTERNATIVE Amazon Kindle This low-
cost option is a good choice, especially
now it has 16GB of storage. £85 from
www.snipca.com/44221
PC MONITOR
Iiyama ProLite
XU2492HSU-B1
£109 from www.snipca.com/39701
Tested Issue 618
This 23.8in screen is superb value,
with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.
Colour is good, covering 88 per cent of
the sRGB colour range. Connect your
computer via HDMI, DisplayPort or
VGA, and there’s a USB hub to connect
your mouse and keyboard.
ALTERNATIVE AOC 27P2C
This also has a 1920x1080 resolution but
it’s 27 inches, so pixel density is lower. But
you’ll only notice if you look really closely.
£235 from www.snipca.com/41609
32 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
SECURITY SOFTWARE
Norton 360 Premium
£19.99 from www.snipca.com/33247
Tested Issue 629
Norton has always performed
strongly in our antivirus tests,
regularly making the top three.
Owned by US firm NortonLifeLock,
it’s available at a discount on our
Software Store. Click the link above
for a 10-device, two-year licence.
Other versions are available, including
Norton 360 for Gamers.
ALTERNATIVE Bitdefender Total
Security Another top performer that
we’re offering at a discount. £19.99
from www.snipca.com/41141
ROUTER
Synology WRX560
£238 from www.snipca.com/44696
Tested Issue 650
With a blistering top speed of 791.5Mbps,
this is up there with the fastest routers
we’ve ever tested. Even two rooms
away, it managed an exceptional
375Mbps. You can add more units to
set up mesh Wi-Fi around your home.
ALTERNATIVE Netgear Nighthawk
RAX80 Our previous favourite remains
extremely fast, delivering speeds of
520Mbps. Has four spare Ethernet
ports and two for USB. £185 from
www.snipca.com/45102
WEBCAM
Logitech C925e Business
Webcam
£68 from www.snipca.com/41104
Tested Issue 608
Despite the name, this webcam is also
great for home users. Its standout
feature is automatically adjusting itself
to keep your picture looking sharp. It
offers a 78-degree field of view, which
is fine for everyday video chats with one
person in front of the camera.
ALTERNATIVE Anker PowerConf C300
Good image quality, crisp audio and
lots of features. £90 from www.snipca.
com/41105
PRINTER
Epson EcoTank ET-1810
£150 from www.snipca.com/41232
Tested Issue 628
An inkjet printer that comes with
enough ink to print 4,500 mono
and 7,500 colour pages, making it
exceptionally cheap to run. It’s not
the fastest printer, but quality is good,
especially on photo paper – we’ve
never seen better on an inkjet.
ALTERNATIVE Brother DCP-J1140DW
Compact multifunction model with rare
features at this price, including
double-sided printing. £145 from
www.snipca.com/43670

COMPETITION
Win 1 of 3
C3TN Colour night-
vision security cameras
The C3TN Colour is an affordable
yet high-performing security
camera for anyone looking to protect
their home and keep their family
safe. It has a super-sharp 1080p
resolution, motion detection and
vivid colour night vision.
Two spotlights ensure that the
camera captures everything in
crystal-clear detail, even when it’s
pitch black outside. It
renders colour night vision
at a range of up to 15
metres and infrared black-
and-white vision up to 30
SMART TV ENNEW
TR
Y
Samsung Q60B
£436 from www.snipca.com/45083
Tested Issue 652
With our former favourite – the TCL
55RP620K out of stock – Samsung’s
43in set is our new pick. It has excellent
colour reproduction in well-lit scenes,
and picture is wonderfully sharp -
especially in 4K.
ALTERNATIVE LG OLED42C2
LG’s 42in TV is three times the price,
but unlike TCL’s model it has an
OLED screen, boosting picture quality
considerably. £999 from www.snipca.
com/43718
metres, while a noise-cancelling
microphone picks up audio clearly.
With an IP67-rated camera body, the
C3TN is both dust and water-resistant
and can withstand even the toughest
weather conditions, whether it’s
raining, snowing or stormy. Operating
the camera from your phone is easy –
simply install the Android or iOS app
and you’ll able to see on your phone
exactly what the
camera sees.
To enter this
competition,
answer the
SOLID-STATE DRIVE
Corsair MP600 Pro LPX
500GB
£52 from www.snipca.com/41547
Tested Issue 630
In our tests, this M.2 SSD hit speeds of
7,364MB/s and 6,870MB/s when
reading and writing data – astonishingly
fast scores. It’s compatible with the
new PCIe 4.0 standard, which is twice
as fast as PCIe 3.0. The 1TB model
costs £75; 2TB costs £155.
ALTERNATIVE Crucial MX500 500GB
As fast as an SSD can get in the
traditional 2.5in SATA format, this
is a great-value upgrade. £32 from
www.snipca.com/37304
Buy It
question at www.snipca.com/
46845 and submit your details.
It ends at midnight on Tuesday 16
August. Good luck!
You can buy the C3TN for £49.99
from www.snipca.com/46848.
For more information on EZVIZ
products, including smart locks
and video doorbells, visit www.
ezvizstore.co.uk and follow
@ezviz_uk_ie on Twitter.
SMART SPEAKER
Google Nest Audio
£90 from www.snipca.com/36475
Tested Issue 593
Produces a rich, clear sound, and better
understands your questions than
Amazon’s Echo devices. You can use
Google’s app to control audio from
other units around your home (pair two
of them for £130). The clever Ambient
IQ tool increases the volume if it detects
external noise, such as a hairdryer.
ALTERNATIVE Amazon Echo (4th
generation) The latest version of the
Echo changes the shape from a cylinder
to a ball, which improves sound quality
– though the Nest’s is still superior.
£110 from www.snipca.com/41111
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 33
Computeractive 2022
Back Issue CD & USB Stick
Both the CD and Stick contain all 26 issues from 2022

LE NOW!
ON SA
NEW!

Buy the CD from us at Buy the Stick from us at

www.snipca.com/44660 www.snipca.com/44976
 Pull Out
& Keep

Workshops & Tips Issue 663

14 pages of easy-to-follow workshops and expert tips

35 Use a portable router to 40 Readers’ Tips PLUS
get online anywhere 44 Phone & Tablet Tips 47 Make Office Better
42 Browser Tips: Control
38 Check your PC’s health the types of ads you 46 Make Windows 48 In the Club: Use AI to
and fix problems fast see on websites Better create free images

HOW TO...
Use a portable router to
get online anywhere by Nik Rawlinson

What you need: Portable Wi-Fi router; account with a mobile network Time required: One hour

I
f you’re heading off on your travels this
summer and need to get online, you
could try coffee shops, libraries and
other sources of public Wi-Fi. Or you
could set up a portable 4G router, which
uses regular mobile networks and lets you
connect several devices simultaneously
wherever there’s coverage.
We’ll show you how to do this using a
TP-Link M7350 – £75 from Amazon
(www.snipca.com/46677, pictured) – but
the instructions will be similar whichever
portable router you use.
You’ll also need a SIM card for the
mobile network of your choice. When
selecting a network, make sure there are
no restrictions on setting up a hotspot or
tethering. If you plan on taking your
router overseas, also make sure tethering
or hotspot usage is permitted while
roaming and check whether there’s a
data cap or additional fees for using it
that way outside of the UK.
If there is, you may find it cheaper to
switch to a network or tariff specifically (www.1pmobile.com), which charges 1p
set up for roaming or buy a pay-as- per megabyte for data unless you buy a
you-go SIM at your destination. Data Boost bundle of between 1GB (for
We’re using a SIM from 1p Mobile £3) and 200GB (£20).

Set up your router
1 Start by charging the router,
then remove the rear cover.
To make this easier, turn it over and
you’ll find a small notch in the bottom-
left corner into which you can slip a
fingernail or knife. Remove the battery
and insert your SIM card.
You’ll notice there are two slots in the
battery compartment. Hold the router so
the text on the label is the right way up
and so the slot for your SIM is on the left
(as pictured right). The slot on the right
is for storage, which we’ll use later to
reduce the amount of data we use while
travelling.
The SIM slot is designed for standard-
size SIMs, but there’s also an adapter
for smaller nano SIMs like ours.
Both the SIM slot and the
nano SIM adapter have
a sliced-off corner that
makes it impossible to
install the SIM the wrong
way round. Either slide
your regular-sized SIM
directly into the SIM
slot, with the copper
contacts facing down and
Our white nano SIM is housed
in a larger adapter
the sliced-corner towards you and to
the right, or fit your nano-SIM into the
adapter and install the adapter in the
same way.
We had some difficulty
keeping the nano SIM in
the adapter when installing
it but found it much easier
once we used a tiny piece
of tape on the side without
contacts to stick the SIM
to the adapter. If you do
the same, remove the tape
before fully sliding the
adapter beneath the silver
bar that keeps it in place.

Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 35

 Finally, check the label inside the
compartment for the default access
address and password for your device.
If they’re the same as ours, the default
access address will be http://tplinkmifi.
net and the password will be admin.
Take a note of both, then replace the
battery and back cover.
Connect to your router
2 Turn on your router by pressing
and holding the power button
below the screen. When it’s booted, click
the Wi-Fi logo on your Windows taskbar
and try to connect wirelessly.
In Windows 10, wait for the list of
detected networks to appear, and click
the one whose name begins ‘TP-Link’
(or the manufacturer of your router).
In Windows 11, there’s one extra step:
after clicking the Wi-Fi logo, click the
right side of the split button above your
current network name, then click the
network in the list that appears – it’s
‘TP-Link_A23A’ for us (pictured below).
Connect to your network by clicking its entry
in the list of Wi-Fi options in your taskbar
When Windows asks for a password,
enter the one you copied from the sticker
inside the battery compartment. At this
point, we ran into a problem, as Windows
11 refused to connect to the adapter,
reporting ‘Can’t connect to this network’.
If you encounter the same problem,
connect the router to one of your PC’s
Our wireless router is visible when connected
via a USB cable to our PC
36 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
How I connect on the move
If I’m travelling solo, I usually share my phone’s network
connection with Wi-Fi-only devices like my laptop and iPad.
However, a 4G router like the one we’re using here is more
convenient if you need to connect several devices at once or want
to share the connection between multiple users. It also saves you
having to find a coffee shop with Wi-Fi (if you’d rather not share
your phone connection) or relying on public Wi-Fi that you don’t
entirely trust.
Nik Rawlinson
How do you stay connected while travelling?
Please let us know: letters@computeractive.co.uk
USB ports using its charging cable.
Open Settings and click ‘Network &
internet’, followed by ‘Advanced network
settings’. Our computer displays multiple
wired network connections (Ethernet
connections), of which one – Ethernet 5
– is our TP-Link_A23A network (pictured
below left).
Open a browser window and enter the
address that you copied from the battery
compartment. You’ll be redirected to the
router login page. Enter the password Enter the relevant Access Point Name (APN)
into the padlock box on this page, then settings for your network
click Login.
the two are different. Optionally, also
Configure your router change the ‘Wireless Network Name
3 Your first job is to change the
default password so it’s no
(SSD)’ to something easily identifiable.
Click ‘Next’ again and you’ll see a
longer ‘admin’. Type a replacement into summary of your settings. If you’re happy
the two boxes on the ‘Set up a password’ with them, click Finish, then restart
box that appears, then click Confirm. Set your router. When it restarts, you should
your time zone by selecting a city from see your mobile network name on the
the Time Zone menu (London stands in router’s screen. If you see an alternative
for the UK), then click Next. name, this is probably because you’re
You now need to set up a profile, so using an MVNO, or Mobile Virtual
the router knows which settings to use Network Operator. That’s what we’re
to get online. Click ‘Create’ at the top doing with 1p Mobile, which runs on
of the Dial-up Settings page, then enter the EE network, and it’s EE’s name that
the relevant Access Point Name (APN) appears on the screen.
settings for your network in the form (see Disconnect the router from your PC’s
screenshot above right). These settings USB port and connect to it wirelessly
vary between networks, so search the from Windows by following the steps we
web for your network name and ‘apn outlined above. Now, log into its control
settings’. For 1p Mobile, we found the panel by launching your browser and
settings we needed at www.snipca. using the address you copied from the
com/46673. battery compartment, and the password
Click ‘Next’, then change the Wireless you chose at the very start of the setup
Password for your network. This is the process. This may not be the same as the
password that anyone who wants to password you set later in the process to
connect will have to type into Windows control access to the wireless network.
– not the password used to access the
control panel. So, if you don’t want Customise your settings
anyone who can browse the web to also
have access to your settings, make sure
4 As with your regular broadband
router at home, this wireless

2 1
1 2
5 5
Set up warnings for when you’ve used a certain amount of data
hotspot has a fully fledged control panel
through which you can change various
settings to customise how it works.
Start by clicking the Advanced tab at
the top of the screen, then click Data
Usage Settings ( 1 in our screenshot
above). Here, you can see how much data
you’ve already used, set warnings for
when you’re approaching the limits of
any bundled allowance, and specify
any hours outside of which limits
don’t apply. At the very least, we’d
recommend setting a limit if you don’t
have an unlimited deal.
Click the slider beside Data Usage
Limit 2 , then enter the total number
of megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB)
permitted on your plan 3 . You can switch
between megabytes and gigabytes using
the dropdown menu to save you doing
the maths. By default, the router is set
to warn you when you’ve used 90 per
cent of this amount 4 , which it’ll do by
displaying an orange ring on its screen. If
you want an earlier warning, reduce this
percentage. Should you carry on using
data through the device once you’ve
passed the warning point, and you hit the
specified limit, your internet access will
be blocked and the ring will turn red.
Now click the slider beside Monthly
Data Statistics 5 and enter the day of the
month on which your allowance resets.
This won’t necessarily be the first of the
month: it could instead be the monthly
anniversary of you signing up with the
provider. Finally, if you have any free
hours – for example, unmetered data use
between midnight and 7am – click the
slider beside Free Data Period and enter
those hours in the boxes beside Start
Time and End Time. Click Save.
If you notice your data is being used
more quickly than you expect, it’s worth
Next issue: Print your photos cheaper than ever
Use a portable router to get online anywhere
4 4
Block and enable connected devices through the dashboard
checking that nobody has managed
to connect to the router without your
permission. Click ‘Wireless’ ( 1 in our
screenshot above right), followed by
Online Clients 2 . Our screenshot shows
there are currently two devices connected
to our router. One is Gustav, which is
the computer we’re using to write this
feature; the other is a phone.
You can’t block access for the device
through which you’re connected to the
dashboard, but you can block any other.
Click the checkbox beside its name, as
we have for the phone 3 , then click Block
4 , and the selected device’s wireless
connection will immediately be cut.
If you later want to re-enable access
for that device, click Black List 5 in the
sidebar, select it, then click Resume.
Minimise your data use
5 As we mentioned earlier, the
router has a memory card slot
to the side of the SIM slot. You can use
this to carry data you’ll need when you’re
away so you don’t need to download it
over the internet. This can help reduce
your data consumption on a capped tariff.
To install a card, remove the battery,
then slide the silver retaining sleeve back
towards the copper battery contacts.
3
2 4
3
You should now be able to flip it up. Lay
a microSD card in the recess, with the
card’s copper contacts away from you
and facing down so they line up with
the contacts in the slot. Now drop the
retaining sleeve back down on top of the
card and gently pull it forward to lock
it into position. Replace the battery and
back cover, then restart your router.
Log into the router’s dashboard via
your browser, then click Advanced
( 1 in our screenshot below), followed
by Storage Sharing 2 . By default, your
router will be set to allow any computer
connected via USB to access the microSD
card. Click the menu beside Access Mode
and select By Wi-Fi 3 to make the card
accessible across your wireless network.
Now use the Username and Password
boxes to change the default settings, then
click Save 4 .
To access the files on your card, press
the Windows key+R to open the Run box,
then type \\192.168.0.1 and press Enter
(this is the numeric address of the router
on your current network connection).
Enter the username and password in
the box that pops up and a File Explorer
window will open, showing the microSD
card. Double-click the folder ‘sdcard’ to
view its contents.
1 You can access your
microSD card via
USB or wirelessly
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 37
 Workshop
Check your PC’s health and
fix problems quickly
What you need: Wintoys
Time required: 30 minutes

Y our PC may appear to be running

smoothly, but what’s going on
behind the scenes? Just as you should
check your car’s oil, water and tyre
pressure regularly, it pays dividends to
use Windows’ built-in tools to monitor
and optimise your computer’s
performance. These tools are dotted
around the operating system, but a new
free program called Wintoys makes them
easier to find through a well-organised
interface that explains everything clearly.
Download it from the Microsoft Store at
www.snipca.com/46778.

STEP Start by clicking the Health tab 1 . Some of

the features here, such as allowing your PC
1 to start more quickly, can be either on or off, 4
but others have additional settings that you access by
clicking the sliders 2 or dropdown menus 3 . To
optimise boot speeds, turn on Fast Startup 4 and 6 5
Hibernation 5 . The 20% setting 6 refers to the
amount of memory reserved for a quick-access 2
copy of your system that the PC can use to start
up. This is the minimum required for fast booting,
and we’d recommend leaving it as it is, but 3
increasing it to 40% would make waking from
hibernation faster, too.
1

3
4

STEP Wintoys makes hidden or unfamiliar features 1 2

easier to find. If you’re regularly suffering unexplained
2 crashes such as the blue screen of death, for example,
you might not know which tools to use to fix your problem –
unless you have Wintoys. Expand the Repair section 1 and tick
the boxes next to one (or more) of the options on offer. DISM 2
checks that the files Windows uses to repair a corrupt system
are valid. SFC 3 repairs any problems with system files, and
CHKDSK 4 moves data from corrupt sectors of your hard drive
to safe areas. Once you’ve made your selections, click Scan.
STEP Click ‘View logs’ 1 to see the results of your scan. If
these say you need to implement repairs, close the box,
3 click the ‘x’ at the end of the status line 2 , then click
the Repair button that appears. Note that while you can run a
CHKDSK scan on your C: drive while Windows is running, you
can’t use the repair function, because it can’t risk moving data
that Windows relies on. If you choose this option, it will
perform the repair when you next reboot.

38 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

 2

3
2 1
4
1
5 3

6
4
7

STEP The longer you use your PC, the more cluttered it
becomes. Windows can tidy up in the background but
4 you may have more success performing a range of
Declutter 1 jobs manually. This section offers tools to unpin
every item from the taskbar 2 , delete all junk files 3 , remove
automatically pinned folders from File Explorer’s Quick Access
4 , clear your Microsoft Store cache 5 , flush your DNS cache 6
(which can help if you’re having trouble connecting to websites)
and delete old system restore points 7 .
STEP Several of Wintoys’ settings are multilayered, so
you can both turn on a core Windows feature and dig
5 into its settings. Click the Storage Sense switch 1 , for
example, to enable or disable it. When it’s switched on, it
automatically removes temporary files to keep Windows
running smoothly. Click the sliders 2 beside the switch to
open Storage Sense’s settings and you can reduce the length
of time files remain in the recycle bin 3 and automatically
delete old files in the Downloads folder 4 .

STEP If your screen is blanking

or freezing without good
6 reason, click to Restart 1
the Graphics Driver. When we did 3
4
this, the screen went black for
around 30 seconds and, when it
returned, Windows’ display scale
setting had reverted to the
recommended 150% rather than
the 100% we’d changed it to. If 2
this happens to you, locate the
scale setting 2 by pressing
Windows key+I to open Settings,
then click System 3 followed by 1
Display. Use the dropdown menu
to select your preferred level
of zoom 4 .

STEP When you’ve worked your

way through the Health tab,
7 it’s worth checking the
options under Boost 1 . These include
quick access to programs that start
when Windows boots, with switches
to disable any you don’t need 2 . You
can also allow Windows to maximise
its use of your PC’s components by
3 enabling Ultimate Performance 3 .
This is something you can enable
1 elsewhere in Windows, too, but
having easy access to it here is great
2 for when you want a temporary boost
before returning to a less power-
hungry setting.

Next issue: Share files faster between your phone and PC Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 39
 Readers’ Tips
TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT

Skim through magazines in Google Books

Google Books is a great place for
finding out-of-copyright classics, as
your ‘Free Ebooks’ feature pointed out
(Issue 659, page 60 – buy it from www.
snipca.com/46665). But it’s not just
great for books – there are thousands of
old magazines to browse also.
I always start at www.snipca.
com/46666, where you can scroll
through A-Z listings. It’s often easier to
search for a specific title or subject. I
often look for old issues of
Computerworld, Life and Popular
Science ( 1 in our screenshot). 2
Unlike with books, where you’d
probably want to read page by page, it’s 3
easy to flick through magazines as you
would in real life. You just need to click
the correct icon at the top 2 and you’ll
see the whole magazine laid out below 3 .
It’s then easy to cast your eye over the
pages to see what interests you.
Another little tip is to use the keys J
and K to move forward and back through 1
a magazine or book.
Peter Cobb

Peter wins a copy of our 2022 Back Issue CD Buy it from us at www.snipca.com/44660

FILES
Convert Word documents
to read on Kindle
I was recently sent dozens of Word
documents that I had to forward on
to a Kindle. I dreaded having to work out
how to convert them so they’d be
readable on the Kindle, so I was relieved
to discover an incredibly simple method.
All you have to do is email the document
to your Kindle’s unique email address
and type convert in the subject line (see
screenshot below left). Amazon
recognises this as a command to
automatically convert the file, then adds
it to your Kindle library. How clever!
Sam Hutton
SOFTWARE
Digitise notes using
OneNote’s OCR
Digitising handwritten text using
Google Keep’s OCR sounds easy
(Issue 662, page 48), so I’ll certainly give
it a go. I’m curious to know whether it’ll
improve upon my current method of
using the OCR function in Microsoft’s
OneNote. I receive lots of written and
typed notes that need digitising. I
download them from the email, then
simply drag them into OneNote. Then I
right-click the image and click ‘Copy Text
from Picture’. Finally, I click in OneNote
where I’d like the text and press Ctrl+V.
Note that I use the downloadable desktop
version of OneNote, not the app.
Nicholas Johns
SMART TV
Perform a ‘System restart’
to fix Roku problems
In Issue 661’s Cover Feature (‘Smart
TV Problems – Fixed’) you gave
instructions for returning a faulty Roku
player to its factory settings. That might
be necessary in extreme situations, but
when my Roku is playing up I’ve found
that a system restart helps to fix glitches.
You’ll find this option by pressing the
Home button on your remote control,

Why I stopped using…

Serif PagePlus
I used Serif products for years.
Great desktop publishing (DTP)
software from a great company. But I
no longer need a DTP program.
And what I use instead...
In Issue 660 (page 20) you
recommended Scribus (www.scribus.
net) as an alternative to PagePlus.
But with a little effort I learned to use
the advanced features in LibreOffice
Writer (www.libreoffice.org) as a
DTP alternative.
LibreOffice lets you create complex
documents, complete with embedded
images, indices, footnotes, tables of
contents, hyperlinks and fields that users
can fill in. All documents can be exported
as a PDF (see screenshot). When I do this,
I normally protect it with a password in
order to send sensitive material by email.
For me, using LibreOffice is a better
choice than having to download yet
another program like Scribus. Tell us why you stopped using a website, app
Tom Boyd or program: letters@computeractive.co.uk

40 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663


then scrolling down and clicking ‘Select
settings’. You then need to click ‘System
restart’ followed by Restart (see screenshot
above). Click OK and your Roku player
will restart, hopefully without trouble.
Howard Dunn
OFFICE
Change bullet points to
checkboxes when printing
Following your tip on adding
interactive checkboxes to Word
documents (Issue 661, page 47), here’s a
way you can quickly turn a list of bullet
points into checkboxes. They’re not
interactive, but I do this when I need to
print a list of tasks to tick off.
1 also converts HEVC files to MP4, with no
2 apparent loss in picture quality.
3
First, create your bullet-pointed list,
then click the Home tab at the top.
Highlight your list by selecting it, then
click the dropdown arrow to the right of
the Bullets icon, which is in the
Paragraph section, and select Define New
Bullet. Next, click Symbol ( 1 in our
screenshot above) and look for a square
or rectangle in the box that appears 2 .
Click to select one you like, then click OK
to close the Symbol box, and OK again to
close the Define New Bullet box. You’ll
see the bullet points change to boxes 3 .
Rick Travis
SOFTWARE
Convert iPhone files
to play on TV
Having recently purchased an
iPhone 13 and used it for holiday
photos and videos, I noticed the file
Handy hints and tips from your fellow readers
Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Reader recommends…
Mercusys AC1900 mesh Wi-Fi
£80 from www.snipca.com/46641
When we got full-fibre
broadband, it was much faster
than the old copper cables. But my
internet connection still kept dropping
out across our two buildings: an office
and a house linked by a 50-metre
Ethernet cable.
So I decided to boost it with a mesh
Wi-Fi system. I had aimed to buy a
Wi-Fi 6 set, but none of my equipment
was compatible, so I chose a fast Wi-Fi
5 system instead. After a lot of research,
I bought the Mercusys AC1900 (three
pack) from Amazon.
When the box arrived, I scanned the
QR code and downloaded the Android
software. I followed the prompts and
set up the first transmitter to replace
the old access point. I then added the
extensions are HEIC and HEVC
respectively. I saved these files to a USB
stick, but they don’t play on my LG TV.
To overcome this I downloaded iMazing
Converter, a free app from Microsoft Store
(www.snipca.com/46619).
After opening the app, I
selected my photos, then
clicked Convert (see
screenshot above) and saved
the photos to my stick. I then
just needed to plug the stick
into the TV to view my
photos. The app is really
simple to use and photos can
be converted in batches. It
second and third transmitters and it
was all up and running in under
20 minutes. It was one of my easiest
computer setups in about 40 years
of experience.
It’s twice as fast as my previous
setup (access point and two boosters),
and I haven’t suffered any drop-offs
anywhere in the house. Money well
spent!
Chris Adam
Want to recommend hardware or software
to fellow readers?
Email letters@computeractive.co.uk
Keith Mutch
SOFTWARE
Use keyboard shortcut to move
through tabs in Paint.net
Version 5.0.7 of Paint.net has a
handy new keyboard shortcut
I bet many users won’t have discovered.
By pressing Ctrl+Shift+Page Up/Page
Down you can move through the tabs
you have open at the top ( 1 in our
screenshot below). It makes my favourite
image-editing tool that little bit better.
The 5.0.7 download is at www.snipca.
com/46651. Alternatively, if you’re
running an older version, click the
top-right Settings cog, then Updates on
the left 2 , followed by Check Now 3 . If
you don’t know which version you have,
look at the top left of the main interface.
Mike Yeo
1
3
2
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 41
 Browser Tips
CHROME
Control the type of ads
you see on websites
Despite a couple of delays,
Google is still planning to phase
out cookies in Chrome by the end of 2024
in favour of its own Topics system.
Chrome 115, which was released 12 July,
implements the first stage of Google’s
plan by adding new privacy settings that
let you control (to some extent) the types
of ads you see on web pages.
You may have seen a pop-up message
about ‘Enhanced ad privacy in Chrome’
when you updated the browser. If not,
you can access the new options by going
to Settings then ‘Privacy and security’,
and selecting ‘Ads privacy’. If that option
isn’t listed, click Privacy Sandbox, switch
on Trials and restart the browser.
The ‘Ads privacy’ page comprises
three options. The first, ‘Ad topics’
( 1 in screenshot below), shows you
1 Preview pages in your
2 The History feature in most
3 thumbnail images of pages when you
personalised ads based on
sites in your recent browsing
history. Once turned on, it
lists topics Google thinks
you’re interested in so that
Chrome can display relevant
ads. You can also block specific
topics so you don’t see ads
related to them.
The second option, ‘Site-
suggested ads’ 2 , lets websites
display ads based on your
activity on them, while the
third option, ‘Ad measurement’
3 , allows sites and advertisers to monitor
the performance of their ads, such as the
time of day you saw them.
Google believes Topics offers greater
privacy than cookies because it groups
you with other Chrome users who have
the same interests, rather than building a
profile of you and tracking you across the
web. But until there’s clearer information
about the system, you may prefer to
leave the new settings switched off.
EDGE
browsing history
browsers is just a list of web
pages you’ve previously visited,
which doesn’t tell you much about
their actual content. Edge 115, which
was released 20 July, introduces an
enhanced History panel that displays
hover your cursor over them.
To try the new feature, open the
browser’s History by pressing Ctrl+H or
clicking the three-dot menu button and
selecting History. Hover your cursor
over an entry and it should display a
thumbnail preview of the page. If not,
click the ‘Turn on image on hover’ icon at
the top of the History panel (see
screenshot above). We found that only
pages added to our History after we
updated to Edge 115 showed image
previews – old entries merely displayed
the page title and URL.
The new History panel also gives the
‘Clear browsing data’ option its own bin
icon rather than tucking it away. This lets
you delete your browsing history, cookies
and cached data in a couple of clicks, as
you can in DuckDuckGo’s new browser
(see Issue 662’s Cover Feature – buy it at
www.snipca.com/46804).
To make your History easier to access,
click the three-dot button in the top-right
corner of the panel and choose ‘Show
history button in toolbar’.

WORKSHOP Change the inactive time for Chrome’s ‘Memory saver’

A new Chrome experiment lets you tweak the browser’s ‘Memory saver’ feature to specify the length of time it waits before freeing
up memory from inactive tabs. Here’s how to try it.

1
2 2

2
1
1

1 Type chrome://flags into Chrome’s

address bar and press Enter to load the
Experiments page. Find the entry Enable
the multi-state option for Memory Saver
Mode 1 , select Enabled in its dropdown
menu 2 and restart the browser.
2 When Chrome reopens, click the
three-dot menu button and select
Settings then Performance. Switch on the
‘Memory saver’ feature 1 if it’s not already
enabled and activate the option ‘Select
when your tabs become inactive’ 2 .
3 Specify how long Chrome should wait
before freeing up memory from
inactive tabs – from five minutes 1 to one
day. To stop Chrome unloading specific
sites, click Add next to ‘Always keep these
sites active’ 2 and enter their URLs.

42 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663


BEST EXTENSION FOR… Wet weather warnings
Rain Alarm
Chromium: www.snipca.com/46775
Firefox: www.snipca.com/46776
We’ve had a summer of sudden and often
heavy showers, but Rain Alarm can help
you avoid a future soaking. It alerts you
when rainfall is imminent in your location
by displaying a pop-up notification and
playing an optional stormy sound effect.
You can change how often the extension
checks the weather, the radius of the
area it covers and the sensitivity of its rain
alarms by right-clicking its toolbar button
and choosing Options. When you left-click
FIREFOX
Stop Firefox blocking your
favourite add-ons
Firefox 115, which was released in
early July, is the last version of the
browser to support Windows 7 and 8. If
you’re using either of those operating
systems, you’ll soon need to upgrade to
Windows 10 or 11, or switch to a browser
that still supports them, such as Pale
Moon (www.palemoon.org).
Another controversial change is that
Firefox 115 will prevent some add-ons
running on certain websites. When this
happens, an error message will appear in
the Extensions (jigsaw-piece) panel to tell
you that ‘Only some extensions
monitored by Mozilla are allowed on this
site to protect your data’.
Mozilla says it has introduced this new
feature, which it calls Quarantined
Domains (www.snipca.com/46763), for
“various reasons, including security
concerns”. That sounds vaguely useful for
protecting you against data theft, but it
Secret settings and the best extensions
the button, Rain Alarm opens a new tab
showing an animated, colour-coded weather
may result in your favourite
add-ons being disabled on sites
where you need them.
Quarantined Domains is
still in development, but if you
find it overzealous and are
happy to risk using an
extension that isn’t monitored
by Mozilla, you can disable it.
Type about:config into
Firefox’s address bar, press
Enter and click ‘Accept the
Risk and Continue’. Search for
the preference extensions.
quarantinedDomains.enabled and
double-click it to change its value to
‘false’ (see screenshot below). Restart the
browser to apply the change.
OPERA GX
Play mini games
in Live Wallpapers
Opera GX (www.snipca.
com/46766), the browser designed
for online gamers, now offers its own
map. This allows you to track the progress
of rain clouds approaching your area, see
how light or heavy the downpour is likely
to be (see screenshot left) and decide
whether you need to take an umbrella.
If you don’t like that, try…
UV Weather
Chromium
www.snipca.com/46777
This excellent weather extension reserves
some features for its paid-for version, but
provides lots of useful information for free,
including ‘probability of precipitation’.
mini games through a new feature called
Live Wallpapers. These are essentially
interactive background images that
respond to your mouse movements.
To try Live Wallpapers, either click the
‘Take me there’ button on Opera GX’s
homepage or go straight to www.snipca.
com/46767. Here you’ll see dozens of
wallpapers with names like Arcade Alley,
Sunset Flight and Veggie Slicer. Select one
to learn more about it, then click Install.
When you open a new tab,
your live wallpaper should appear
as the background – if not, right-
click the page and choose ‘Change
wallpaper’. You can also select
‘Configure live wallpaper’ (see
screenshot above) to customise
different aspects of the design,
including the theme, camera
angle and the behaviour of
dynamic elements.
When you install Opera GX, make
sure you click ‘Configure in settings’
and untick the boxes allowing
Opera to collect your data and use it
to show you personalised ads.
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 43
 Phone and Tablet Tips
ANDROID & iOS settings set to Everyone will then try to identify
Chat to people who aren’t rather than ‘My contacts’. the track (see screenshot
contacts in WhatsApp WhatsApp is rolling out left) and – if successful –
To start a new chat with the feature gradually, but add it to your library and
someone in WhatsApp, you’ve it will be available to all let you view the lyrics and
previously needed to save their name and users soon. share it. If identification
phone number as a contact. Although fails, you can swipe down
this makes it easy to identify their future ANDROID & iOS from the top of your
messages, it also means your contacts list Identify songs on screen and tap the option
can become clogged up with the details YouTube and TikTok to try again.
of people you only chatted to once or Apple’s excellent Shazam has also added
twice, and aren’t likely to speak to again. music-discovery support for the Apple
To overcome this problem, WhatsApp app Shazam has been Music Classical app. This
has added the welcome option to send a updated for Android means that when you
message to a mobile number without (www.snipca.com/46876) hear a classical track
saving the person to your contacts. and iOS (www.snipca. when out and about, or
You can then delete or archive the com/46877) to identify on one of the services
conversation to keep your Chats list tidy. songs in other apps on your device. mentioned above, you can open it directly
Tap the ‘Start new chat’ speech-bubble Previously, Shazam used the in the Classical app.
icon to launch a chat, but instead of microphone on your phone or tablet to
selecting a contact or creating a new one, ‘listen’ for music playing near you, and iOS
type the phone number tell you the name of the Add websites to your
into the search box at the artist and track. Its home screen in Chrome
top of your screen. expanded capabilities Google is continuing to improve its
WhatsApp will tell you allow it to recognise Chrome browser for iPhones and
it’s ‘Looking outside your songs in YouTube, iPads (www.snipca.com/46881) by
contacts’ (see screenshot TikTok and Instagram introducing the useful ability to add
right) then let you begin videos, which haven’t websites to your home screen. This
the conversation. been labelled with feature, which is already available on
The new option also that information. Android, lets you tap a site’s shortcut to
helps protect your To use the new open it instantly, without needing to
privacy because the feature, open Shazam launch Chrome first – effectively turning
other person won’t be when playing music in the website into a mobile app. These
able to see your profile one of those services, shortcuts also support notifications, so
picture, status or ‘last tap the ‘S’ button and you’ll receive an alert every time the site
seen and online’ details, switch back to the publishes a new article.
unless you have those relevant app. Shazam To use the new option, open a website

BEST NEW APPS What you should install this fortnight

Vibes Threads ESTA Mobile

Free* Free Free*
iOS www.snipca.com/46889 Android www.snipca.com/46884 Android www.snipca.com/46891
This app lets you create personalised iOS www.snipca.com/46885 iOS www.snipca.com/46892
music to help you concentrate and relax, Meta’s new Twitter rival has already attracted Before visiting the US, it’s essential to
based on your daily activities and rhythms. more than 100 million users, though you submit an Electronic System for Travel
Build a ‘vibe’ to currently need an Authorization (ESTA)
reflect what you’re Instagram account application – and
doing, then listen to use it. Threads you can now do
to immersive lets you post it on your mobile
soundscapes messages of up device using this US
accompanied to 500 characters Customs and Border
by colourful 3D (compared with Protection app. It lets
animations you Twitter’s 280), you start a new ESTA
can interact with. five-minute videos, application, resume
It’s beautifully photos, GIFs and an existing one, scan
designed and more, and with your passport and
very therapeutic. friends and ‘creators’. pay the $22 fee.

*Contains in-app purchases

44 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

 Brilliant things to do on your device

ANDROID activating a new

Balance the ‘Stable volume’
volume of option in the
YouTube videos YouTube mobile app
It’s often difficult (Android only, at the
to get the volume time of writing).
right when watching Tap the settings
YouTube videos, cog in the top-right
especially when corner of the video
you’re listening player and switch on
through headphones, ‘Stable volume’ (see
and the transition screenshot left). This
from quiet dialogue should normalise the
to loud music and sound in the clip to
sound effects can be startling. You can stop you jumping out of your skin when
now better balance the audio level by it suddenly gets louder.

in Chrome and tap the Share button in

the top-right corner of the app. Select
‘Add to Home Screen’ (see screenshot
above), edit the name of the site if you
want, then tap Add. Chrome will
automatically fetch the website’s
favicon to represent the shortcut.
Note that your device needs to be
running iOS/iPadOS 16.4 to use the new
feature. Apple’s Safari browser lets you
add sites to your home screen in the
same way.
ANDROID & iOS
Find videos on Facebook
more easily
Facebook has added new video
features to its mobile app, to
help it keep up with rival social-media
apps YouTube, TikTok and its Meta
stablemate Instagram. The ‘Watch’ tab
has been renamed Video, and can be
accessed via the top menu bar in the
Android app (see screenshot below)
and the bottom bar in the iOS app.
It brings together all Facebook’s video
content including Reels (which now last
up to 90 seconds), longer clips and live
streams, which you
can swipe through
vertically and filter
using options such
as ‘For you’, Live
and Following.
The search tool
has also been
updated to let you
browse videos by
topic (by tapping
the relevant
hashtags) and
revisit videos you’ve
previously watched.
BEST APPS FOR... Analysing your Wi-Fi network
Fing
Free*
Android www.snipca.com/46901
iOS www.snipca.com/46902
Although Fing limits some of its best
features to its subscription service, it’s
still an effective way to scan your Wi-Fi
network for suspicious activity. It rates the
overall security of your network, lists all
the devices currently connected to it and
lets you test your download and upload
speeds to identify bandwidth hogs.
Best For Checking your Wi-Fi security
WiFiman
Free
Android www.snipca.com/46904
iOS www.snipca.com/46905
WiFiman provides a thorough scan of your
Wi-Fi network to tell you the precise signal
strength your mobile device is receiving, in
dBm (decibel milliwatts). Walk around to
check the signal quality in different areas
of your home and even create a colour-
coded heatmap to identify dead spots
(Android only).
Best For Testing your Wi-Fi signal
Router Admin Setup
Free*
Android www.snipca.com/46907
This app goes beyond providing
information about your Wi-Fi speed and
connected devices to let you tweak your
router’s settings too. Its long list of router
models includes admin usernames and
passwords, so you can sign into your
device’s settings and make changes.
You need to pay to remove its ads.
Best For Tweaking router settings
*Contains in-app purchases

Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 45

 Make Windows Better
WINDOWS 10 & 11
Open apps through the Run box
Rather than looking for
apps in the Start menu,
you can open them by
typing Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
commands in the Run box. Press
Windows key+R then type a command
such as windowsdefender: (see
screenshot below). Click OK and this will
launch the app within Windows. Other
commands include calculator:, onenote:
and outlookmail: – see the full list at
www.snipca.com/46906. Note that these
commands work only with Microsoft
apps that are built into Windows, and
those made by Microsoft that it makes
available through its Store.
WINDOWS 10 & 11
Make the calculator
always stay on top
You can make the
Windows calculator app
appear on top of every
other page you have open, so it always
stays in view. Open the app, then check
that it’s in Standard mode. If not, find
and select this mode by clicking the
three-line menu top left. Next, click the
‘Keep on top’ icon (see screenshot below),
or press the keyboard shortcut Alt+up
46 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
Expert tips for every version
WINDOWS 11
Perform more tasks using your voice
Windows 11’s ‘Moment 3’ This triggers a simple setup procedure
update, which Microsoft is for your microphone. You can practise
making available on all by speaking to customise an animal on
computers, added new voice the right ( 1 in our screenshot). Click
commands to use with the ‘Voice the cog icon 2 to access the settings
access’ app. This lets you perform tasks and quit the app.
on your computer, such as opening New commands include actions
programs and writing emails, using when you’re using word-processing
just your voice (see Microsoft’s software, such as “delete all”, and “caps
information at www.snipca.com/46903). XXX” (replacing XXX with the words
It was added to Windows 11 as part of you want capitalised). You can access
the 22H2 Feature update, released last all voice commands either by saying
September. “what can I say?” or via Microsoft’s
Search for ‘Voice access’ on your page at www.snipca.com/46900.
computer, then open it.
If you’re using it for the
first time, it will prompt
you to download 1
speech-recognition 2
software. When this has
downloaded, the ‘Voice
access’ bar will appear
at the top of your screen,
and prompt you to say
“voice access wake up”.
arrow. This will move the calculator to
the top right of your screen.
You can now drag the calculator
around your screen by clicking its top
edge and moving it. You can also resize
the calculator by hovering your cursor
over the edges until the double-headed
arrow appears, then moving the arrow. To
stop the calculator appearing on top, click 2
the ‘Back to full view’ icon, or press the
keyboard shortcut Alt+down arrow.
3
WINDOWS 11
Stop the Microsoft Edge 1
desktop shortcut returning
No matter how many times you navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_
delete the Microsoft Edge MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\
desktop shortcut in Windows 11, Microsoft\EdgeUpdate (copy and paste
it keeps coming back. This is because this from www.snipca.com/46886) –
Microsoft uses Edge to run scheduled 1 in our screenshot above. Right-click
tasks like checking for updates after you anywhere on the right then click New,
log in. In the process, Windows creates a ‘DWORD (32-bit) Value’ to create a
shortcut for Edge if you’ve previously new file. Right-click this and call it
deleted it. But by tweaking the registry CreateDesktopShortcutDefault 2 .
you can prevent those tasks from Double-click the file and enter 0 as the
running, and therefore banish the ‘Value data’ 3 . Click OK. When you close
Edge shortcut for good. Registry Editor and restart your machine,
Type regedit into Windows’ search bar Edge will be instructed to no longer
then open the Registry Editor. On the left, create a desktop shortcut.
Make Office Better
MICROSOFT WORD
Allow your images to overlap
By default Word doesn’t let
you overlap images in a
document, but you can allow
this by changing the layout option.
First, click your image then the Layout
Options icon that appears to the right
of it ( 1 in our screenshot). Now click
the image again, then click the Picture
Format tab that appears at the top
followed by the Wrap Text dropdown
arrow. Now right-click the image, then
select Wrap Text and choose any option
other than ‘In Line with Text’. You’ll
need to do this for every image you
want to overlap.
LIBREOFFICE WRITER
Set orientations
in your page styles
It’s easy to change the default
page orientation in LibreOffice
Writer – click Format at the top,
then Page Style. Click the Page tab in
the box that appears, then select Portrait
or Landscape in the Paper Format section
and click OK.
You can also set an orientation as part
of a Page Style, which includes format
and styling for elements such as headers,
footers and margins. This is useful if
you have styles that require different
orientation. To do this, click View at the
top, then Styles (or press F11). This will
bring up the Styles box on the right.
Next, click the Page Styles icon ( 1 in our
screenshot below), then right-click an
empty area of the panel and click New.
In the box that appears click the
Organiser tab and give your style a name
(such as ‘Landscape 1’ 2 ), then repeat it
in the ‘Next style’ box 3 . Next, click the
Page tab and choose your orientation in
the Paper Format section. Now make any
other formatting changes by clicking the
tabs (for example, Header, Footer, Borders),
2 1
3
Top tips for the best office programs
Next, click the image once more,
followed by the Layout Options icon
again. This time, click ‘See more’ at
the bottom, and in the next box make
sure the Position tab is selected top
left 2 . Now click ‘Allow overlap’ 3 in the
Options section at the bottom (you may
first have to click More Layout Options
to see this section). Again, you’ll need to
do this for every image. Click OK.
You can now move your images
as you wish. To bring one on top of
another, simply right-click it and choose
‘Bring to Front’. To move it back, click
‘Send to Back’.
confirming each by clicking OK. You’ll
see your style appear in the panel – we’ve
created three for Landscape orientation 4 .
Just double-click one whenever you want
to create a document in that style.
ONLYOFFICE
Save documents and
spreadsheets as JPEGs
OnlyOffice 7.4, released in
June, added the option to save
spreadsheets and documents in
the image formats JPEG and PNG. This
can make it easier to publish the files in
print or present them online. They are
also universally acceptable formats that
most people should be able to open.
Saving to these formats is simple. Just
1
5
4
3
3
1
2
click File at the top left, then Save As.
Open the ‘Save as type’ dropdown menu
then select JPG Image or PNG image (see
screenshot below left). You can also open
the Save As box by pressing Ctrl+S on
your document or spreadsheet.
MICROSOFT EXCEL
Extract text from a screenshot
As well as inserting a screenshot
into a spreadsheet, you can extract
any text it contains so it appears in
a cell. First take your screenshot so it’s
saved to your clipboard. Next, select the
cell where you want the data to appear.
Now click Data at the top of your
spreadsheet ( 1 in our screenshot below),
followed by From Picture, then Picture
From Clipboard 2 .
A panel titled ‘Data from Picture’ will
appear on the right indicating that your
screenshot is being analysed. When that’s
done Excel will show you a preview of
the data it has extracted. It will highlight
parts of the data that it thinks you should
check for accuracy 3 . Click ‘Review’ 4 to
see these, and Accept if you’re fine with
it. When done, click Insert Data 5 and it
will be added to your spreadsheet.
2
4
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 47
 In The Club
Run a club or society? Here's how your tech can make it easier
Use AI to create free images
M any of the headlines about
artificial intelligence (AI) have
focused on its potential for destroying
humanity or putting writers, artists
and musicians out of business. Marvel
recently used AI to produce the animated
opening credits for its Secret Invasion
TV series. Critics slammed it for being
sloppily drawn (judge for yourself at
www.snipca.com/46826) and depriving
animators of work.
But AI can be very useful, especially for
creating bespoke images. The problem is
that AI needs to be ‘trained’ using real
images first, and many of those are
copyrighted, which means you’re not
allowed to download and use them.
Adobe’s Firefly is different. For a
start, it’s much easier to use than
most other AI image generators. But
more importantly, it uses Adobe’s own
collection of images, which gets around
the problem of copyright infringement.
This means you’re allowed to use the
results of its AI on any club material
you create, such as flyers, newsletters
and posters. What’s more, they’re
all free to use, as long as it’s not for
commercial purposes.
Choose Firefly’s ‘Text to image’
option
To use Adobe Firefly, visit https://firefly.
adobe.com and create an account.
There are three main AI tools to try:
Click the
Generate
button in
the ‘Text to
image’ box
48 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
5 3
1
Edit your images using Firefly’s settings on the right
‘Text to image’, ‘Generative fill’ (read
more about this at www.snipca.
com/46828) and ‘Text effects’. We’ll
use Firefly to create a poster for a
chess competition.
Choose the ‘Text to image’ option,
then click the blue Generate button
(see screenshot below). This takes
you to a gallery of images created by
Firefly, along with the text prompts
that created them. These should
give you an idea of what to type to
produce a suitable image. When you’re
ready, type your text prompt at the
bottom of the page (we chose ‘Chess
pieces as monsters fighting a battle’),
then click the Generate button.
Next issue: Create a form for members to upload files
2
4
Edit your images
On the next screen, you’ll see four images
that Firefly has created in response to
your text. If you don’t like any of them,
click Refresh for a new selection ( 1 in
our screenshot above) or start again by
typing a new request into the text box at
the bottom. Once you have some images
you like, use the settings on the right to
adjust the aspect ratio 2 and select a
content type 3 (photo, art or graphic) or
visual effect such as chaotic or neon 4 .
Scroll further down and you’ll see options
to change the image’s lighting, composition,
colour and tone. You must click Refresh
for your changes to take effect.
Hover your mouse over a picture you
like to see more options 5 . If you click
the wavy-lines icon at the top left, Firefly
will recreate the other images to match it.
This is a great way to create more images
in a style you already like. Click the
three-dots icon for an option to copy the
image to your clipboard.
Once you have an image you’re
happy with, click its download button.
A message will appear telling you that
your image will contain a note stating it
was created by AI. You can now add the
image to a flyer, poster or mug for your
club using a tool such as Canva (www.
canva.com, see Issue 657’s column).
Remember not to use the image for
commercial purposes.
What’s All the
Fuss About...
Aptos Calibri is no longer the right
type for Microsoft
What is it?
Microsoft’s new default font for its Office
tools. It replaces Calibri, which had been
the main font since the release of Office
2007. Before that, Times New Roman was
the default. Microsoft is feeling especially
pleased with itself, saying the font “was
crafted to embody the many aspects of
the human experience”.
What does it look like?
We could quote Microsoft again and say
that it’s made of “varying geometric
shapes, is bold, well-defined, directive,
and constrained” with “clean cut” stem
ends (www.snipca.com/46862). Or we
could just say look at the image right
– the word Aptos is itself written in Aptos.
How different is it from Calibri?
Not radically. Like Calibri, Aptos is a
sans-serif font, which means it doesn’t
have any decorative lines or strokes at the
top and bottom of letters. This style is
widely considered easier to read online
than serif fonts like Times New Roman.
However, Aptos does have wider letters
than Calibri, and you’ll notice more
differences if you peer closely at the i’s
and j’s (see 1 in our screenshot below).
How so?
Because the dots at the top are now
circular rather than the “grotesque
APTOS CALIBRI
Aptos has dots instead of “grotesque” squares, and though Microsoft somewhat ruins
“two piled ellipticals” for the number 8
squares” of Calibri. Also, the lowercase l
has a “distinctive tail” to separate it from
the capital I, while “two piled ellipticals
make 8”.
Two piled what?
It just means the shapes making up the
number are more oval than before 2 . But
font creators hope you won’t notice such
tiny details. They simply want you to
appreciate the overall effect of a font
without caring too much about the
specific elements.
And who did create Aptos?
Renowned font designer Steve
1 Matteson. He’s also the man behind
the Segoe family of fonts, which has
been the default in Windows since
Vista launched in 2001. His aim with
Aptos was to make it feel more
human and less “mechanical”. He
compared this to how drivers prefer
listening to a human voice on a
sat-nav rather than an artificial one.
2 Did he come up with the
name too?
Yes, it’s one of his favourite towns in
California, with beautiful redwood
trees, mountains and beaches –
this vision by pretentiously claiming
that the town’s “widely ranging
landscape and climate epitomises the
font’s versatility”.
Why did Microsoft
want to get rid of Calibri?
It hasn’t given a deeper reason beyond it
being “time to evolve”. It announced the
change in 2021, asking for feedback on a
shortlist of five possible replacements:
Bierstadt, Grandview, Seaford, Skeena
and Tenorite (see www.snipca.
com/46868). At the time we voiced our
preference for Skeena, but Bierstadt
emerged as the favourite and was then
renamed Aptos.
Can I use it yet?
Microsoft said it will be available soon
to all Microsoft 365 users, which is the
subscription version of Office. We expect
it’ll arrive in an update to pay-once
downloadable versions also. But you
don’t actually have to wait to see whether
you like it, because Bierstadt has
remained as an option in Office’s
dropdown fonts menu, as have the other
four ‘losing’ fonts. Calibri is still there too,
of course. And if you don’t like Aptos
when it arrives, follow Microsoft’s
instructions to make any other font your
default: www.snipca.com/46871. Even
Comic Sans, if you’re so inclined.
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 49
 COVER FEATURE
GREAT AGAIN!
Microsoft has made many unwelcome and
unnecessary changes to Windows 10 and 11.
Robert Irvine reveals how to reverse all the ways
it has messed up its operating system
WHAT YOU CAN DO
• Restore the Windows Start menu to
its ‘classic’ design
• Restore useful tools Microsoft
removed from the taskbar
• Safely reinstall the original version of
Windows Movie Maker
• Remove the Bing Chat button from
Windows 11 search
• Expand the Windows clipboard to
store up to 500 items
• Add tabs to File Explorer windows in
Windows 10
• Stop Microsoft showing ads in
different areas of Windows
50 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
M
icrosoft has never been
guided by the principle of ‘if
it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
Over the years, it’s made
many pointless and controversial changes
to Windows for the purposes of innovation.
Notable blunders include the botched
introduction of User Account Control in
Windows Vista, which constantly asked
for your approval to perform the simplest
of tasks; the ill-advised scrapping of the
Start menu in Windows 8 in favour of a
touch-optimised Start screen; and its strict
system requirements for Windows 11
– plus more messing with the Start menu.
In fairness to Microsoft, it often backtracks
on its poor decisions when enough users
complain and now actively seeks the
feedback of members of its Windows
Insider programme (www.snipca.
com/46872) before it makes
‘improvements’. However, there are still
plenty of things that annoy us about
Windows, from unnecessary changes to
useless tools Microsoft has forced on us
and useful ones it has removed.
In this feature, we explain how to solve
these problems and take back control of
your PC. As Windows 10 won’t receive
any more updates (apart from security
patches) it’s up to you to apply your own,
while Windows 11 remains a work in
progress that keeps finding new ways to
irritate us. We start by revealing the 10
worst changes Microsoft has made to
Windows, and how to reverse them.

10 WORST CHANGES MICROSOFT HAS MADE TO WINDOWS
1Messing up the Start menu
The Start menu is the most frequent
target of Microsoft’s tampering. It was
ditched in Windows 8, then restored in
8.1 but bloated with live tiles that carried
over to Windows 10. In Windows 11,
Microsoft moved the Start menu from
its traditional home in the bottom-left
corner of your screen, and replaced its list
of programs with a grid of pinned and
recommended apps – which now
includes ads for its products and services.
HOW TO FIX IT
The easiest way to restore the Start menu
to its former glory is to install Open-Shell
(www.snipca.com/46780). This free tool
changes the Windows 10 Start menu to a
classic, compact list, which gives you easy
access to your programs, recent items,
Windows settings, shutdown options and
more. You can then customise it using
different layouts and skins.
In Windows 11, because Microsoft has
put a Widgets button where the Start
button used to be, you first need to open
Open-Shell’s Menu Settings, click the
Start Menu Style tab and tick the ‘Replace
Start button’ box (see screenshot above
right). Choose your preferred button
design and the Start menu will be
restored to its rightful place in the
bottom-left corner. To hide the Widgets
button, right-click the taskbar, choose
‘Taskbar settings’ and switch off Widgets.
Alternatively, you can keep the
Windows 11 Start button and menu, but
place them in their traditional position,
bottom left. Select ‘Taskbar behaviours’
in ‘Taskbar settings’, then click the
‘Taskbar alignment’ dropdown menu and
change the setting from Centre to Left.
2Forcing
on users
its Edge browser
The Chromium version of Edge is a great
browser (especially compared with
Internet Explorer), but with so many
other options to choose from – including
A batch script is the only reliable way to remove Edge from Windows 10 and 11
Restore the classic Start button
and menu to Windows using
Open-Shell
Chrome, Firefox, Brave and
Vivaldi – not everyone wants to
use it. Microsoft annoyed many
Windows 11 users by making it
difficult to set anything other
than Edge as your default
browser, and though it’s now
rectified this blunder, it still
won’t let you uninstall Edge.
When you try to remove the
browser through the Apps
section of the Settings app in
Windows 10 or 11, or through
‘Programs and Features’ in the
Control Panel, you’ll find the option is
greyed out or unavailable. Microsoft says
this is because Edge is “an essential
component of our operating system”, but
we beg to differ.
HOW TO FIX IT
Even powerful uninstallers such as BC
Uninstaller (www.bcuninstaller.com) and
O&O AppBuster (www.snipca.com/46027)
can’t remove Edge from Windows 10 or
11. The only method we’ve found to work
involves running a batch script created by
a GitHub developer called AveYo.
Visit the Edge_Removal.bat page at
www.snipca.com/46788 and click the
‘Copy raw file’ icon in the top-right
corner of the script – this looks like two
overlapping squares. Open the Notepad
app on your PC and paste the batch
script’s code into it. Click the File menu,
choose Save As and select All Files in the
‘Save as type’ dropdown menu. Enter a
name for the file and type .bat at the end
– for example, Uninstall_Edge.bat – then
click Save.
Make sure Edge isn’t running, then
double-click the batch file to run it. Click
‘Yes’ to allow Windows PowerShell to
make changes to your PC. PowerShell
will then run the script to uninstall Edge
from Windows (see screenshot below
MAKE
WINDOWS
GREAT AGAIN!
left) – ignore the bit at the end about
setting up another browser. The script
also removes the Edge Update component
that automatically reinstalls the browser.
If you experience any problems with
Windows after the removal, visit www.
snipca.com/46791 to download and
install the latest version of Edge. You’ll
need to delete the registry key: HKLM\
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\
CurrentVersion\Image File Execution
Options\msedge.exe\0. And if Edge
keeps reappearing as a desktop shortcut
after every Windows update, turn to
page 46 for help.
3Removing useful
taskbar options
Microsoft’s obsession with ‘streamlining’
Windows tools has resulted in several
useful options disappearing from the
taskbar. Most notably, in Windows 11 you
can no longer move the taskbar to the
side or top of your screen - it’s firmly
rooted to the bottom; its icons are centred
rather than aligned to the left; and there
aren’t any labels to show you, for
example, the title of the active tab in your
browser or which folder you have open in
File Explorer.
HOW TO FIX IT
We’ve already explained how to move
your Start button and other icons to the
left, but to fix other taskbar problems you
need Explorer Patcher. Download this
excellent free tool from www.snipca.
com/46794 – click the ‘ep_setup.exe’ link
under Assets – then run the installer. Click
‘More info’ then ‘Run anyway’ if you see a
Microsoft Defender SmartScreen warning
– the program is completely safe to use.
Explorer Patcher will automatically
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 51

1
Explorer Patcher can move Windows 11’s
taskbar to the top or either side of your screen
apply a Windows 10-style taskbar to
Windows 11, including left-aligned icons
and proper labels that tell you the title of
each open window. Best of all, you can
move the taskbar elsewhere on your
screen. Right-click it and choose
Properties, then Taskbar. Click ‘Primary
taskbar location on screen’ ( 1 in our
screenshot above) and select either Top,
Left or Right. Click ‘Restart File Explorer’
2 to move the taskbar to your desired
position.
We also like the option to display a
Windows 7-style visual clock in both
Windows 10 and 11. Click ‘System tray’ in
Explorer Patcher’s Properties, select
Clock and choose Windows 7 to restore
the classic design when you click the
taskbar clock. You can also add seconds
to the clock.
4Discontinuing
desktop gadgets
One of our favourite features in Windows
7 was Gadgets, which let you add small
apps to your desktop that displayed the
time, weather, your CPU usage, an audio
player and other useful tools and
information. Gadgets were discontinued
from Windows 8 onwards, partly for
security reasons, but also because
Microsoft wanted to promote its app
store instead. “Some apps are better
versions of the gadgets you love,” it
claimed (www.snipca.com/46798).
The Widgets feature in Windows 11 is
no substitute, because it doesn’t let you
move widgets around, but presents them
all in a pop-up panel. However, there
are rumours that Microsoft plans to
introduce widgets that work more like
gadgets (see www.snipca.com/46799), so
perhaps it regrets ditching them.
HOW TO FIX IT
Until gadgets – or something like them
– are formally revived, you can use
8GadgetPack (www.snipca.com/46800)
in Windows 10 and 11. This unofficial –
52 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
but completely safe – program offers
more than 60 gadgets including a clock,
calendar, calculator, currency converter,
sticky notes and monitors for your hard
drive, network and laptop battery.
Click the plus sign in the top-right
corner of its side panel, or right-click it
and choose ‘Add gadgets’ (see screenshot
above), to select the gadgets you want,
then drag them to suitable positions on
your desktop. You can then resize them,
configure their content and design
settings, adjust their opacity, and move
and remove them as required. You can
also access your gadgets by right-clicking
your desktop.
To hide your gadgets and get a clearer
view of your desktop, right-click the
sidebar (select the 7 Sidebar gadget if you
can’t see this) and choose ‘Hide all gadgets’.
5Abandoning
Windows Movie Maker
Microsoft’s popular video-editing
program Movie Maker was included in
every Windows version from XP to Vista,
then made available in Windows 7 as part
of the Windows Live Essentials suite.
Following its final release in 2012, Movie
Maker was officially discontinued in 2017
and replaced by the video editor in
Restore Movie Maker to Windows using a
Wayback Machine workaround
8GadgetPack
brings
Windows 7’s
Gadgets
feature to
Windows 10
and 11
Windows 10’s Photos app.
Windows 11 also includes the Photos
app, as well as Microsoft’s new video-
editing tool Clipchamp, but many of us
still miss the speed and simplicity of
Movie Maker and believe it should never
have been scrapped.
HOW TO FIX IT
Clipchamp, which you can install in
Windows 10 from www.snipca.com/46808,
is a versatile video editor, but it’s not as
easy to use as Windows Movie Maker. It
also limits some features to its paid-for plan
and you need to create an account to use it.
Some websites claim to offer the
original Movie Maker, but these
downloads are usually fake or infected
with malware. One workaround is to use
the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine
to access an archived version of Microsoft’s
Windows Essentials 2012 download
(www.snipca.com/46809 – the download
will start immediately).
Run the installer, click ‘Choose the
programs you want to install’ and untick
everything except ‘Photo Gallery and
Movie Maker’ (see screenshot below left).
Click ‘Install’ to add Movie Maker to
Windows 10 or 11, where you can launch
it from the Start menu.
If you don’t feel comfortable installing
11-year-old software, the best modern
alternative to Movie Maker is OpenShot
Video Editor (www.openshot.org). This is
packed with useful features and effects,
and is free and easy to use.
6Truncating the right-click
menu in Windows 11
Your right-click context menu can
gradually become bloated with
unnecessary options, so we understand
Microsoft’s reason for truncating it in

3 O&O
1 from your
Tweak the Windows 11 registry to restore the
classic right-click context menu
Windows 11. But having to choose ‘Show
more options’ every time you want to see
the full list of entries adds an extra step,
which is pointless when the menu isn’t
particularly long.
HOW TO FIX IT
You can tweak Windows 11’s registry to
make it show you the full context menu
when you right-click. To do so, type
regedit into the search box and click ‘Run
as administrator’ under Registry Editor.
Navigate to the registry key HKEY_
CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\
CLSID ( 1 in our screenshot above), then
right-click it and choose New, then Key.
Name the new key {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-
a509-50c905bae2a2} (you can copy and
paste this from our Pastebin account at
www.snipca.com/46783), then right-
click it and choose New followed by Key.
Name this new key InprocServer32 2 ,
press Enter and double-click Default in
the right-hand pane. Ensure the new
key’s ‘Value data’ is blank 3 , then click
OK. Restart your PC and when you
right-click you’ll now see the classic
Windows 10-style context menu.
7Replacing the original
Snipping Tool
The Snipping Tool in Windows has a
pretty convoluted history. Introduced in
Vista as a way to capture screenshots
without installing a third-party program,
it was replaced in Windows 10 by an app
called ‘Snip & Sketch’. However, perhaps
You can still use Snipping Tool in Windows 10
instead of ‘Snip & Sketch’
2 AppBuster
1
because users didn’t take to the new tool,
Microsoft never removed Snipping Tool
from Windows 10.
In Windows 11, it created a hybrid of
the two options, again called Snipping
Tool, but which lacks the simplicity of the
original. Matters were made worse earlier
this year when it was reported that a
security flaw in ‘Snip & Sketch’ for Windows
10 and Snipping Tool for Windows 11
allowed other people to see parts of a
screenshot that you’d cropped out. The
classic and – some would say – superior
Snipping Tool suffered no such problems.
HOW TO FIX IT
You can still use the original Snipping
Tool in Windows 10, though it displays
a warning that it will be “moving to a
new home in a future update” (it won’t,
because Windows 10 won’t receive any
more updates). Either type snipping tool
into the search box or browse to the
Windows Accessories section of the Start
menu (see screenshot below left) to
launch the tool.
If you upgraded your PC from Windows
10 to 11, the old Snipping Tool should still
be available on your hard drive. Browse
to the folder C:\Windows.old\Windows\
System32 and look for the file
‘SnippingTool.exe’, then the folder C:\
Windows.old\Windows\System32\en-GB
and find the file ‘SnippingTool.exe.mui’.
Move, or copy and paste, these files into
the folders C:\Windows\System32 and
C:\Windows\System32\en-GB
respectively. Right-click the first file and
choose ‘Send to’ then ‘Desktop (create
shortcut)’ to create a desktop shortcut for
the classic Snipping Tool.
8Forcing OneDrive on
Windows users
As with Edge, Microsoft integrated
MAKE
WINDOWS
GREAT AGAIN!
removes
all traces of
OneDrive
Windows PC
3
OneDrive with Windows in the hope that
you’ll use it for all your online storage
needs. This gives you a convenient means
of backing up your files to the cloud, but
if you prefer a rival storage service (see
our feature on page 62), OneDrive just
gets in the way. It consumes memory in
the background, slows your boot time by
running on startup and nags you to sync
your files, even if you never use it.
HOW TO FIX IT
To disable OneDrive without uninstalling
the app (in case you ever need it), click
its system-tray icon then the cog in the
top-right corner and choose Settings.
Click the Account tab and select ‘Unlink
this PC’.
You can uninstall OneDrive through
the ‘Apps & features’ list in Windows 10
or ‘Installed apps’ in Windows 11. However,
this won’t remove every trace of the
service from your system, which means it
may be reinstalled by a future Windows
update. To permanently purge your PC of
OneDrive, we recommend running O&O
AppBuster. Select ‘Microsoft OneDrive’ in
its All list ( 1 in our screenshot above),
click Remove 2 and choose Computer 3 .
Click Yes, then optionally create a system
restore point and OneDrive will be gone.
You can reinstall it from www.snipca.
com/46805, should you need to.
9Ditching Windows Media
Player for Groove Music
When Microsoft introduced Xbox Music,
(later renamed Groove Music), in
Windows 8, it intended the app to replace
the ageing Windows Media Player. By
combining an audio player with a
streaming service (Groove Music Pass), it
hoped to compete with Apple iTunes and
Spotify. However, the majority of
Windows users weren’t impressed and
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 53
preferred the features and traditional
design of Media Player.
Microsoft eventually admitted defeat
and, although Groove Music was initially
included in Windows 11, it was soon
replaced by a new version of Windows
Media Player. This brought back options
Groove lacked, including video playback
and the ability to rip tracks from audio CDs.
HOW TO FIX IT
This is one mistake Microsoft has
rectified itself, but if you’re running
Windows 10 you may still have the old
version of Media Player installed. This
hasn’t been updated for ages, so earlier
this year Microsoft made the new
Windows 11 app available to Windows 10
users too.
Install the new Media Player app from
the Microsoft Store (www.snipca.
com/46814) and it will automatically
import your music library and playlists
from the old Media Player and Groove
Music. To add videos, click ‘Video library’
(see screenshot below left) then the Open
Settings button. Switch on ‘Allow apps to
access your videos library’ and grant
access to Media Player.
Remove the Bing Chat shortcut from the
10 Adding Bing Chat to
Windows 11 search
Microsoft is so keen to promote its new
Windows 11 search box

Use the new Media Player in Windows 10 and
11 instead of Groove Music
AI-powered Bing Chat that it’s added the
feature to tools including Edge, Skype, its
SwiftKey keyboard and – rather
pointlessly – the Windows 11 search
box. Currently, all the button does is
open Bing Chat in the Edge browser – you
can’t interact with the chatbot directly
from your desktop. This means it just
brings more clutter to the taskbar, and is
even less helpful than Microsoft’s
much-maligned – and now abandoned
– voice assistant Cortana.
HOW TO FIX IT
Thankfully, it’s possible to remove
Microsoft’s latest unasked-for addition to
Windows, though the option is tucked
away. Press Windows key+I to open the
Settings app and select ‘Privacy &
security’. Click ‘Search permissions’ and,
in the More settings’ section, switch off
‘Show search highlights’ (see screenshot
above). The Bing Chat shortcut will now
disappear from the Windows 11 search
box – you can eventually restore it when
it actually does something.

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To buy Windows 11 Pro, visit

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click the red Buy Now button
on the right.
JUST SO YOU KNOW…
This offer can be used by one person only, and expires at midnight
on 15 August, 2023. It’s a lifetime licence for one computer.

IMPROVE WINDOWS TOOLS THAT MICROSOFT IGNORES
Modernise the Run command
The Run command, which you access by
pressing Windows key+R or right-
clicking the Start button and choosing
Run, has been around since Windows 95
and hasn’t changed much since. You can
now perform most of its actions via the
Windows search box, which might be
why Run was overlooked in Microsoft’s
recent refresh of ‘classic’ tools, and
remains tucked away.
The best way to upgrade the Run
command is to replace it with the flexible
free tool Flow Launcher (www.snipca.
com/46827). This lets you quickly search
and run files and programs on your PC,
as well as websites in your browser,
through a simple box that you launch by
pressing Alt+Space (or your preferred
keyboard shortcut).
You can customise Flow Launcher’s
appearance using colourful themes;
adjust its size and default position on
your screen; and add lots of extra features
using plug-ins created by other users.
These include searching sites using
DuckDuckGo bangs, performing
calculations and conversions, cleaning up
your desktop and much more. Right-click
the search box and choose Settings then
Plugin Store (see screenshot above right)
to browse the full range.
Flow Launcher triggers a SmartScreen
warning, but it’s safe to use so just click
‘More info’ then ‘Run anyway’.
Expand the Windows clipboard
The clipboard is another essential but
often overlooked Windows tool, which
most users don’t realise can do more than
just copy and paste selected items.
Windows 11 slightly improved the
clipboard history (which you access by
pressing Windows key+V) by adding a
‘Clear all’ button, but it remains very basic.
To get the clipboard you really deserve,
install the brilliant free tool Ditto
Ditto extends the Windows Clipboard to
improve your copying and pasting options
(www.snipca.com/46854), which
gives you more control over how you
copy and paste content. It can store up to
500 items, compared with the Windows
clipboard’s 25, including text, images,
web links and more, and doesn’t delete
them when you switch off your PC.
Once installed, Ditto sits in your system
tray and saves whatever items you copy to
its clipboard, either by using the standard
Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut or by right-
clicking and choosing Copy. To launch
the tool itself, press Ctrl+’, and to keep it
constantly visible, click the three-dot
button and select Quick Options then
Always On Top.
You can search your clippings for
specific words; edit the content of text
you’ve copied; and simply double-click
an item to paste it wherever your cursor
is positioned. Alternatively, press Ctrl+V
or right-click the item and select Special
Paste (see screenshot below left) to
change its formatting.
When you install Ditto, tick the box to
allow an exception in the Windows
Firewall to stop it being blocked.
Add tabs to File Explorer
in Windows 10
Microsoft has been lavishing attention on
File Explorer in Windows 11, streamlining
its interface, adding the long-awaited tabs
and promising more new features later
this year (see www.snipca.com/46856).
In Windows 10, File Explorer will remain
forever unchanged, unless you do
something about it yourself.
One option is to replace File Explorer
with the feature-packed free alternative
Files (www.snipca.com/46857), which
we’ve recommended several times over
the last year. But if that seems too drastic,
you can at least add tabs to File Explorer
MAKE
WINDOWS
GREAT AGAIN!
Flow Launcher offers a
speedy way to find and
run Windows files and
tools
QTTabBar adds Windows 11-style tabs to File
Explorer in Windows 10
using QTTabBar (www.snipca.
com/46858). This lets you open File
Explorer folders in new tabs by right-
clicking them and choosing ‘Open in
New Tab’ (see screenshot above), or by
clicking the plus button and selecting a
folder. You’ll first need to click the View
tab in File Explorer and select QTTabBar
in the dropdown Options menu.
Apply better desktop
wallpapers
Windows 11 has a feature called Spotlight,
which displays a different image from
Bing on your desktop every day. These
high-resolution photos are often stunning
and you can ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ them to
influence future pictures you see.
To activate the feature, right-click your
desktop and choose Personalise then
Background. Click the dropdown menu
next to ‘Personalise your background’
and select ‘Windows spotlight’ to apply
your first image.
In Windows 10, Spotlight pictures can
be displayed on your Lock screen, but
Microsoft has never extended the feature
beyond that. To get Bing backgrounds on
your desktop, you need to install its Bing
Wallpapers tool (www.snipca.com/46841),
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 55

Apply stunning photos to the Windows 10
desktop using Bing Wallpapers
which allows you to “explore the world
one photo at a time”.
As in Windows 11, the background
image changes daily, and you can click
the tool’s taskbar icon to apply pictures
from the previous seven days (see
screenshot above). Make sure you untick
the boxes that set Bing as your homepage
and search engine.
Customise the
Windows context menu
As we mentioned on page 52, Microsoft
shortened the right-click menu in
Windows 11, so clearly it doesn’t think
the feature is as important as we do. It’s
true that a long context menu can be
unwieldy, so it’s worth customising its
entries to include all the options you
need, and exclude any you don’t.
Our favourite free tool for adding
options to the right-click menu is Context
Menu Tuner from Winaero (www.snipca.
com/46843). Select a command in the
long list on the left, then click Add (see
screenshot above right) and choose
Bring back Clippy in Windows 10 and 11
Microsoft’s old Office
assistant Clippit, commonly
known as Clippy, was
roundly mocked in its
heyday (from Office 1997
to 2003). The animated
paperclip would pop up
uninvited to observe that
you were writing a letter
(even when you weren’t) and offer to
help. Nowadays, Clippy has nostalgic
appeal, and can even be seen as a
precursor to AI chatbots, so an enterprising
developer called FireCube has brought
him back – with new AI capabilities.
To add Clippy to Windows 10 or 11, install
‘Clippy by FireCube’ from the Microsoft
Store (www.snipca.com/46864). When
the app opens to show the friendly
56 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
whether to add it to the context menu for
your desktop, hard drive, folders, all
items or just specific file types. The
program hasn’t been updated for several
years, but it works in Windows 11.
To remove existing entries from the
right-click menu, download and run
ShellExView from NirSoft (www.snipca.
com/46849). Click its Options menu and
select Hide All Microsoft Entries to
narrow down the long list of context-
menu items to those installed by third-
party software. Right-click an entry and
choose Disable Selected Items to remove
it from your menu. Again, the tool works
in Windows 11, though its download page
doesn’t mention it.
Speed up and improve
Windows searches
The search tool built into the taskbar in
paperclip (pictured), click the
link to get an OpenAI API
key. Sign up for a free trial
(you need to provide your
phone number for
verification) then click
Personal in the top-right
corner. Select ‘View API
keys’, click ‘Create new
secret key’ and click the ‘Create secret
key’ button to generate a key.
Next, right-click the Clippy icon in your
system tray to open the app’s settings,
select ‘OpenAI Api’ and paste your API
key. Click the Save icon, close and reopen
Clippy and you’ll be able to interact with
the AI assistant. Note that OpenAI’s free
trial limits your number of API tokens to $5
of credit, which expires after three months.
Context Menu Tuner adds
useful new options to your
right-click menu
Windows 10 and 11 is
slow and inaccurate,
often failing to find files
you know are
somewhere on your
hard drive. Rather than
improve the tool’s
capabilities, Microsoft
has focused on adding
web options that open
its Edge browser and Bing search engine.
To make your Windows searches faster
and more accurate, install Everything
from www.snipca.com/46866. This free
program focuses on local searches rather
than online ones, and quickly indexes all
the files and folders on your hard drives.
It displays results as soon as you start
typing a query into its search box, and
lets you filter them by type – click the
Search menu and choose an option such
as Document (see screenshot below),
Folder, Executable, Picture or Video. You
can also sort them by size, date created
and other attributes by clicking the View
menu and choosing ‘Sort by’.
To add Everything to your taskbar,
so you don’t need to open the program
to use it, install EverythingToolbar
(www.snipca.com/46869). Launch the
tool by clicking its magnifying-glass
taskbar icon, and type your search query.
If you can’t see this icon in Windows 10,
right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars,
then Everything Toolbar and restart your
PC. In Windows, choose ‘Taskbar settings’
then ‘Other system tray icons’ and switch
on Everything Toolbar.
The program has an option in its
Preferences to ‘Replace Start menu search’,
but this is experimental and doesn’t seem
to work yet. Click ‘More info’ then ‘Run
anyway’ if you see a Smart Screen warning
during installation.
You can filter Everything’s comprehensive
Windows searches by file type

SETTINGS YOU MUST CHANGE TO MAKE WINDOWS GREAT
Turn off ads and suggestions
Windows often displays notifications to
recommend particular tools and to
promote Microsoft software such as
Microsoft 365. These ‘suggestions’ and
ads can be annoying, so disabling them
will improve your Windows experience.
In Windows 10, open Settings, choose
System then ‘Notifications & actions’ and
untick the ‘Get tips, tricks and suggestions
as you use Windows’ box (see screenshot
right). It’s also worth disabling ‘Show me
the Windows welcome experience’ and
‘Suggest ways I can finish setting up my
device’ to block those full-screen
annoyances.
To access these options in Windows 11,
open Settings, select System, then
Notifications and click ‘Additional
settings’ at the bottom of the screen.
You should also disable ads in your Start
menu. Go to Personalisation in the Settings
app, choose Start and switch off ‘Show
suggestions occasionally in Start’ (in
Windows 10) or ‘Show recommendations
for tips, shortcuts, new apps and more’
(in Windows 11).
Tighten your privacy settings
Windows is set up to collect data about
how you use your PC and software, and
share it with Microsoft for various
purposes, including troubleshooting,
personalisation and advertising. Its
privacy settings are confusingly spread
across several screens to make it difficult
to plug every hole that lets Windows spy
on you. Rather than simplify these
Apply ShutUp10++’s recommended privacy
settings to stop Windows spying on you
Powerful
NEXTprograms
ISSUE that
Onwill
saleALWAYS be free16 August
Wednesday
BEST PC SOFTWARE
YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO PAY FOR
Powerful programs that will ALWAYS be free
Subscribe to Computeractive at www.getcomputeractive.co.uk
Make Windows less annoying by disabling its
suggestions and ads
options, Windows 11 adds more, and
most are enabled by default.
Thankfully, help is at hand from the
fantastic free ‘antispy tool’ O&O
ShutUp10++ (www.snipca.com/46870),
which is frequently updated to address
the latest Windows privacy concerns. The
most recent version (1.9.1435) adds an
option to stop the new Windows Media
Player (see page 53) sharing diagnostic
data with Microsoft.
The easiest way to use ShutUp10++ is to
click its Action menu and select ‘Apply only
recommended settings’ (see screenshot
below left), but you can also browse its
long list of options to configure them
individually – either just for you (Current
User) or your whole PC (Local Machine).
Ensure System Restore is enabled
Considering the importance of System
Restore when something goes wrong
with your PC (allowing you to roll back to
a point when everything was working
fine), we’re baffled as to why Microsoft
has buried it in Windows 10 and 11. Rather
than access it through the Settings app,
you need to type system restore into the
search box and click ‘Create a restore point’,
or open the Run box and type sysdm.cpl.
Still, it’s vital you ensure that System
Restore is enabled, in case disaster strikes.
Check the list of drives in the Protection
Settings box to confirm that protection is
‘On’ for your main hard drive. If not,
click Configure, select ‘Turn on system
protection’ and click OK.
FREE
MAKE
WINDOWS
GREAT AGAIN!
5 Windows
tools we’re glad
Microsoft ditched
Cortana
Microsoft’s virtual assistant
never really took off, with most
Windows users finding it more annoying
than helpful. Cortana has already
vanished from the Windows 10 and 11
taskbar, and will be discontinued later
this year, as Microsoft focuses on its
new AI-powered Copilot tool.
Internet Explorer
The death of IE has been a
protracted one, with traces of the
much-maligned browser still remaining
in Windows 11. Microsoft ended support
for Internet Explorer in June 2022,
before finally retiring the browser in
February, in favour of Edge.
Groove Music
As we mentioned on page 53,
Microsoft has now replaced
Groove Music with a revamped Windows
Media Player. Groove Music had its fans,
but its clunky interface couldn’t compete
with Spotify and Apple Music.
Timeline
Introduced in 2018 as a way to
track and sync your PC activities,
Timeline was a privacy nightmare. As
well as storing your activity history, so
anyone who accessed your PC could
see what you’d been doing, it shared
the data with Microsoft.
Teams Chat
Later this year, Microsoft will
remove the Teams Chat feature
from the Windows 11 taskbar. We
suspect this is because most home PC
users never used it, so it just served as
another taskbar annoyance.
ON SALE
Weds
16
PLUS Aug
• Blur your personal info
To stop scammers reading it
• Switch your ad-blocker
Old favourites are no good
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 57
 Y
ouTube recently started testing
a three-strikes policy for
viewers who use ad blockers
on its website. If it detects you
have one installed, it will give you three
chances to disable the tool before it
blocks you from watching any videos.
This strict new policy is intended to
discourage us from using ad-blocking
extensions such as uBlock Origin
(www.snipca.com/46922) and instead
subscribe to ad-free YouTube Premium
for £11.99 a month. But Google is far
from the only company to clamp down
on ad blockers, and many sites now
insist you disable yours before you can
access their content.
Here we explain how to carry on
blocking ads without being blocked
yourself.

Add sites to your

ad blocker’s whitelist
Whitelisting a website that demands you
disable your ad blocker is effectively
caving in, but it does mean you’ll be able
to access its content without being
scolded. Putting up with ads on one site
is preferable to seeing them everywhere,
so it’s a reasonable compromise.
The quickest way to whitelist a website
is to click your ad blocker’s toolbar
button and switch it off for the site you’re
trying to view (see screenshot of uBlock
Origin below). It will turn back on
automatically on the next site you visit.
The popular extension AdBlock (www.
snipca.com/46913) lets you ‘pause’
ad-blocking rather than permanently
whitelist a site. Click its toolbar icon
and select ‘Once’ below ‘Pause this site’,
then refresh the page.
Alternatively, go into your ad blocker’s
Options or Settings, and select Whitelist,
‘Trusted sites’ or similar. Enter the URL of
the site you want to disable ad blocking
on and click Save or ‘Apply changes’.
In the Brave browser, which blocks ads
by default through its Shields feature, you
can whitelist a site by clicking the Shields
Disable ad blocking for a specific website by
adding it to your whitelist
KEEP YOUR
AD BLOCKER
WORKING
Some websites now force you to disable
your ad blocker to access their content.
Robert Irvine explains the best workarounds
to stop sites blocking your blocker
(lion-head) button. Click the ‘Advanced
controls’ menu and choose ‘Allow all
trackers and ads’. Similarly, in the new
DuckDuckGo browser, click the shield
icon at the start of the address bar and
click the ‘Protections are On for this site’
slider to change the setting to Off.
Turn off JavaScript
in your browser
The most common way websites detect
that you have an ad blocker is using
JavaScript. This code allows them to Blocking JavaScript in your browser may stop
check if certain elements related to sites detecting your ad blocker
advertising are missing or hidden. If so,
they will conclude that you’re using an may have more luck on other sites.
ad blocker and ask you to disable it to In Chrome and Brave, you can disable
access their content. JavaScript by clicking the padlock icon in
Turning off JavaScript for the site may the address bar and choosing ‘Site
let you bypass its ad-blocker warning, settings’. Click the dropdown menu next
though it can also prevent content from to JavaScript, select Block then reload the
loading properly. On YouTube, we found web page. You’ll now see a slider for
that it removes all the videos, so switching JavaScript on and off in the
obviously isn’t an ideal solution, but you padlock icon’s panel for that site (see

60 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

screenshot below left).
In Edge, click the padlock icon,
select ‘Permissions for this site’ and
block JavaScript there.
Firefox doesn’t offer a specific setting
for blocking JavaScript, but you can
install the Disable JavaScript add-on
(www.snipca.com/46917). Click its
toolbar button to block or allow
JavaScript as required.
Tweak your
ad blocker’s filters
Ad blockers use filter lists to detect and
block adverts and trackers in your
browser, which you can augment with
additional filters that block other
annoyances – including scripts that
detect the ad blocker.
In uBlock Origin, for example, open
the dashboard by clicking the cog icon
in the extension’s panel or by right-
clicking its toolbar button and selecting
Options. Click the Filters tab and tick
the box next to ‘uBlock filters – Quick
fixes’ (see screenshot below), which
includes code for removing ‘Ad blocker
detected’ messages, then click ‘Apply
changes’. It’s also worth applying a
general ‘annoyances’ filter such as
‘AdGuard’ – Annoyances’ or ‘EasyList –
Annoyances’.
In Brave, you can access similar
options by going to Settings then Shields
and clicking ‘Content filtering’, while
AdBlock includes a dedicated filter called
‘Adblock Warning Removal list’.
If these filters don’t stop YouTube
blocking your ad blocker, try the
following workaround. Find the option
for adding new filters to your blocker –
click ‘My filters’ in uBlock Origin or
Customise in AdBlock – then copy
and paste the code from our Pastebin
account into the text box: www.snipca.
com/46067. Click ‘Apply changes’ or
Save to add the filter to your ad blocker,
and prevent YouTube from detecting
you’re using one.
Tweak your ad blocker’s filters to hide it from
websites you visit
Beat YouTube’s new ad-blocker rule
We’ve explained how to stop
YouTube detecting you’re using an
ad blocker, but Google is unlikely
to tolerate such workarounds for
long. Indeed, we expect it’s already
developing ways to stop them
working.
To avoid seeing any adverts in
YouTube videos, without having
to pay for YouTube Premium, you
can use an alternative front-end for the
streaming service that removes all ads
and trackers.
On your PC, the free program FreeTube
(www.snipca.com/46919, pictured)
provides an ad-free YouTube experience
on your desktop, and also prevents
Google from tracking your viewing habits.
On your Android phone or tablet, you
can ditch the YouTube app for NewPipe
Switch to your browser’s
reading mode
One simple way to access text content
without disabling your ad blocker is to
switch to your browser’s reading mode.
This strips all the clutter from web pages,
including adverts, and also blocks scripts
that detect you’re using an ad blocker.
As we explained in our Browser Tips
section in Issue 662 (page 42), Chrome
has just added a long-awaited ‘Reading
mode’ feature , though you may need to
enable it via chrome://flags. Click the
‘Show side panel’ button in the browser’s
toolbar, select ‘Reading mode’ in the
dropdown menu (see screenshot below)
and the decluttered text from the current
page will be displayed in the panel –
without any nags about ad blockers.
In Edge, click the Enter Immersive Mode
button in the address bar to switch to
reading mode, and in Firefox click the
‘Toggle reader view’ icon (or press F9). In
Brave, you need to go to brave://flags and
Use your browser’s reading mode to remove
ads without any nags
(https://newpipe.net), which also lets you
watch videos without ads or tracking. It’s
slightly fiddly to install, because it’s not in
the Google Play Store, but full instructions
are provided at www.snipca.com/46920.
On your Android/Google TV or Amazon
Fire TV device, SmartTube (www.snipca.
com/46921) lets you enjoy YouTube
without ads. See Issue 660, page 74 for
more information.
Your browser’s private mode may hide your
ad blocker from some sites
enable Reading Mode to activate the feature.
The main drawback to this method is
that it won’t work when you’re trying to
view image and video content without
seeing ads.
Visit the site in
private browsing mode
Your browser’s private – or incognito –
mode disables cookies and trackers that
potentially allow websites to detect your
ad blocker. However, it also disables
extensions, so to avoid seeing ads you
need to make an exception for the
blocking add-on.
In Chrome, open the Extensions page
at chrome://extensions, click the Details
button next to your ad blocker and
choose ‘Allow in incognito’. In Edge, tick
‘Allow in InPrivate’ (see screenshot
above), and in Firefox choose Allow next
to ‘Run in Private windows’. Brave’s
built-in ad blocker works automatically
in private windows so you don’t need to
change anything.
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 61
 Store your
files online
for FREE
Prices are rising for cloud storage,
but there are still plenty of ways
to save your files online without
paying a penny. Nik Rawlinson
reveals the best deals and how to
unlock hidden storage
A
pple has just hiked the price of
iCloud+. The online storage
service, which helps sync your
iPhone and iPad with
Windows, is still free if you use 5GB or
less, but beyond that you need to pay.
Lifting the cap to 50GB costs 99p a
month, 200GB costs £2.99 and, if you
need the maximum of 2TB, it’s £8.99.
Apple increased those prices in June
by up to 29 per cent, rising from 79p,
£2.49 and £6.99 respectively. Granted,
iCloud+ offers more than just storage,
also giving you automatic photo backups,
custom email addresses and more (see
full pricing options at www.snipca.
com/46887), but not everyone needs all
of those features.
If that’s left you wondering whether
you could find cloud storage for free
elsewhere, the answer is: yes. And that’s
true for Android and Windows as well as
Apple’s iOS and macOS. As we’ll explain,
if you unlock hidden storage and combine
services, you might accumulate enough
space to downgrade some of your paid
accounts – or get rid of them altogether.
Get free storage without
catches (mostly)
Let’s start with the big-name storage
services. Google Drive (https://drive.
google.com) is the most generous, giving
you 15GB for free. That’s much higher
than Microsoft’s OneDrive (www.
onedrive.com) and Dropbox, which offer
only 5GB and 2GB respectively. Bear in
62 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
Mega gives you 20GB for free, though it limits
how much you can upload every six hours
mind though that Google’s 15GB storage
is shared across all your Google accounts,
including Gmail and Photos. Likewise,
Microsoft counts Outlook.com email
attachments in your OneDrive storage.
You should also consider Box (www.
box.com), which gives you 10GB for free.
However, it limits file uploads to a
maximum of 250MB, which makes it
impractical for large audio or video files.
It’s ideal for documents though.
You can get even more than Google’s
15GB if you’re prepared to choose a
lesser-known name. Mega (www.mega.
io, pictured above), based in New
Zealand, gives you 20GB and offers
end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for all
file uploads.
However, Mega limits how much data
you can upload into six-hour chunks. If
you hit your limit, you have to wait for
this six-hour period to complete before
starting again. This limit varies day by
day, and is based on factors including
where you’re based and how busy the
£
service is. From our experience and
reports from other Mega users, we’d say
that you can usually upload 1GB during
the six hours before hitting your limit.
Closer to home, Icedrive (www.
icedrive.net), which is headquartered in
Swansea, also gives you 10GB for free. But
don’t bother with iDrive (www.idrive.com),
which appears to have recently scrapped
its free 10GB and replaced it with a
30-day trial (see www.snipca.com/46899).
All of these services are compatible
with Windows, Android and iOS, which
greatly simplifies the task of sharing files
between your devices.
Unlock hidden free storage
Some services increase your free storage
if you perform certain tasks. The idea is to
incentivise you to use more elements of
the service, and to recommend it to others.
The Swiss-based service pCloud
(www.pcloud.com) is a great example.
It gives you 2GB for free, but as our
screenshot below shows raises this to
10GB for completing tasks including
pCloud offers 10GB for free if you complete
certain simple tasks
verifying your email when you sign up
for an account; uploading a file;
downloading pCloud Drive to your
desktop; installing pCloud on your
phone; turning on automatic photo
uploads; and for inviting two friends
who subsequently sign up.
That might sound like a lot of tasks, but
you’d perform some of them anyway –
particularly verifying your email address,
uploading a file and installing pCloud on
your phone. It’s a tempting proposition,
especially because pCloud is covered by
Switzerland’s ironclad privacy
regulations.
Mega is even more generous, letting
you unlock storage in 5GB blocks by
installing the mobile app, referring a
friend, installing the desktop program
and more. Mega calls these ‘achievements’
– see https://mega.io/achievements. There’s
a catch though: they all expire after a
year. But as welcome bonuses go, they’re
among the most attractive you’ll find.
Google also lets you unlock storage
– and a whopping 100GB at that – though
you’ll have to buy a Chromebook first. If
you decide to, visit www.snipca.com/46855
and click ‘Get perk’ in the ‘Google One’
box (see screenshot below). Again, like
Mega, this only lasts for one year. After 12
months, you’ll have to pay £15.99 a year
to keep the 100GB, but this is good value
compared with rivals. There are also
200GB (£24.99) and 2TB (£79.99) plans
– see www.snipca.com/46893.
Google One includes extra features,
such as editing tools for Google Photos
and a VPN for multiple devices. You can
also share your membership with up to
five people, helping you to spread the
overall cost. Dropbox Basic (the free
package) also has a ‘refer a friend’ offer,
giving you 500MB per referral up to 16 GB
– see www.snipca.com/46898.
Buy a Chromebook and you can claim a ‘perk’ of
100GB Google One storage for a year
How much space do you need?
Storage capacities are fairly abstract, so it
helps to consider instead what you could
store in any given quantity. A three-and-
a-half minute MP3 track at CD quality
takes up around 37MB, according to
Omnicalculator’s Audio File Size calculator
(www.snipca.com/46894). Round this up
to 40MB to cater for slightly longer tracks
and you could store 250 of them – around
21 albums’ worth – on a 10GB account.
A 12-megapixel photo, as might be
produced by your smartphone, weighs
in at around 36MB, so unless you apply
compression before uploading them,
expect to fit around 277 into 10GB (use
Sign up for lifetime
accounts
It can also pay dividends to take a
long-term view and sign up for
lifetime accounts where available.
Although the initial spend is
higher than with a monthly
subscription, they’ll ultimately
work out cheaper. At the point
when the one-off amount you’ve
paid is equivalent to what you’d
have paid in subscriptions, every
subsequent month of your Right-click a file or folder in odrive to see your sharing
lifetime plan is, effectively, free. and syncing options
At the time of writing, Icedrive
is offering discounted 1TB, 3TB and 10TB
lifetime accounts for one-off payments of
£199, £349 and £749 respectively (www.
snipca.com/46832). Meanwhile, pCloud
is offering 500GB, 2TB and 10TB for a
£199, £399 and £1,190 (www.snipca.
com/46833).
To put these deals into perspective, the
£399 you’d pay for a lifetime of 2TB
pCloud storage doesn’t even get you four
years with iCloud+.
How to switch
storage services
If recent price rises mean you’re
looking to switch providers,
moving from one cloud to another
is relatively easy. The simplest
option, if your existing and new
providers sync files to your hard
drive, is to copy from the existing
provider’s folder on your hard
drive into the new one – which will You’ll receive an email when the archive
also be on your hard drive. This
will allow the new provider to sync
and upload files in the background. iCloud+, follow Apple’s comprehensive
You could alternatively install
odrive (www.odrive.com), through snipca.com/46829.
this image-file calculator at www.snipca.
com/46895).
You’ll use up your space more quickly
if you start to upload movies, with 16
minutes of high-definition video (H.264
1080p format) tipping the scales at just
over 9.9GB (use this video-file calculator
at www.snipca.com/46896).
But if you stick to standard documents,
you can eke out your free space for many
years. The text of feature you’re reading
now amounts to just 10.4KB when
downloaded from Google Drive in Microsoft
Word format, which would fit into a 10GB
folder more than 961,500 times.
which you can log into multiple online-
storage services simultaneously. Even if
you don’t plan on switching providers,
but you do use multiple cloud services,
opting for odrive can save you running
multiple syncing tools.
You can browse and open odrive files
like you would normal files and folders
through File Explorer. Right-click a file or
folder to see your sharing and syncing
options (see screenshot above).
If you use a cloud service for more than
just storing files and photos, make sure
you’ve exported any additional data,
including contact lists, emails and
calendars. Often, the easiest way to do
this is to use the data-export service that
each service provides. If you want to
move from Google, for example, use its
Takeout service at https://takeout.google.
com where, after logging in, you can
select the data sets you want to export.
is ready to download.
If you want to do the same from
instructions for each service at www.
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 63
 Problems Solved
Our experts solve all your tech problems

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT

Can I transfer a recording from

an old digital voice recorder?
I have an old Olympus
Q VN-1000PC digital voice
recorder that I used to use for
work. I’ve never needed to transfer a
recording to a PC digitally until
recently – but I’m completely stumped
on how to do this. I’ve looked online to
no avail. There’s a small covered port
on the left side of the recorder, labelled
‘PCI/F’. Can you shed any light on how
to do this, and have you any idea what
type of lead I would require? Would I
need to have drivers installed on on my
PC to complete the transfer? I asked
around online and was recommended
a cable, but this didn’t work. I
understand that this is old tech, but
I’m hoping there is a way of doing this.
Harry Drummond
A cable with the square USB Type-B socket connection
We’ve changed your name at
A your request. We must also
qualify our answer by saying
PC’s microphone or line-in socket, to the
Windows Voice Recorder app or similar,
you connect the device to your PC. We
think it’ll be navigable in File Explorer,
that this device is two decades old and as the audio is played back. However, like any other external ‘drive’ – no
we’ve never seen or used it, so we’ve your VN-1000PC’s output is likely to be drivers required. However, we believe
had to employ some guesswork. But we mono. A stereo cable or four-pole (TRRS) the file will be stored in the proprietary
think we can help you. cable might not work in your old device’s Olympus Digital Speech Standard
First, while you didn’t tell us what socket, so this might have tripped you up. (DSS), with a .dss file extension. To
cable you bought from Amazon, we A mono analogue cable will have only manage these, Olympus still offers an
wonder if it was a 3.5mm audio cable one ring, as pictured below left. Any app called DSS Player Standard. This is
that you plugged into the headphone other type will have more. a free download from www.snipca.
socket. This would would enable the Regardless, this method will not com/46604, but it requires a valid
transfer of analogue recordings, via the transfer files digitally, which is what you serial number to install (obviously, we
want. We couldn’t find concrete don’t have one). The serial number on
information on the ‘PCI/F’ socket, but we your device might work.
did locate the VN-1000PC manual online If not, the company also previously
(at www.snipca.com/46602). This refers offered a fully free ‘Lite’ version of this
to that port only as a ‘USB terminal’. same tool. For whatever reason, it’s no
From the shape of the line drawing in the longer available for download directly
manual, we’re pretty sure it’s a ‘square’ from Olympus.
USB Type-B socket. These aren’t too However, we found it on the website
common nowadays, but are still found on of dictation specialist Dicta-Mic, at
printers, so if you have a USB printer, you www.snipca.com/46605. We’ve
might have a cable that’ll fit. If not, downloaded, virus-checked and
Amazon sells them for £8 (www.snipca. installed this and it works fine, but as
A 3.5mm audio cable with one black ring on com/46603, pictured above). this is an unofficial source, you must
the connector is for mono sound We don’t know what’ll happen when proceed at your own risk.

64 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663


Can I stop Alexa’s suggestions?
My son bought me an Echo Dot
Q at Christmas. To my surprise,
I’ve found this rather useful for
setting reminders to help my forgetful
old brain, or just getting weather reports
and so forth.
Recently, though, I’ve found that
Alexa likes to carry on speaking after
telling me what I want to know. For
example, she’ll say something like: “By
the way, did you know you can ask me to
play podcasts?” Well, perhaps I did or
perhaps I didn’t – but I wish she’d stop
doing it! I just want Alexa to respond to
my commands and questions, and that’s
all. Do you know if it’s possible to stop
her unwanted wittering?
Imogen Watson
Yes, and no, and yes! This feature
A is effectively known as ‘by the
way’ and, while it’s not new,
Amazon does seemed to have cranked its
annoyance level up to 11. If you command
“Alexa, stop by the way”, then she will
Can I connect my old hard drive externally?
In Issue 657’s Problems Solved
Q section (page 67) you gave
reader John Spiller details of a
connector for an SSD to be connected
externally to his laptop. Is it possible to
do the same thing with a hard drive or
do I need a caddy? I have upgraded my
PC and would like to transfer data from
an ailing 10-year-old hard drive, and
using a connector similar to the one
mentioned would seem to be a cost-
effective way to do this. The hard drive
is a Seagate Barracuda, with the model
number ST1000DM003 (pictured right).
Nigel Winter
Your Seagate drive uses the
A same standard SATA connector
as John’s SSD. However, as the
hard drive is a 3.5in model, it’ll require
more power than a modern 2.5in SSD.
So you’d need a setup that can deliver
12V (versus the 5V available via
traditional USB). As these involve a
separate power adapter, the kits tend to
Email us your problem and we’ll try to help:
noproblem@computeractive.co.uk
Type Stop by
the way to
order Alexa to
respond along the lines of: “Okay, I’ll cease making
suggestions
snooze my suggestions for now”. So,
that’s the first ‘yes’ in our opening
summary.
However, note that she says “for now”.
That’s because at some random, Amazon-
decided point in the future, the feature
can (and will) re-enable itself. That
explains our ‘no’.
So why our final ‘yes’? Well, you
can create a routine to have your Echo
issue the “Alexa, stop by the way”
command automatically every day. This
stops the suggestions, even if Amazon
has surreptitiously re-enabled it in the
previous 24 hours.
To do this, in the Alexa app on your
smartphone or tablet, tap More followed ‘Add action’, followed by Customised,
by Routines, and then press the ‘+’ (plus) and then type Stop by the way (see
icon to create a new routine. Give this a screenshot), before tapping Next,
name, such as ‘Stop by the way’ and tap
Next. Now tap ‘When this happens’ and
and then Save.
Now, every day at the set time, your
then choose Schedule, followed by Alexa will effectively instruct herself
Sunrise (or At Time, if you want to set a to shut up. Isn’t technology clever
specific time), and then Next. Now tap sometimes?
An enclosure with a
power adapter might
be a worthwhile
buy for the Seagate
Barracuda
hard drive
be more expensive – the pictured Wavlink
model (right) is around £19 from www.
snipca.com/46606.
A caddy isn’t a necessity, especially for
a one-off transfer, but it’s very sensible
for ongoing use. Moreover, a 3.5in
enclosure with a power adapter costs
little more than a standalone cable-and-
power-supply kit – so you might consider
it a better buy. A UGreen package, for
example, costs around £21 (www.snipca. Wavlink’s USB 3.0-to-SATA III hard-drive
com/46607). adapter
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 65
 Problems Solved
Why are my
processor cores
flagged yellow?
In the Device Manager
Q section of Computer
Management, all cores of
my Intel processor are shown with
yellow warning triangles. This seems
to have no adverse effects on the
running of my laptop but obviously
something is amiss. I’ve tried
updating the processor drivers and
also deleting all cores and then
scanning for hardware changes, all
to no avail. I have also downloaded
and run the ‘Intel Driver & Support
Assistant’, but this only suggests
graphics driver updates, which
haven’t helped. I don’t have any
restore points to go back to. Do you
have any ideas, please?
Paul Davies
You’ve already done pretty
A much everything we would
have suggested, but there
are a couple of other things to check.
First, double-click one of the
flagged cores (see screenshot): this
will open a Properties box. On the
General tab, look for the error code.
Also look in the Events tab to see if
adverse conditions have been listed.
To see a longer list (if there is one),
click the View All Events button. Use
this additional information to search
online about what might be the
specific problem – or get back in
touch with the details.
Double-click one of the flagged cores
66 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
How do I fix my weak Wi-Fi?
Discussion of broadband and 1
Q Wi-Fi obsesses about speed.
I’m happy with the speed
of mine but signal strength is a
problem. Our BT Smart Hub router
is located upstairs and my tower
PC is downstairs, under the stairs.
Signal strength here is poor,
sometimes dropping completely.
It’s not convenient to move the PC, or
to reposition the router. I also have no
spare power points downstairs, so a
repeater isn’t an option. Any ideas,
please?
Mike Whitehead Even a 15m-long Ethernet cable is fairly
inexpensive – this one costs £7.50
Given your stipulations, the
A options are limited. You could
buy a replacement router able to
pictured 1 ).
If your computer’s motherboard
deliver sufficient range, or have an extra doesn’t have an Ethernet socket, you
mains socket fitted downstairs. However, can buy a USB adapter for around £12
we’re guessing that you don’t want to (www.snipca.com/46609 2 ). No setup is
spend much money. required – just plug in at either end and
With that in mind, one relatively you’re good to go. Being connected by
straightforward option would be to run cable means you’d also get top speeds,
an Ethernet cable from a socket on the without dropouts.
back of the router to the matching socket
on your computer.
Alternatively, you could try a USB Wi-Fi
adapter with an external antenna, as that
Even very long cables are affordable might improve pickup. The pictured
(Amazon sells a 15m/50ft Ethernet cord TP-Link model is around £15 (www.
for about £7.50, www.snipca.com/46608, snipca.com/46610 3 ).
An alternative 3
2 is to try a USB
Wi-Fi adapter
with an external
antenna
A USB adapter will
connect an Ethernet
cable if you motherboard
has no Ethernet socket
Q: Have I completely removed
Kaspersky?
A: Issue 631, page 65 – find it on
our 2022 Back Issue CD
Buy it from
www.snipca.com/44660
 Should I worry about Microsoft’s single-use warnings?
I’ve occasionally received an Strengthen the security of
Q email – supposedly from
‘Microsoft account team’ –
your Microsoft account by
changing your password
regularly
stating that it has received my request
for a single-use code to use with my
Microsoft account.
The code is included in the
message. It also says that if I didn’t
request this code, the email can be
‘safely’ ignored. I have ignored them,
but they’re starting to worry me. I
can understand that occasionally
someone might mistype or put my
email address in by accident, but this
seems more persistent. suspicious activity. We should also state scattergun fashion, and it may just be
Do I have cause to worry? that, inevitably, scammers sometimes your moment in their sights.
Martin Beecher send spoofed versions of these legitimate As long as the only ‘Successful
emails – so you do need to be very sign-in’ entries are yours, all is fine.
These emails can be worrying, careful here. Those labelled ‘Unsuccessful sign-in’
A but they’re also reassurance
that the security settings on
To check who might have been trying
to log into your account, visit https://
are failed attempts – and evidence
that your current security settings are
your Microsoft account are working. account.live.com/activity. Don’t be doing their job.
Microsoft does send out emails like alarmed if you see a lot of entries that you Regardless, it’s a good idea to review
this in circumstances where someone don’t recognise. The nature of these your defences, and to change your
is trying to access an account. It could attempted scams means that cyber- password periodically. You can do this
be as a result of legitimate login errors, criminals from around the world will at https://account.microsoft.com/
or what the company otherwise deems attack millions of Microsoft accounts in a security (see screenshot).

What is this
Windows 98 error?
I have a Windows 98 computer
Q that – when switched on –
immediately displays an error
message under the heading Information
and states ‘ETI : 9284 H’ (pictured right).
That’s literally it. I am not able to remove
or work around this problem. Can you
advise how I can get rid of it?
David Dunnett

We're sure you have valid
A reasons for still running
Windows 98, but this error
message has nothing to do with that
ancient operating system. Instead,
because it appears immediately after
switching on this means it’s being
displayed by the motherboard’s
firmware. And that, in turn,
suggests a fault.
We don’t know anything
else about your machine, so we
really can't say what might be
causing this – nor what the
If you see this error message while running Windows 98 on an older PC…
message itself might mean. If it’s a
vintage PC, it might be as simple as a
dead CMOS battery that needs replacing,
for example. These maintain the
time and date, and some very
old motherboards refuse to
work without one. New
CR2032 batteries (as
…It may mean you need to
replace a CMOS battery like
this so the motherboard can
work again
pictured left) cost less than a quid each
(www.snipca.com/46611), and are usually
very easy to fit.
If this doesn’t work, you say the
message appears immediately, but there
might be a fraction of a second when
you can press a key to access the BIOS –
typically Delete (Del), F2, F10 or F12. If
one of those keys gets you into the BIOS
then press the cursor (arrow) keys and
Enter key to navigate and look for further
clues as to the problem.

Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 67

 Problems Solved
Can I revert Restore
YouTube’s
classic look
to the old using the
YouTube Redux
YouTube view? extension

A few weeks ago, the size of the

Q thumbnails on my YouTube
homepage on my laptop
suddenly became larger, resulting in
fewer thumbnails showing in each row
across the window. Do you know how to
get them back to the old size?
Jane Sullivan

This isn’t actually a new

A development – YouTube has
been rolling this out for years –
but plenty of users dislike the updated
look. Up until a few months ago applying
a hack to a particular YouTube cookie
would revert the site to the ‘classic’ view
– but Google has now blocked that.
Fortunately, some smart developers
have created extensions that force
YouTube to mimic its old look and feel. A
popular one is YouTube Redux which is
available for both Chrome and Edge
(www.snipca.com/46612, see screenshot
above), and Firefox (www.snipca.
com/46613).
There’s little more to it than clicking
the relevant ‘Add to [your browser]’
button. If you want to explore its options,
click the red YouTube Redux icon in your
browser toolbar ( 1 in our screenshot
right). Settings include using the old
icons for likes and dislikes, and using a Click YouTube Redux’s icon to see its many
dark theme for your playlists 2 . settings

Can I increase the volume level on my laptop?

I’ve just bought a brand new
Q Acer Aspire laptop that I’m
very happy with, apart from
These
Amazon
Basics PC
the volume level. Despite setting speakers
sound to 100 per cent it’s still too will increase
your laptop’s
quiet for my 78-year-old ears. I’ve volume level
Googled this problem, but all solutions
offered have not helped.
If you have a solution, I’d be most
grateful to have it.
Harry Chamberlain

Laptops aren’t renowned

A for their ability to deliver
loud audio, because there’s
only a limited amount of space for
accommodating speakers. So, the
maximum volume level is pretty
much fixed.
Practically, all that you can do to
increase the volume of the built-in
speakers would be to place the laptop
on a riser stand. This would lift the
base off the worktop, and could give
the audio output a little more space to
resonate. Such stands cost around £10
(see www.snipca.com/46614,
pictured right).
Alternatively, you could buy a set
of external speakers. These Amazon
Basics stereo pair (pictured above),
cost around £17 from www.snipca.
com/46615.
Improve the audio output of your
laptop speakers by placing it on a
riser stand

68 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663

 ?? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN...

Microsoft Store apps and desktop software?

I’ve only recently switched
Q from a Windows 7 desktop PC
to a Windows 11 laptop.
Although Windows 7 did everything I
wanted I realised it’s no longer
supported. I’m now finding my feet in
this new version of Windows, and I’m
confused about when and why I might
download apps from the Microsoft
Store. Previously, I just downloaded
apps directly from the developer (or
installed via my old PC’s disc drive). Is
there any benefit to getting them from
the Microsoft Store? Not everything I
want seems to be in there anyway.
Sam Parker
Both methods have a number
A of pros and cons, so it’s tricky
to boil this down to a concise
answer – but we’ll try.
The most important factors are
control and trust. Microsoft tightly
controls the Microsoft Store, so you
can trust that every app has been
through a thorough vetting process.
The full certification process is detailed
on the Microsoft website, at
www.snipca.com/46616.
This process can take weeks
or months, and Microsoft
can (and often does) refuse
apps or pulls existing ones
from the Store for breaking
its rules. As such, the
Microsoft Store is a very safe
way to get software.
By contrast, anyone is free
to develop and publish Tools by the prolific software developer NirSoft aren’t
traditional programs, or available from the Microsoft Store, but are perfectly safe
desktop apps as they’re
sometimes called – and anyone can For example, for all sorts of reasons
download and install them. For smaller few – if any – of the many brilliant
developers in particular – for whom little tools from NirSoft (www.nirsoft.
the time, cost and hassle of Microsoft’s net, pictured) would pass Microsoft’s
vetting process can be challenging – this
is attractive.
strict requirements, despite them
being reliable, trusted tools. Therefore,
For users, the risks of downloading restricting your app downloads
from outside the Microsoft Store are purely to the Microsoft Store would
significant, as the wider online world is ultimately limit the things you can do
awash with dodgy websites and scam with your PC.
apps. However, there are many millions Want to know the difference between
more apps available from outside the technical terms? Email noproblem@
Microsoft Store than from within. computeractive.co.uk

What’s wrong with my laptop’s microphone?

I discovered by accident that my
Q Dell Inspiron laptop (running
Windows 11) will not record
music. Recording vocals is fine – but it
will not record guitar or harmonica. This
is true in various apps. I wonder if there’s
some hidden noise-cancellation software
running somewhere? The same programs
on my older HP Envy laptop, running
Windows 10, record music without any
problem. I’ve spent well over an hour in
an online chat to the Dell helpline, but
with no useful outcome. I have already
reinstalled the sound drivers. Any ideas?
DD Kemp
Laptop manufacturers do seem
A to delight in stuffing Windows
with all kinds of additional tools,
plenty of which are of questionable
worth. Noise-cancellation tools sit high
on this list of useless extras – and Dell
laptops certainly carry their fair share.
Switch off audio enhancements in Sound
settings to fix recording problems
What yours has depends on the specific
model, but begin by clicking Start followed
by the Settings cog, and then System
followed by Sound. There, on the right,
under Input, click to select the microphone
and then, under ‘Audio enhancements’
open the dropdown menu and choose Off
(see screenshot above).
You might also find you have a pre-
installed app called MaxxAudioPro (find
it through the Start menu). In this, you
can adjust the kind of noise-cancellation
that is applied, or disable it entirely. Click
the Voice icon then, next to Environment
Profiles, click to open the dropdown
menu and choose ‘Recording Mode:
content creation’. This should ensure
your mic picks up the wider room, not
just voices. Alternatively, switch off the
processing completely by clicking to slide
the switch to its Off position.
ON SALE
Weds
Next Issue 16 Aug
• Why is Thunderbird forcing
me to use Gmail?
• Can I still update my
unsupported Windows?
• What is this Intel error
message? ...And many more
Subscribe to Computeractive at
www.getcomputeractive.co.uk

Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 69

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Problems Solved
Reader Support
Having a problem with our recommended software or expert tips?
Email editor@computeractive.co.uk and we’ll do our best to help
Can I remove Icecream’s
video watermark?
I tried using Icecream Video
Q Converter as recommended in
Issue 660’s Workshop (page 38),
but the Snipca URL you gave (www.
snipca.com/46042) led to version 1.30,
not 1.28 as you suggested. Also, the
software puts a watermark on the final
video unless you upgrade to the Pro
version. Is there any way to remove this?
Roy Miller
Frustratingly, the developers
A of Icecream Video Converter
started adding watermarks to
converted videos soon after Issue 660
went to press. It’s still a great program,
but we probably wouldn’t have devoted
an entire Workshop to it if it had always
added watermarks.
It’s not unusual for video software to
add watermarks to free conversions and
remove them only if you upgrade to a
paid-for version, as Icecream does now.
The Pro edition costs £19.95 a year, or
you can buy it outright for £39.95 – see
www.snipca.com/46821 for options.
Alternatively, try one of the free
programs that don’t add watermarks,
such as HandBrake (https://handbrake.fr,
pictured below) or Any Video Converter
(www.any-video-converter.com) –
though this does nag you to upgrade to
the paid-for version.
As for why the Snipca link went to
version 1.30, that’s simply because
Try the free HandBrake, which doesn’t add
watermarks to videos you’ve converted
Icecream released another
version after Issue 660 was
published. It has since
released 1.31, which is
available from the same link.
Can I set up a virtual PC
with just 4GB RAM?
I’m interested in
Q trying Issue 647’s
How To (page 35) on
running Linux Ubuntu in the
software VirtualBox (www. Brave’s ‘Forgetful Browsing’, which prevents sites knowing
virtualbox.org). But my you’ve visited them, will appear on Android in August
laptop is quite old now and
has only 4GB of RAM. Is that enough for
the task, or will I need to increase it?
Marek Wesolowski
Ubuntu recommends at least
Q turn on Brave’s ‘Forgetful
A 4GB of RAM, so you’d need more page 42). However, despite having the
to run it comfortably. As such,
we doubt your laptop is up to the task.
However, you could try Lubuntu, a
lightweight version of Ubuntu that
requires less RAM. It seems to have a
policy of not specifying minimum system feature, so perhaps the developers just
requirements (see www.snipca.com/
46797), but users have reported running
it smoothly on less than 1GB of RAM.
The latest version, called Lunar Lobster
(pictured below), was released in April
and will be supported until January 2024.
For longer support, download Jammy
Jellyfish, which launched in 2022 and
will receive updates until April 2025.
Choose the version you want at https://
lubuntu.me/downloads.
Lunar Lobster is the latest release of Lubuntu, a
version of Ubuntu for low-powered computers
Where is Brave’s
‘Forget me’ option?
Thanks for explaining how to
Browsing’ feature (Issue 660,
Brave app installed, I can’t find the
‘Forget me’ option anywhere. I’m using
Brave on my Blackview BV8800 phone,
and other than that, it works perfectly.
You did mention that it’s an experimantal
need to add a line of code to reveal the
option in the phone app.
Derek Logan
Brave’s ‘Forgetful Browsing’
A is only available in the desktop
version of the browser, not
in Android, which is what your
Blackview phone uses. However,
Brave says it will add the feature to
its Android app in version 1.54, which
is due in August (see www.snipca.
com/46823). When it arrives,
we’ll mention it in our ‘Phone &
Tablet Tips’ section.
To remind readers, Forgetful
Browsing prevents websites from
remembering you’ve visited them
by logging you out and deleting
their cookies and other data as
soon as you’ve closed all tabs that
contain pages from that site (see
screenshot above).
Issue 663 • 2 – 15 August 2023 71
 Jargon Buster
1080p Of the common types of
high-definition video, this is the
best quality: 1920x1080 pixels.
3G/4G/5G Technologies that
deliver faster mobile broadband.
4K Video with a resolution of at
least 3840x2160 pixels.
AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic
Light-Emitting Diode. An
alternative technology to LCD for
creating flat-panel displays. Most
commonly used in smartphones,
tablets and smartwatches.
API Application Programming
Interface. A system built into a
program so that other programs
can work with it.
Aspect ratio A measurement of
the shape of a display. Traditional
computer screens are 4:3.
Widescreen displays are 16:9 or
16:10.
Bandwidth A measure of how
much data can be transferred
through a connection at one time.
Bangs Shortcuts you can type
in DuckDuckGo’s search engine
that take you directly to a specific
website, eg !auk for Amazon.co.uk.
Batch script A series of commands
to be executed in a particular order.
Benchmarking Comparing
software and products with an
accepted standard.
BIOS Basic Input-Output System.
Software built into every PC that
connects the vital components.
Blue screen of death Technically
called a ‘Stop error’, this is shown
when your PC crashes.
Cache A temporary space for
storing information. Can be
memory used on a computer
processor, or space on a hard drive
used by a web browser.
cd/m2 Candela per square metre.
Standard unit of brightness.
Chatbot A computer program
designed to simulate conversation
with human users, especially over
the internet. Typically used to offer
automated customer support.
72 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
Client A program that acts as an
interface between PC and server.
CMOS Complementary metal-
oxide semiconductor. A battery
that powers the BIOS firmware in
your laptop.
Code Describes the various
programming languages used to
create programs.
Cookie A small text file stored on
your computer by a website. Used
to store browsing preferences,
website log-in details and more.
Core Units on a processor that
carry out program instructions.
CPU Central Processing Unit.
Another term for a computer
processor.
DCI-P3 A colour space that has a
wider spectrum than sRGB. Used
by US film industry.
Diagnostic data Information
that companies collect about
how you use software in order
to fix problems and create new
features.
DisplayPort A new socket for
connecting monitors.
DNS Domain Name System.
A technology that associates
computers with their addresses on
the internet.
Dolby Vision Dolby’s HDR
(High Dynamic Range) screen
technology.
Driver A file that tells
Windows how to work with an
external device.
Dual-band router A Wi-Fi
router that operates on two
bands: 2.4 and 5GHz.
Email alias An additional email
address you can use for a specific
purpose, such as for work or
personal. They can also be used to
filter spam from your main inbox.
End-to-end encryption A way of
encrypting messages so that the
only people who can read them
are the sender and recipient. They
can’t be intercepted and read by a
third party.
eSIM A non-removable SIM card
that’s built into a phone, making it
easier to change network.
Factory settings The original
system state of an electronic
device.
Favicon A small icon for a website,
usually appearing in the address
and bookmark bars of a web browser.
Fps Frames per second.
Normally used to indicate gaming
performance.
Firmware Basic software stored
on hardware, such as a processor,
to control its operation.
GHz Gigahertz. A measure of
how many instructions a chip can
process per second. 1GHz is equal
to 1,000MHz.
GIF Graphics Interchange Format.
A type of image file often used
on the web, but now largely
superseded by PNG.
H.264 A type of MPEG4 video
that is used on Blu-ray discs and
recorded by many cameras and
camcorders.
HDMI High-definition media
interface. A type of connection that
transmits high-definition video and
audio signals.
HDR10+ High-dynamic range 10.
Current industry standard for TVs.
HEIC High-efficiency image
container. Apple’s new default
image format for iOS.
HEVC High Efficiency Video
Coding. Video-compression format
that succeeds AVC. Compresses
video files more efficiently.
Hotspot A public area covered by
a Wi-Fi network that allows you to
access the internet.
IP65 Dust-proof, and protected
from water jets at any angle.
IPS A screen technology. Monitors
that use it have wider viewing angles
and better, more accurate colours.
JavaScript An older programming
language developers use to make
web pages interactive.
JPEG Joint Photograph Experts
Group. A common type of image
file created by most digital
cameras. Some image quality is
lost with each save.
LED Light-emitting diode. An
electronic device that emits light.
Used on almost all electronic
devices, and to provide the
backlight for some LCDs.
Live tile Squares in the Windows
8 and 10 Start menu that show you
information updated in real time,
such as weather forecasts.
Mesh Wi-Fi Wireless network
system that uses multiple,
connected routers to stretch Wi-Fi
further than a traditional router.
MicroSD card A small type of
memory card. Can be converted to
SD size using an adapter.
MP4 A type of digital movie file
often used for portable players.
Multi-point pairing Technology
that lets earbuds or headphones
connect to two sources at the
same time.
MVNO Mobile virtual network
operator. A mobile provider that
piggybacks on another network
rather than its own.
Nano-SIM The smallest SIM card,
measuring 12.3x8.8mm.
Noise cancellation Method for
reducing unwanted sound by
adding a second sound specifically
designed to cancel the first.
OCR Optical character recognition.
The process by which printed text
is scanned and converted into
documents that can be edited.
Plug-in A small program that
adds extra features to software or
to your web browser.
PNG Portable Network Graphics.
A format for images that shrinks
file sizes using compression but
without discarding any data.
Product key A unique serial
number issued by software
companies that must be typed in
by the user before a program will
launch for the first time.
QR code Quick Response code.
A barcode that can be read using
smartphones.
RAM Random-access memory.
The computer’s working area,
used for data storage while the PC
is switched on.
Read speed How long it takes
a hard drive to ‘read’ data, and
respond to it.
Refresh rate Measured in Hertz
(Hz), the number of times per
second that the image on your
monitor is redrawn.
Refurbished A second-hand
device that has been repaired by
its manufacturer so that it can be
resold and reused.
Roaming charge Fee incurred for
using your phone to receive data
through overseas mobile networks.
SATA Serial ATA. An interface for
connecting hard drives and optical
discs to a computer.
Script A short program that is
stored on a web server to control
part of a website.
SIM Subscriber Identity Module.
The smart card used by all mobile
phones. The SIM card carries the
user’s identity and phone number
for accessing the network.
Skin A different, purely cosmetic
appearance for a program.
Social tariff Discounted
broadband package available to
customers on benefits.
Spoofing A technique whereby
hackers pose as legitimate
websites, emails or IP addresses
to gain access to sensitive data.
SSD Solid-state drive. Storage that
uses no moving parts.
System restore point The
collection of system files stored
by System Restore on a given date
and time to which Windows can
revert if a problem occurs.
Tag A keyword used to describe a
file or web page. Many programs
use tags to organise related
information quickly.
Temporary file Created by sites
and software to store info for a
specific purpose, but not meant to
be stored permanently.
Tethering Turning a phone into a
modem to give internet access to
a computer.
UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware
Interface. A modern replacement
for the BIOS.
Uniform Resource Identifier
A string of characters used to
identify and locate a resource
on the internet or any other
network.
USB 2.0/3.0/3.1 Faster successors
to USB.
USB-C A new connector that’s
reversible, letting you plug it in
upside down.
VoIP Voice over IP. The routing
of voice conversations over the
internet.
VPN Virtual private network.
Keeps all internet communication
safe and private.
Whitelist A list of allowed websites,
email addresses and applications
used by security software to ensure
you only visit safe websites and
download safe programs.
Widget A small program that runs
on the Windows desktop.
Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi standard with speeds
up to 10 times faster than 802.11ac.
Windows Insider A Microsoft
scheme that lets you test preview
versions of Windows before
they’re released fully.
Write speed How long it takes a
hard drive to save data.
ZIP file A file that contains
compressed documents or files.
 Easy when you
Know How
Keen to get instant access to his favourite BBC TV
shows, Robert Irvine tries to…
Add iPlayer to his TV’s remote
B
ack in June, we reported that the
BBC had written a concerned letter
to the House of Commons (see
Issue 660, page 9). This wasn’t about
the dwindling number of MPs on the
benches, which makes the Beeb’s
parliamentary coverage look like a
few gulls bobbing on a green sea,
but a call for a new button to be added
to TV remotes.
If someone tries to
change my TV input,
they’ll get Antiques
Roadshow
“There should be a requirement for a
dedicated PSB button on remote controls
in instances where there are similar
buttons for non-PSB audio-visual
services,” said the letter, which confused
me at first. I like the Pet Shop Boys, too,
but I don’t think they merit their own
button on my remote.
Of course, the BBC meant ‘public
service broadcasting’, and specifically its
iPlayer streaming app, which made me
wonder if it had a point. The remote
control for my smart TV has
buttons for Netflix, Disney+,
Prime Video and YouTube, and
while I no longer watch the first
three, I tune into iPlayer every day.
Other than being a sneaky way to
make people pay the licence fee –
“we know you pressed the button,
so cough up £160” – a dedicated
iPlayer function isn’t a bad idea.
This Freesat remote is one of the few to
come with an iPlayer button
74 2 – 15 August 2023 • Issue 663
1
Robert remapped a button on his TV’s remote control to launch iPlayer when long-pressed
It would certainly be faster than
launching the app on screen.
First I checked if you can already buy a
remote with an iPlayer button. I found a
Freesat device with that option (www.
snipca.com/46746, pictured below) and
one for Seiki TVs (no, me neither – www.
snipca.com/46747), but nothing for my
Sony-branded Google TV (www.snipca.
com/46861). No wonder the BBC is
throwing a strop.
I figured that the best solution was to
remap a seldom used button on my
existing remote to access iPlayer instead.
To do this, I installed an app called Button
Mapper on my Google TV via the Google
Play Store (www.snipca.com/46748). This
lets you assign different actions to the
buttons on your remote, but I had no
idea if this included launching apps.
When I opened Button Mapper, it
prompted me to Start Accessibility
Service to grant it permission to remap
my buttons. To do this, I went to
Settings, selected System then
Accessibility, and switched on the
Enable option for Button Mapper. I
pressed OK then returned to the app.
Next I had to decide which button
on my remote I could do without.
Volume Up and Volume Down were too
Next issue: Robert tries to copy old CDs to his phone
2
important to lose, so I chose Add Buttons
to review my other options. Remapping
the Power, Home or Back buttons would
be very silly, and assigning iPlayer to
another streaming service’s button could
prove confusing if I ever re-subscribe. So
I plumped for ‘TV input’ as it’s the button
I use least, plus it has an arrow icon on it
a bit like the ‘i’ in the iPlayer logo.
I pressed the button, selected No
Thanks when prompted to upgrade to
the Pro version of Button Mapper and
switched on Customize. I then chose
‘Long press’ ( 1 in our screenshot above),
which gave me a choice of actions
including Screenshot, Copy and Paste.
None of these were of interest to me, so I
switched the dropdown menu to show
Applications instead. BBC iPlayer was the
second option listed 2 , so I selected the
app to set it as the new function for my
‘TV input’ button.
To test it, I long-pressed the button
and was delighted when iPlayer instantly
loaded. The downside is that if someone
tries to change my TV input, they’ll get
Antiques Roadshow on catch-up instead,
but that’s their problem.
Need help with your smart TV’s
remote control?
Let us know: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk
9000 9001