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WELCOME
EDITORIAL
Group Editor in Chief Graham Barlow
Group Editor Daniel Booth
From the Editor
Deputy Editor Robert Irvine
Production Editor Graham Brown My new LG OLED TV is the smartest I’ve from your cluttered screen, and how to
Art Editor Katie Peat
Contributors Keumars Afifi-Sabet, Dinah Greek, Jonathan
ever had, but it still seems pretty stupid to block adverts based on your viewing (did
Parkyn, Chris Paton, Nik Rawlinson, Andy Shaw me. Over the past few months I’ve been you even know your TV could do this?).
ADVERTISING
plagued by pixelated pictures, suffered He also explains what the ‘soap-opera’
Advertising Manager Alexandra Thomas dialogue out of sync with the video, and effect is, and why it has nothing to do with
MARKETING AND CIRCULATION
been annoyed by apps that crash more Dirty Den or Bet Lynch (yes, it’s been that
Subscriptions Juber Ahmed often than dodgems driven by chimpanzees. long since I watched any). His advice
For subscription enquiries ring 0330 333 9493
These problems are all solvable, but only should make your TV significantly smarter,
PRODUCTION if you read Robert Irvine’s superb Cover even if it won’t yet be able to answer the
Head of Production
Stephen Catherall
Feature. As well as fixing your sound and questions on University Challenge.
Senior Production Manager vision, he reveals how to stop videos Daniel Booth
Lawrence Brookes
playing automatically, how to remove apps editor@computeractive.co.uk
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Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 3

 Contents
5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661

6 News DuckDuckGo’s new browser

takes on Chrome & Edge Revenue streams
10 Question of the Fortnight p10
Is the price of TV streaming about to soar?

11 Protect Your Tech

Chrome extensions containing malware

12 Letters NHS not Facebook is to blame for

privacy leaks

14 Consumeractive
Can I sue Royal Mail for failed delivery?

16 Grow Your Family Tree

Search UK clergy archives

18 Best Free Software

Opera One Beelink SER6 Pro 7753HS
21 Named & Shamed Mozilla’s hypocritical p22
full-screen VPN advert

Reviews
22 Beelink SER6 Pro 7753HS
Powerful mini PC makes big impression

23 MSI Prestige 13 Evo

Hi-spec laptop is no picture of health

24 Lenovo L32p-30
4K monitor larges it over the rest

25 Canon Pixma G3570

Ink-tank printer sets the right tone Lenovo L32p-30

26 Seagate Ultra Touch 5TB p24

pxx
Eco-friendly drive is slow to impress

28 Cooler Master MM712

High-quality mouse wins hands down
HyperX Cloud III
Headset/mic will go to your head

29 Samsung Galaxy A04s

Budget Galaxy phone is a star turn

30 Buy It/Competition Win an iStorage

datAshur PRO+C 32GB drive

4 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661

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

Workshops & Tips Combat double jeopardy

p35
35 
How to… Find and remove
duplicate files for free

38 
Run 200 free tools from one
USB stick

40 Readers’ Tips
Create your own stamps for PDFs

42 Browser Tips Disable Chrome’s

‘hover card’ previews for tabs

44 Phone and Tablet Tips Find tablet

apps faster in Google’s Play Store

46 Make Windows Better Use keyboard

and mouse across multiple PCs CO

SMART TV
FEATVER
47 Make Office Better Link spreadsheet UR
data to document tables
P50 E

PROBLEMS
48 In the Club
Create your own volunteer forms

49 What’s All the Fuss About?

Windows Ink

50 COVER FEATURE
Smart TV problems fixed
FIXED!
Resolve annoying issues with your TV’s Solve your 18 most
picture, audio, performance, apps and more common headaches
60 Stop your laptop overheating
As summer temperatures rise we explain
how to keep your laptop chilled out
Survive the
AI scamdemic
62 Don’t get scammed by AI
Artificial intelligence is providing countless
p62
opportunities for criminals to target us - we
explain how to avoid the AI scammers

64 Problems Solved Would broadband

replace my phone sockets?

71 Reader Support
Has PowerToys doubled my PC’s boot time?

72 Jargon Buster

74 Easy When You Know How

Robert Irvine turns his phone into a
Bluetooth hotspot

Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 5

 News
DuckDuckGo’s new browser
takes on Chrome & Edge
D
uckDuckGo has
released its eagerly
awaited browser for
Windows computers, giving
you a more private alternative
to Google’s Chrome and
Microsoft’s Edge.
It comes over a year since
DuckDuckGo released a
Mac version (www.snipca.
com/46591). There are also
browsers for Android (www.
snipca.com/46593) and iOS
(www.snipca.com/46594).
The new Windows browser
contains several tools designed
to keep you anonymous when
browsing online, including
WHAT WE THINK
Forget expensive gimmicks
like AI headsets, folding
phones and 8K monitors
– this is the most exciting
launch of the year. It may lack
extensions for now, but it
has many vital functions built
in, such as blocking trackers
Over 20 councils removing cash payment for parking
M ore than 20 councils have
removed all ‘pay and
display’ parking machines or
are planning to do so soon,
according to BBC research.
Eight councils – all in
London – have got rid of all
machines, forcing motorists
to pay using a phone app. A
further 14 – all in England
and including Brighton and
Hove, Oxford and Slough – are
You’ll like this…
Microsoft will not remove popular File
Explorer features (www.snipca.com/46596)
6 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
The top stories in the world of technology
the Duck Player which blocks
adverts in YouTube (see
screenshot 1 ).
It also claims to block “hidden
trackers from companies like
Google and Facebook lurking
and managing cookies. We
have such high hopes for the
browser that we’ll devote our
next Cover Feature to it. What
are its best tools? How can
you switch from Chrome? Is it
better than Brave? Find out on
Weds 19 July.
in the process of doing so.
Councils argue that the
move saves them money
1 2
on other websites before they
get a chance to load”. ‌‌‌‌
Another tool, called
Cookie Pop-up Management,
automatically selects the
“most private” cookie options
when you visit a site 2 , and
stops ‘accept cookie’ pop-ups
appearing on your screen.
DuckDuckGo, which until
now has been better known
for its privacy-focused search
engine (https://duckduckgo.
com), says its new browser
will make the internet feel
“less creepy and less
cluttered”.
However, you can’t install
because they don’t have
to upgrade machines or
pay someone to collect
the cash.
But charities say it
disproportionately affects
elderly drivers who are
less likely to have a phone
with a parking app installed.
Caroline Abrahams, charity
director at Age UK, said
councils should make
but not this…
Scammers are tricking people with low
mortgage rates (www.snipca.com/46595)
extensions on it yet, though
DuckDuckGo plans to make
this possible “in the future”.
Importing bookmarks and
passwords from other
browsers is easy, it claims.
You can download the
browser from www.snipca.
com/46590. It’s still in beta,
so some flaws may remain. It
was previously available as a
private beta that you had to
join a waiting list to use (see
Issue 655, page 74).
Visit DuckDuckGo’s blog
for more information on
the browser: www.snipca.
com/46589.
sure there’s an offline
payment option.
She told the BBC that older
people who are reliant on
their cars may feel there’s
“little point” going out. “That
would be very sad for anyone
affected, and very bad news
for businesses too,” she added.
• Buy a cheap phone just for
parking – Issue 662, out
Weds 19 July
Microsoft reveals which new
processors can run Windows 11
M icrosoft has updated its
list of processors that
can run Windows 11 to include
new releases from AMD,
Intel and Qualcomm.
It added dozens of new
chips following the release of
the Moment 3 update in May,
which came with features
including live captions for
more languages and seconds
on the system-tray clock
(see Issue 660, page 46).
The new AMD processors
come with the company’s
3D V-cache technology, which
transfers extra memory from
the cache to the CPU. This
helps processors perform
multiple tasks simultaneously,
making games faster.
The new Intel processors are
from the company’s 13th and
latest generation, while several
AMD www.snipca.com/46575
Intel www.snipca.com/46576
Qualcomm
www.snipca.com/46577
Android phones making ‘silent’
999 calls warn police
A recent update on some
Android phones is
causing them to call 999
without the owner realising,
police forces have said.
The National Police Chiefs
Council said calls are being
triggered by the new SOS
emergency function, which
phones 999 when the power
button on the side of a device
is pressed five times or more.
This had led to a surge
in ‘silent calls’ to the
emergency number. One of
the worst-affected forces is
Northamptonshire Police,
which received over 1,000
such calls in May.
Devon and Cornwall Police
said silent calls can take 20
minutes to deal with. They
Qualcomm Snapdragon
chips from the past two years
have also been added – click
the links in the box below left
for the full list.
However, Microsoft hasn’t
added any older processors
to the list, meaning that
any computer that’s been
incompatible still won’t be
able to run Windows 11.
You can find out whether
your computer meets
Windows 11’s requirements
using Microsoft’s PC Health
Check program. Visit www.
snipca.com/46579 to start an
automatic download, then
added that anyone
who accidentally
dials 999 should stay
on the line and tell
the call handler it
was a mistake.
When operators
call people back, they
often find out that
the 999 call had been
made while the phone was in
a pocket.
Google, which runs the
Android platform, said it was
giving phone manufacturers
extra support to fix the problem.
It also advised users to
disable the feature until they
could fix the problem in a
future update. You can do this
by clicking Settings on your
Android phone, followed by
open the tool and click the
blue ‘Check now’ button
(see screenshot).
You can try upgrading your
computer to Windows 11 even
if Microsoft considers it to be
incompatible, but the company
warns that some features are
likely to stop working
following future updates.
Visit Microsoft’s site for
all of Windows 11’s system
requirements: www.snipca.
com/46578.
Having trouble upgrading
your PC to Windows 11?
Let us know: noproblem@
computeractive.co.uk
‘Safety & Emergency’, and
then sliding the Emergency
SOS button off (see screenshot).
The feature was part of
Android 12, released in 2021,
but the problem seemed to
start when Google released
Android 13 last year. Many
European police forces have
also reported a surge in
“automatic false calls
originating from Android
devices”.
IN BRIEF
MAKE VIDEO CALLS
ON SKY GLASS
Sky has released a camera
for Sky Glass for making
video calls through Zoom.
The device, called Sky Live,
is 4K and costs from £6
a month. It sits on top of
the Glass TV set (pictured
below), and comes with
games you can play on
screen and workout routines
to watch. Visit Sky’s site
for details: www.snipca.
com/46574.
FLY OVER FRENCH
TOWNS IN FLIGHT SIM
You can fly over Reims
Cathedral (pictured below) in
the latest update to Microsoft
Flight Simulator. It also adds
the French towns of Amiens,
Angers, Nantes and Nîmes,
and the Paris–Le Bourget
Airport, where Charles
Lindbergh landed the Spirit
of St. Louis in 1927. Watch
the trailer at www.snipca.
com/46582.
TOMORROW’S
WORLD
Fast broadband allows
millions to work from home,
but they’re all turning into
red-eyed hunchbacks
with claw-like hands.
That’s according to UK firm
Furniture At Work, which
released horrifying pics of
the ‘remote
worker of the
future’ in a
shameless
attempt to
scare people
back into the
office.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 7
 News
IN BRIEF
BLOCK UNKNOWN
CALLERS IN WHATSAPP
WhatsApp now lets you
silence phone calls from
people that aren’t in your
contacts list. Tap the Settings
cog bottom right, followed by
Privacy. Next, tap Calls then
turn on the Silence Unknown
Callers slider (pictured below).
The numbers will still show
up in notifications and your
call list so you can check
whether it was important.
UPDATE YOUR ASUS
ROUTER TO FIX FLAW and videos that users had
Asus has released
emergency fixes for security
flaws in 19 of its routers.
To see the affected
models, visit www.snipca.
com/46544 and scroll
down to the ‘06/19/2023’
entry under ‘Latest security
updates’. If yours is listed,
follow Asus’s instructions to
install a firmware update:
www.snipca.com/46543.
THE WORLD’S
GONE MAD!
The sudden
rise of AI
has forced
the Grammy
Awards to
update its
rules so
that “only
human
creators” can be nominated.
Expect the Oscars, Baftas,
Emmys, Brits and maybe
even Crufts to follow suit
soon. If you have several
hours to kill, read the
guidelines at www.snipca.
com/46551. You’ll find the
rule change on page 14.
8 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
Rescue your pics before
Google closes Album Archive
G oogle is urging users to
export photos and videos
from its Album Archive
service after announcing it
will close on 19 July.
Visiting the Album
Archive page (www.snipca.
com/46554) you’ll see a
message confirming the
closure and advising people to
use Google Takeout to move
their photos and videos. The
company is also emailing
people who it says have
recently visited Album
Archive or still have content
saved there.
Google launched Album
Archive in 2016 to store photos
previously saved in now-defunct
services such as Picasa and the
instant-messaging service
Google Hangouts, which has
now been replaced by Chat
and Meet.
To rescue your content, visit
https://takeout.google.com
and you’ll see all your Google
accounts listed alphabetically.
Select the Album Archive
Amazon uses AI to block fake reviews
A mazon has built new
AI tools to identify and
remove fake reviews from its
site, but admits that they
won’t be enough to stop the
problem.
It aims to crack down on
‘review brokers’, who use
social media and encrypted
messaging services to buy
and sell fake reviews.
Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s
vice president of worldwide
selling partner services, said
that review brokers have
evolved their tactics to avoid
detection.
He added that they promote
themselves as “legitimate
businesses, with networks of
option as shown in our
screenshot (you may have to
deselect other data types).
Next, scroll down to the
bottom and click ‘Next step’.
You’ll now need to decide
how to export your data. The
easiest method is to “send
download link via email”,
which downloads your
content as a ZIP file. You can
instead choose to save your
data to an online storage
service.
Now select ZIP, leave the file
size as 2GB, then click ‘Create
export’. Google will then
hundreds of employees
stationed worldwide”
(www.snipca.com/46538).
Amazon’s AI tools analyse
“thousands of data points”,
including sign-in activity and
review history, to spot fake
reviews. It claims to have
blocked over 200 million
in 2022, and sued over
10,000 Facebook group
administrators it says were
selling them.
However, it said it needs
more help from governments,
industry regulators, consumer
groups and other tech
companies. In particular, it
said websites that criminals
use to buy and sell fake
email you when your
download is ready. You have
seven days to download it.
Once you’ve downloaded
the file, extract its contents
then click ‘archive_browser.
html’. This will open a
Takeout report in your web
browser telling you which
files were saved.
The closure of Album
Archives comes a few months
after Google announced that
from December it will start
deleting any account that
hasn’t been signed into for two
years – see Issue 659, page 6.
reviews should do more to
prevent “this illicit activity”.
In April, the UK Government
unveiled a bill that makes it
illegal to write and sell fake
reviews. It also makes it illegal
for websites to post “consumer
reviews without taking
reasonable steps to check
they are genuine”.
• How to spot AI scams –
page 62
Broadband ads must mention
mid-contract price rises
B roadband and phone
companies will be banned
from advertising fixed-price
deals that fail to mention that
prices might rise during the
contract.
The new guidance comes
from the UK Committees of
Advertising Practice (CAP),
which said adverts that don’t
warn about mid-contract
rises create a “misleading
impression”.
Its new rules are a response
to the increasing number of
deals containing small print
that say prices will rise above
the rate of inflation during
the contract.
BT, for example, currently
increases prices every April
by the rate of CPI inflation the
previous December, plus 3.9
per cent. With inflation at
10.5 per cent in December
2022, it meant prices rose by
14.4 per cent in April.
CAP said these terms mean
EE to launch UK’s fastest
broadband service
E E has announced the UK’s
fastest major broadband
service, promising speeds of
1.6Gbps – more than 20 times
faster than the country’s
average of 72Mbps.
It will run on Openreach’s
new 1.8Gbps fibre network,
which is currently being
tested in Ipswich and Swansea.
Customers signing up will
receive a new router, and will
need to book an engineer’s
visit to have an optical modem
installed.
EE, which is owned by BT,
hasn’t announced pricing, but
it’s likely to be up to £8 more
expensive than its current top
speed of 900Mbps – which
costs £49 a month for two
that the “initial price consumers
are paying will go up in future
by an unknown amount –
sometimes only a few months
from when they take out the
contract, depending on the
time of year – and often more
than once” (www.snipca.
com/46497).
Because this is part of the
contract’s terms, customers
who choose to cancel early
following a price rise have
to pay a termination fee.
The regulator added that
it’s “crucial” that information
about future price increases
years.
The service
will provide
households
with “seamless
connectivity and
extra capacity”,
EE claims (www.
snipca.com/46494). It’s
being targeted at households
who need to maintain fast
speeds when multiple devices
download, stream and use
the web.
EE says it will launch the
service “late this summer”.
Until then, Virgin’s Gig1
broadband will remain
the UK’s fastest, offering
average download speeds
of 1,130Mbps.
are clear in the advert, not just
mentioned in the small print.
It said companies with
contracts that don’t allow
them to raise prices should
make it clear to customers
that they can cancel following
a price rise without paying a
penalty.
The updated guidance also
calls for information about
inflation to be “presented in a
way that is clear and simple
to understand”.
Companies have until 15
December to make changes
to their adverts.
To support the launch
EE is also revamping its
range of routers. It describes
the new Smart Hub Plus
(pictured) as its “most
advanced router yet”, saying
it can connect with Smart
Wi-Fi Plus to let people
“stream, game and download
at the same time, wherever
they are in the home”.
Also new is Smart Hybrid
Connect, which connects
the new routers to EE’s mobile
network to help provide a
signal throughout the home.
IN BRIEF
LOGITECH ENDS SUPPORT
FOR OLD WINDOWS 10
Logitech’s Options+ app,
which lets you customise its
mice, keyboards and other
accessories, will soon stop
supporting old versions
of Windows 10. The latest
version of the program
(1.44.415778) will be the last
to support Windows 10 1803
and earlier builds. You’ll need
to move to a newer version
of Windows 10 to keep
receiving Options+ updates.
Read more about Options+ at
www.snipca.com/46502.
SAMSUNG’S SELF-REPAIR
KITS COME TO UK
Samsung is now selling Self-
Repair kits in the UK, letting
you fix selected phones and
laptops with official parts. The
service covers the Galaxy
S20, S21 and S22 phones,
and the Galaxy Book Pro and
Galaxy Book Pro 360 laptops.
Fixes are available for broken
screens, charging ports and
more. For details visit www.
snipca.com/46529.
RECORD VOICE
COMMANDS ON REMOTE
Panasonic has unveiled a
TV remote control that lets
you store voice commands
to perform functions by
pressing a button. It comes
with the new MX800 4K
smart TV (pictured below),
which costs £599 and runs
Amazon’s Fire TV operating
system. The remote is similar
to Amazon’s Alexa Voice
Remote Pro, priced £35 from
www.snipca.com/46531.
Visit www.snipca.com/46530
for more details.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 9
 Questionof
Question ofthe
theFortnight
Fortnight
Is the price of TV streaming
about to soar?
I
t’s generally thought
that free trials benefit
everyone. Companies
use them to attract new
business, while customers
are able to test a service to
see whether they like it.
But the unintended
consequences of
free trials are often
overlooked. For
example, can
they ultimately
lead to higher
prices?
That’s what some
broadcasters have
warned in response
to Government
proposals to force all
TV-streaming services to offer
viewers a 14-day free trial.
The rule, part of the Digital
Markets, Competition and
Consumers Bill, lets viewers
cancel at any time during the
trial without paying a penalty.
Subscribers will pay more if
viewers choose the short thrill
of a free trial
Disney has been the most
vocal in criticising the idea.
In a submission to the Lords
communications and digital
committee, the company said
that some viewers would be
able to “game the system” by
watching all the shows they’re
interested in during the free
trial, then cancelling before
it ends.
Viewers could then repeat
this on other services, Disney
added, causing a fall in overall
subscribers which would lead
to higher prices as companies
10 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
try to recoup losses. Disney
has depicted its argument as
one of fairness: loyal subscribers
will end up paying more if
increased numbers choose the
short thrill of a free trial.
Disney isn’t alone in raising
concerns. The Commercial
On-Demand and Broadcasting
Association (Coba), which
includes Sky and Channel 5,
has also said mandatory
14-day trials will backfire.
If you’re wondering how
anyone can find the time to
get through every programme
they like in just 14 days, then
you may not be aware of
‘binge-watching’. This is the
popular practice of watching
an entire series in a short
period of time, devouring
more than five episodes a day,
say. This wasn’t possible
Broadcasters claim new laws
on free trials will backfire
before TV streaming, when
you had to wait a week for a
new episode.
Disney is no fan of free
trials of any length. It offered
a mere seven days when
launching Disney+ in 2020,
but scrapped it after only a
few months. This followed
Netflix’s axing in 2019 of its
30-day free trial.
But some might say
there’s a major flaw in
Disney’s reasoning: Amazon
still offers 30 days free for
Prime Video. Why does
Disney feel so threatened by
a 14-day trial when one of its
biggest rivals offers more
than double that?
Compulsory free trials
aren’t the only measures
worrying broadcasters.
The Government’s bill will
also force services to send
reminders every six months
to viewers on rolling
subscriptions.
It hopes this will reduce
the number of people
who forget about their
subscriptions and end up
THE FACTS
• The Government’s
new Digital Markets
Bill proposes that all
TV-streaming services offer
viewers a 14-day free trial
• D isney has said this will
lead to viewers ‘binge-
watching’ then cancelling,
forcing it to raise prices for
existing subscribers
• Th
 e bill also says
broadcasters must send
six-monthly reminders to
rolling subscribers
paying for a service they no
longer use.
Coba called this rule “overly
prescriptive”, while Disney
accused the Government of
trying to “micro-manage” its
business.
The Government countered
these objections by saying the
bill is designed to “boost
competition in online markets
currently dominated by a
small number of firms”.
It wants to increase
consumer choice so viewers
have greater freedom to hop
between services. It also sees
the bill as a way to boost the
rights of customers by
stamping out “unfair
practices” such as online
scams and fake reviews.
It’s revealing that both sides
frame the debate around
fairness. Is it fairer to give
viewers the right to a free
trial, or to not raise prices for
existing subscribers?
Whose side you’re on might
depend on whether you binge
on TV, or merely prefer the
occasional snack.
Protect your tech
Scams and threats to avoid, plus new security tools
WATCH OUT FOR...
Chrome extensions containing malware
What’s the threat?
More than 30 malicious
browser extensions,
including one that claims
to let you skip adverts on
YouTube, have been detected
on the Chrome Web Store
(https://chrome.google.com/
webstore). Once installed,
the extensions start
bombarding you with
adverts and manipulate
your search results by
showing sponsored links.
At first glance the
extensions appear to
perform useful tasks,
indicated by their names:
‘Amazing Dark Mode’, ‘Autoskip for
Youtube’ (pictured), ‘Font Customizer’
and ‘PDF toolbox’. But their real purpose
is to infect your computer and make
money for the scammers.
Figures on the Chrome Web Store show
New tools KeePass 2.54
www.snipca.com/46459
1 2
KeePass has reacted quickly to fix a
flaw that could have let hackers see
every letter of your master password
except the first or second – making it
easy to crack. The process is highly
complicated, involving such clever
hacking tricks as retrieving memory
dumps, but all you need to know is
that updating to version 2.54 plugs
the vulnerability.
You can’t set KeePass to update
automatically, so to get version 2.54
that the extensions have been
downloaded 75 million times, with
‘Autoskip for Youtube’ by far the most
popular at over nine million downloads.
However, security firm Avast thinks
these figures have been “artificially
visit www.snipca.com/43309 and click
either of the green buttons at the top:
the one on the left to install it on your
computer ( 1 in our screenshot), the
one on the right to install it on your
USB stick 2 .
Our screenshot also shows the
download link for an earlier version
of KeePass (1.41) that’s not affected by
the flaw. In fact, no version of KeePass
starting with a ‘1’ is vulnerable, so you
don’t need to update these.
inflated” by the scammers (see www.
snipca.com/46469).
How can you stay safe?
Google has removed all the extensions
reported by Avast, though not all the
tools found by security expert Wladimir
Palant – who was the first person to warn
about them. He lists all the extensions at
www.snipca.com/46466 (crossing a
line through those Google has already
removed). At the time of writing he says
that eight remain on the Chrome Web
Store. If you think you’ve installed any of
the extensions, type chrome://extensions
into your browser bar, check their names
against Palant’s list, then click Remove.
Bear in mind that the Chrome Web
Store is so popular that hackers will
continue to try infiltrating it with
malware. Do your best to check the
legitimacy of an extension before
installing it. For complete safety, only
install extensions that we recommend.
ScamWatch
Readers warn readers
Email from
‘Outlook Support’
I received an email from the ‘Outlook
Support Team’ that was rated as ‘High
Priority’. I should have deleted it
without opening it, but curiosity got
the better of me and I clicked it to see
whether I should be concerned. There
was a note at the top of the email
claiming it was from a ‘trusted sender’
but it looked unprofessional and
unconvincing. It said it had detected
suspicious activity on my account and
that I should investigate by clicking a
button to log in. I quickly realised it
was a scam and found a screenshot
online that looked similar:
www.snipca.com/46456.
Ian Davey
Warn your fellow readers about scams
at letters@computeractive.co.uk
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 11
 Letters
Tell us what’s on your mind
Don’t have a heart attack
during power cuts!
In Issue 659’s
Cover Feature
(‘Survive the Landline
Switch-Off’, pictured
right) you discuss
what happens when
there’s a power cut
after the copper
network is turned
off in 2025. You
mention that BT is
offering battery
backups to power
the routers of
vulnerable
customers such as those without mobile
reception. But there’s an important point
to remember here. If the backup time is
only one hour, and the backup kicks in
as soon as an outage occurs, then you’d
better not have a heart attack or house
fire after this hour!
Instead, during an outage, conserve
the backup battery by only turning it on
when you need to make an emergency
call. Looking at the user guide for BT’s
Cyberpower Back-up (www.snipca.
com/46163), there doesn’t seem to be an
easy way of doing this, apart from pulling
out the connecting cable. BT should
redesign the backup so its output can be
turned on and off either by a button or
perhaps remotely.
You also mention using an
uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for
this purpose. These are also designed to
kick in immediately there’s a power cut,
giving you the same problem.
David Nicholls
Your informative article on the
copper switch-off rightly touched
on what I think is a disaster waiting to
happen: the lack of phone connections
in a power cut. One solution that’s been
discussed in our parish council is to bring
back telephone boxes that connect to
fibre broadband and have their own
independent mains power. These could
be the difference between life and death
whenever there’s no electricity reaching
the home, especially in rural areas like
ours. How else would an elderly or
otherwise vulnerable person get in touch
with relatives or emergency services?
Raymond Miles
12 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
Will copper switch-off force
me to use satellite broadband?
If BT is to axe its copper
phone network, where
will people like me finish up?
I have an exchange-only line
from my very rural location to
my telephone exchange a little
over three kilometres away. My
DSL copper line syncs around
8Mbps with my download
speed around 6.5Mbps when
the wind is in the east! This is
suitable for most of my
requirements, which is just as
well because Openreach refuses
to connect me to anything better
as “they are not prepared to
modify their network for any reason”.
There is fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC)
one kilometre away from here. The fibre
from this passes my front gate in an
underground duct that goes to the
cabinet. So, without copper, what do we
do? Apart from anything else, the bottom
will fall out of the scrap copper market.
Will I be forced to use Starlink satellite
broadband?
Andrew Walker
CA SAYS Issue 659’s Cover Feature on
the landline switch-off prompted dozens
of emails. Many of you said that you
understood the process better having
read it, though questions like Andrew’s
still remain.
We think most people won’t have a
problem with the switch-off (see Bill
Mason’s letter next), but it’s such a
sweeping change that we understand
What’s the Issue…?
When did you explain how to
disable the push-button feature
on a mouse’s scroll wheel?
Brian Hillier
CA SAYS That was back in Issue 596
(page 19). We recommended using
X-Mouse Button Control (www.snipca.
com/46465).
When did you warn about fake
QR codes on parking machines?
Helen Charlton
why there’s so much uncertainty and
concern. It’s not getting the coverage in
the mass media that it deserves, so we’ll
continue to cover every angle over the
next few years.
If you missed Issue 659, you can buy it
from our Back Issues site at www.snipca.
com/46513.
No problems with
our cordless phones
It is now over a year since we had
fibre broadband installed and the
copper line disconnected, and it hasn’t
caused any problems. Our two cordless
phones work fine and the old landline
phone in the hall has been removed.
We recently had a power cut and I rang
105 on my mobile phone and got an
immediate update from North West
Electricity.
There are two very minor inconveniences
though. First, the old landline can be
heard ringing while outside, and second
with fibre you have to use the dialling
code when making local calls.
Bill Mason
I gave up trying to pay for
parking with phone
Glen Thomas’s question (‘How
do I pay for parking without a
smartphone?’, Issue 660, page 64)
prompts me to tell you about an
experience I had recently. It was a
particularly hot day, so I decided to park
in an underground car park to keep the
car cool. The parking machine no longer
accepts cash, so I went outside to get a
signal for my phone.
?
CA SAYS In Issue
646, page 11. Read it
on our Back Issue CD:
www.snipca.com/44660.
I want to browse the web
anonymously using Tails
(www.snipca.com/44809). Didn’t
you cover this recently?
Bob Fletcher
CA SAYS Yes, in Issue 651, page 35.
Buy it from www.snipca.com/46518.

After dialling the number, I was
presented with a registration process
before I could pay. This wasn’t easy. Make
a mistake and you had to start again. I
gave up after 12 minutes, went back to
the car and found a street parking space
instead. I thought no more about it until
the day I got a fine for more than £100 in
the post. I naturally contested it and
explained the difficulties I had trying to
pay for the parking.
First they rejected my appeal citing lack
of evidence, but then I showed them that
I had called the number in an attempt to
pay. After a few weeks waiting the
appeals officer cancelled my fine and I
ended up owing nothing.
Ron Hemes
Don’t be worried about
AI writing tools
I don’t understand why people are
concerned about the dangers of
using AI for writing. As an author, I used
ChatGPT (https://openai.com/chatgpt)
to help with my manuscript. It was a
process of trial and error as I tried
different prompts to get a response – and
I often didn’t like what it produced.
I belong to a number of Facebook
author groups and most of them have
objected to using ChatGPT because it
“destroys creativity”. They’ve also
compared it to plagiarism. But I find
it a very useful creative tool. It has
limitations, but it’s good for suggesting
ideas. I don’t have the money to go to a
professional editor, so I use prompts and
let AI do the rest.
I also use it for feedback on my
writing, then copy what it suggests and
add it to my manuscript, rewriting it in
my own style. I also use Grammarly
(www.grammarly.com), which makes
suggestions to what ChatGPT suggests.
Grammarly often tells me to avoid
writing in a ‘passive’ voice. I can never
work out the difference between passive
and active, so instead I just ask ChatGPT
to rewrite my work in an active voice.
Behind AI is a flawed human being
who has the skills and creativity to
program. We are a long way from the
technology portrayed in films such as The
Terminator or 2001: A Space Odyssey.
John Tsang
CA SAYS John’s right that AI can be a
great writing tool, but we’re already
seeing it being used for more sinister
aims – see page 62.
Views expressed don’t necessarily reflect those of Computeractive
Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive
STAR LETTER
NHS not Facebook is to blame for
privacy leaks
I’m no great fan of Facebook, but
it can’t be blamed for NHS trusts
unintentionally sharing patient data
with it (‘Question of the Fortnight’,
Issue 660, pictured). I’m a small
business owner who has used
Facebook’s Meta Pixel tracker to great
effect when running marketing
campaigns. I knew the dangers of
breaking Facebook’s strict rules on
sharing user data, so I read the terms
and conditions carefully and checked I
wasn’t breaching them.
Facebook is completely upfront
about what the tracker does, describing
it as a “piece of code that you put on
your website that allows you to
measure the effectiveness of your
advertising by understanding the
actions that people take on your
website” (www.snipca.com/46516).
When I run a sales campaign on my
website I need to know which buttons
customers are most likely to click and
which offers they’re most attracted to.
Meta Pixel helps me do that.
My business is in the building trade,
so it’s nowhere near as sensitive as the
NHS. It’s entirely appropriate for me to
use such marketing tools because
there’s a minimal risk of anyone’s
The Star Letter writer wins a Computeractive mug!
Amazon Fire Max might
force Apple to cut prices
Roger Crane (Letters, Issue 660)
might be right that few iPad users
will switch to the new cheaper Amazon
Fire Max 11 (pictured), but so what? He
misses the point that the arrival of an
advanced tablet priced under £300 is great
news for those of us on tight budgets
who’d never be able to afford
an iPad.
I bought my first Android
tablet about 10 years ago
and have never spent
more than £200 on one.
But if the Fire Max 11
lives up to the hype I
think I’ll be able to
Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Twitter: @ComputerActive
www.twitter.com/computeractive
privacy being compromised. But
I find it hard to imagine that nobody
at the NHS realised that patient
confidentiality was being jeopardised.
Either they didn’t understand how
the technology works, or they did
understand but thought nobody
would mind.
The statement from Buckinghamshire
Healthcare is a good example of how
naive the trusts have been. It said it was
“not aware that Meta was using this
information for marketing purposes”
(www.snipca.com/46517). Meta Pixel
exists solely as a marketing tool, and
it’s for the benefit of the site using it,
not Facebook. Such ignorance would
be worrying in any industry. In
healthcare, it’s simply
shocking.
Simon Telfer
justify breaking this self-imposed
price limit.
We should also applaud Amazon for
challenging Apple’s tablet dominance.
This is the kind of competition that might
hopefully force Apple to find cheaper
ways of making its devices and bring
down costs.
Pete Batchelor
CA SAYS Like Pete we’re hopeful that
the Fire Max 11 will pose a serious
challenge to the iPad. We’ll
review it in our next issue (out
Weds 19 July), but if you can’t
wait for our verdict you can
buy the Fire Max now from
www.snipca.com/46500.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 13
 Consumeractive
We stand up for your legal rights
Can I sue Royal Mail
for failed delivery?
A steam cleaner I
Q ordered using
Amazon Prime for
next-day delivery failed to
2
arrive. However, Royal Mail
disagreed and showed me a
photo of a bag being delivered.
But I hadn’t ordered this bag.
Can I seek compensation from
Royal Mail?
William Thomas
William can certainly try, but
A we fear it will be refused in
this case because he doesn’t
have a contract with Royal Mail. His
contract is with Amazon, which is solely
responsible for ensuring he receives
the steam cleaner. He should chase
Amazon for a refund, or ask it to
rearrange delivery.
Items are only considered late once 30
days have passed from the order date.
Only if you’ve paid extra for early delivery
on a certain date can you claim
compensation before 30 days – and it’ll
be for the extra you paid, not the overall
delivery cost. Amazon offers several
paid-for delivery options that would
entitle you to a refund: www.snipca.
com/46442.
CASE UPDATE
Microsoft won’t fix Surface as goodwill gesture
Microsoft has declined to fix
Benjamin Erkul’s Surface Pro 4
laptop-tablet (pictured),
despite admitting the design
was faulty and was causing the battery to
bulge (see Issue 658).
Benjamin knew that Microsoft had
replaced many faulty Pro 4s since the
laptop was released in 2016, but it told him
that this scheme had now ended. He didn’t
have a case against the company under the
Consumer Rights Act (CRA) because he
14 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
LEAD
CASE
1 money back, saying it has never accepted
However, bear in mind that signing up
to Amazon Prime doesn’t guarantee
next-day delivery. Amazon lists ‘One-Day
Delivery’ as a benefit of Prime ( 1 in our
screenshot), but only by clicking ‘Learn
more about One-Day Delivery’ 2 are
you shown the small print that orders
“should” arrive one day after dispatch.
This means that Prime members can’t
claim compensation if their ‘One-Day’
parcels turn up on the second day or
later. We think Amazon should be forced
to make this clearer on its Prime Delivery
home page (www.snipca.com/46440).
William’s best option is to contact
Amazon Customer Service through its
‘Guaranteed delivery’ page (www.snipca.
com/46441). Hopefully it will rearrange
delivery and pay him a refund if it owes
him anything.
CASE CLOSED
bought the device from a private seller on
eBay. Also, the warranty had expired.
Our only option was to ask Microsoft to
help as a goodwill gesture, but we knew it
was a long shot – and so it has proved. To be
fair to the company, it did contact Benjamin
about his problem. But it had no legal
obligation to fix the device, nor to offer him a
refund or replacement.
Sadly, Benjamin is now stuck with the
faulty laptop, which he paid £1,000 for. His
predicament is a reminder to be careful
Is PC World
liable for faulty
Microsoft code?
I paid £249.99 for a copy of
Q Microsoft Office Home and
Business in PC World. But when
I entered the authorisation code it was
refused. PC World won’t give me my
returned software. But it’s a faulty
product, so why won’t it help me?
David Screen
Since David emailed us PC World
A has given him a full refund. This
is a good outcome, though we’re
not sure the company was legally bound
to return his money. By law, retailers
don’t have to refund boxed software if the
seal has been broken, which would have
happened when David opened the box.
However, the law is less clear on what
happens if the code inside the box
doesn’t work. David could have contacted
Microsoft to try to get a new code, but
we think PC World should have done this
for him. The problem might have been
that the code had already been used by
someone else.
Although David has received a refund,
but we’ll still ask Microsoft for advice on
what customers should do when
authorisation codes fail.
CASE CLOSED
when buying devices on eBay. You only have
legal rights if the seller is a company or sole
trader. Private individuals selling items on
the site are exempt from the CRA. If you’re
unsure of their status, make sure you ask
before you confirm your purchase.
 Contact us so we can investigate your case
Email: consumeractive@computeractive.co.uk
Please include your name, phone number and address.

Can Argos fob me off to Samsung?

I bought a Samsung A13 phone
Q (pictured) from Argos in
September 2022 that’s now
playing up in many ways. Argos told me
that after 30 days I had to approach
Samsung for help. Am I wrong in thinking
it’s up to the retailer to deal with this?
Barry Ford
No, Barry’s not wrong – Argos is
A the retailer and so under the
Consumer Rights Act it must
sort out the faulty phone. During the first
30 days you can reject goods that are
inherently faulty for a full refund. After
30 days retailers have one chance
to repair or replace.
Also, for the first six months you don’t
have to prove an item is faulty – it’s up to
the retailer to inspect it and prove
otherwise. After six months the onus
shifts to you to prove a fault – and this is
the position Barry finds himself in.
So while Argos is ultimately
responsible, we’ve told Barry to contact
Samsung because it might have an idea phone examined. If Samsung helps, he
what the fault is. Its advice might save should then use this information when
him the cost and hassle of getting the contacting Argos.
CASE ONGOING

Android update
is late – what are
my rights?
Like Gerard Livesey (Issue 651),
Q I’m waiting for
an Android
update for my Neocore E2
tablet (pictured). Neocore
told me that it would be
available in around April
or May, but it’s now June
and it hasn’t arrived. What
are my rights now?
Sean Gordon
A
Sean’s rights depend largely on
whether Neocore promised that
the tablet would be updated. If it
said the tablet “would be” upgraded
rather than it’s “able to be” or is “capable
of upgrading”, then Sean, Gerard or
anyone who bought it based on this
premise might have a
strong case under the
Consumer Rights Act
(CRA) that the item is
not as described.
However, their
cases are weaker if
Neocore didn’t mention
updates. This is because
the CRA doesn’t say that
manufacturers must make updates
available.
In Gerard’s case, Neocore told us it had
decided to bypass Android 12 and go
straight to the final development of
Android 13. This still appears to be the
case. However, it can take quite a while
for manufacturers to update devices
because they have to get it certified by
Google. Big companies like Samsung
will inevitably get permission much
earlier than small manufacturers like
Neocore.
We’ve asked Neocore to give us a more
precise timeframe for when its update
will be available, and will publish an
update if we get a reply.
CASE ONGOING

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE

O2 refunded me for Albanian data during cruise

I’ve just returned
from a cruise
around the eastern
Mediterranean.
I have an O2 phone contract,
so before I left I checked the
company’s ‘Roaming in Europe’ page
(www.snipca.com/46438) to make sure
I was able to use my UK data and call
allowances in all the countries we’d be
visiting. It stated that I could.
During the cruise I noticed my phone
had automatically picked up an Albanian about this, and they immediately waived the
telecoms signal. We weren’t due to fee and even rounded the refund up to £43.
visit Albania but we must have sailed No fuss, no problem, just excellent
close enough to pick up their signal. I customer service!
made a note of this because Albania Neil Taylor
wasn’t on O2’s list of roaming
countries. Contact:
On returning home I saw there was a data
charge of £42.92 on my account. I rang O2
O2
Has a company impressed you with its • Online help www.o2.co.uk/contactus
customer service? Please let us know: • Phone 0344 809 0202
editor@computeractive.co.uk

Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 15

 Grow Your
Family Tree
Pray for good results as you follow
Chris Paton’s advice to…
Search UK clergy archives
Y
ou’ll find evidence of a clergyman’s
presence in a parish in the daily
registers of baptisms, marriages
and burials, as well as within vestry and
(in Scotland) kirk sessions. As we’ll
explain, though, there are many more
places online to find biographical records
of clergy, especially covering ministers,
deacons, bishops and archbishops.
Search clerical directories
Make a start at Ancestry’s ‘UK, Crockford’s Calendar of the Principal Ecclesiastical
Clerical Directories’ collection (www.
snipca.com/46443, pictured below),
which is a searchable database of editions senior clergy, both before and after the
from 1868, 1874, 1885, 1898, 1908 and
Crockford’s Clerical Directory shows benefices held by members
of the clergy and the training they received
Your Genealogy Problems Solved
I can’t find details about my great-
grandparents Frederick McKay and
Elizabeth Milln, who married in 1833
in Scotland. There’s nothing on
ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.
gov.uk) and they’re not in the 1881 census.
Brian McKay
Try searching using * (asterisk) as a
wildcard for spelling variations, for
example, Mil*n* for Millin and Milne. Also
select the ‘Other Churches’ option in the
16 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
1932, with entries for each clergyman
noting benefices held, as well as details of
their education and training.
The 1929 edition is also available on
TheGenealogist (www.thegenealogist.
co.uk), with further 20th-century
editions available for free on the Internet
Archive’s Genealogy section (www.
snipca.com/46253 – see Issue 660 for
more on these records).
Ancestry’s earlier ‘England & Wales,
Dignitaries, 314-1853’ collection (www.
snipca.com/46444) catalogues more
English Reformation. It’s sourced from
the Fasti Ecclesiae
Anglicanae, a book
containing details of
London bishops and the
senior clergy of St Paul’s
Cathedral and the diocese
of London. Entries are
arranged by diocese
and archdeaconry, with
each section having a
printed index.
The Presbyterian
equivalent for Scotland
is the Fasti Ecclesiae
pre-1855 church records to include
registers from dissenting congregations.
Note that ScotlandsPeople only hosts
records held by the National Records of
Scotland. Consult the Statistical Accounts
of Scotland (www.snipca.com/46464) for
information about other denominations in
their parish, then check the catalogues at
www.snipca.com/46419.
Have a genealogy question for Chris?
Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with
‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.
Next issue: Search for ancestors in parish’s bastardy records
The Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae is a record of
Scottish ministers stretching back to 1560
Scoticanae, available at Ancestry (www.
snipca.com/46446, pictured above).
Published in six editions and dating back
to 1560, it gives details of when a minister
took up his ‘calling’ to a parish, as well as
details on his education, background and
whether he has any family.
Findmypast presents the Scoticanae
as a searchable database (www.snipca.
com/46447), while you can also read
them for free at the Internet Archive.
Similar Irish records are kept by the
Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland
(www.snipca.com/46448), though you’ll
need to subscribe (£12 a year).
For Anglican clergymen in Ireland, the
Representative Church Body Library in
Dublin hosts copies of the Irish Church
Directory from 1862 (www.snipca.
com/46453) and 1913 (www.snipca.
com/46454).
Browse clergy information
in newspapers
Also try the Church Times, founded in
1863 and still published today. Visit its
archive (www.churchtimes.co.uk/
archive) for details of meetings, parochial
appointments and resignations, deaths
and obituaries, and much more related
to the Anglican communion. Access is
restricted to subscribers – see www.
snipca.com/46449 for prices.
Finally, for news about clergy from all
denominations across the UK, don’t
forget to check the British Newspaper
Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.
co.uk). The same newspapers are also
available as part of Findmypast’s Pro
or Premium subscriptions (www.
findmypast.co.uk/subscribe).
 Best Free Software
Robert Irvine recommends new programs that won’t cost you a thing
WEB BROWSER

Opera One
www.snipca.com/46555
What you need: Windows 10 or 11, macOS or Linux

Opera was the first browser to include tabs, pop-up blocking,
an integrated search box and a built-in VPN, yet despite its
innovations it remains relatively unsung (pardon the pun). Its
latest incarnation, Opera One, has been “reimagined and
rebuilt from the ground up” to deliver what its developer calls
“the future of browsing”.
Its main new feature is a built-in AI tool called Aria. Although
Microsoft has already integrated Bing Chat with Edge, Aria is
even smarter than that chatbot. As well as searching the web
to find answers to your questions and generating content from
prompts, it knows Opera’s entire support documentation, so
you can ask it for help with any aspect of the browser.
To launch Aria, either click its shortcut in the left-hand
sidebar to open a chat panel, or press Ctrl+/ (forward slash)
to display a text box to type your query or prompt in. You
need to sign up for – or into – a free Opera account to use it.
The other notable new feature is Tab
Islands, which offers an easier way to group
related tabs. When you click a link on a web
page to open it in a new tab, Opera will create a
colour-coded ‘tab island’ containing both tabs, and any
subsequent pages you open from those tabs. You can also
drag and drop tabs into an island, or right-click them and
choose ‘Move to’ followed by the name of the island.
Opera One also has a new ‘modular design’, which changes
its interface based on what you’re doing. This means options
you’re unlikely to need are temporarily hidden to create a
less confusing browsing experience.
When you install Opera One, select Options to specify
whether to make it your default browser, import bookmarks
and data from your current browser, and run it when Windows
starts. Disable data collection to prevent personalised ads.

4
1 3

1 Click the Aria (A) logo in the
sidebar to open Opera’s
new AI chatbot. Type a
question and Aria will
search the web for an
answer, or enter a prompt
to generate text content.
There are also shortcuts to
the AI tools ChatGPT and
ChatSonic.
2 Opera’s sidebar also
includes shortcuts to the
web versions of Facebook
Messenger, WhatsApp,
Instagram and TikTok. To
remove these if you’ll never
use them, right-click the
sidebar, choose ‘Sidebar
setup’ and untick the
relevant options.
3 The new Tab Islands feature
automatically organises
pages from the same
website into a colour-coded
group. You can add more
tabs to a group by dragging
them into it or by right-
clicking and choosing
‘Move to’ then the name
of the ‘island’.
4 Opera also has a built-in
option for capturing
screenshots. Click the
camera icon to the right of
the address bar, then drag
the crosshairs over the
area you want to capture.
Click ‘Capture’ to open the
screenshot in Opera’s
image editor.

18 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661

SOFTWARE INSTALLER
SHOULD I PAY FOR…?
WingetUI 2.0.1 Choose the right version of software
www.snipca.com/46556
What you need: Windows 10 or 11
Stardock Groupy 2
WingetUI offers an www.snipca.com/46561
easy way to install, Price: £9.99 Free trial period: 30 days
uninstall and update What you need: Windows 10 or 11
thousands of
programs through the Groupy is an ingenious way to manage multiple open
Windows Package programs in Windows. Rather than press Ctrl+Alt+Tab to
Manager (Winget for switch between them, you can group them into a row of
short). The latest tabs – like in a web browser – and simply click a tab to
version improves its access the relevant program.
interface, adds several features and fixes various bugs – These tabs are added to all compatible software,
including the false positive that caused antivirus software to including built-in Windows tools, either above a window’s
flag it as a threat. A new Welcome screen opens the first time title bar or integrated with it. To add a program, right-click
you launch it to help you choose how to configure its settings, the tab bar, choose ‘Add to group’ and select the title of its
and the lists of available and installed programs are now window. Alternatively, just drag and drop its window on to
easier to browse. WingetUI’s settings, which you access by the bar, or choose ‘All ungrouped windows on this
clicking the three-dot menu in the top-right corner (see monitor’ (see screenshot) to add tabs for every open program.
screenshot), have also been simplified. The range of supported
package managers has been expanded (though some are
aimed at advanced users), and you can download software
much faster than before. Best of all, it’s now possible to
search for and install apps from the Microsoft Store.

VIDEO CONVERTER

Any Video Converter

Free 8.1.5
www.snipca.com/46557
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11

When Any Video

Converter was redesigned
earlier this year (see Issue
649, page 18), it upset
many users by ditching
several popular features
(the old version is still
available from www.
snipca.com/46558). It’s now been updated with four new
tools that could win back former devotees. The new Speed
Changer option lets you make your videos play up to three
times faster, or slow them down to a quarter of the speed.
You can use the Video Compressor tool to shrink video files
by your chosen percentage or to a fixed size, so they’re
quicker to upload and take up less storage. Particularly useful
is the new Screen Recorder feature (see screenshot), which
lets you capture three-minute videos of everything on your
screen, or just a specific area or window. There’s also a new
Webcam Recorder that captures footage with audio directly
from your webcam.
Besides being easy to use, Groupy offers several
customisation options. You can choose between traditional
and rounded tabs, make them always visible or only reveal
them when you move your cursor to the top of a window,
and colour-code them so they’re instantly distinguishable.
The latest version, Groupy 2, introduces full support for
Windows 11 to let you decide how its tabs are displayed in
the newly tabbed File Explorer and Notepad.
For the one-off price of a tenner, you can install Groupy
on up to five PCs, and keep your desktop better organised
on each one. You need to enter an email address to start the
30-day free trial, but you don’t need to verify it.
OUR VERDICT Pay for it
We think Groupy is great value for money and makes
switching between multiple programs a seamless and
speedy experience. Why wait for Microsoft to add tabs to
more tools when you can get them now?

Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 19

 Best Free Software

What should I download?

We advise you which software and apps to use

Which program can help me

Can I transfer my design a logo?
Handycam video to PC? I need to design
I have a 20-year-old Sony Handycam camcorder, Q a logo for my
Q but I can’t find the software to download the
tapes I made with it via USB to my PC. Is there
local history
club. I do have an artistic
anything you can recommend? background, though
Sanjay Jethwa I’m no design expert.
Is there free software
Have you tried Sony’s extensive library of drivers that could help?
A for its tape-based camcorders (www.snipca.
com/46408, see screenshot below), covering
Carol Reeves

nearly 300 devices? You don’t mention which Handycam Download Canva (www.snipca.com/46407), which lets
model you have but, if it’s in the list, the solution may be
simpler than you expect.
A you design not only logos, but flyers, posters and more
besides. You do have to pay for some of its templates,
but there’s a generous free selection covering many different
styles. We used one to knock up the logo pictured above in less
than five minutes, then downloaded it as a PNG, JPEG and PDF,
so we could use it in documents and online.

What’s the best searchable

If not, check which ports your Handycam has, aside from
USB, then use an adapter such as the August VGB100
external USB capture card to connect them to your PC.
You can buy one for £33 on
Amazon (www.snipca.
com/46409, pictured left). It
has phono and s-video
connectors, which you’ll also
need on your Handycam,
and a SCART adapter for
capturing footage from a
regular video cassette player. It
comes with video-capture software, but in our case this
was supplied on the kind of mini CD that requires a
tray-loading drive (ours is a slot-loader).
Fortunately, the software is also available for download
from the August website – look under ‘August VGB100
USB2.0 Video Capture Adaptor’ at www.snipca.com/46410.
Incidentally, we wrote about our experiences of using the
VGB100 in Issue 575 (page 35), when we paired it with the
free Debut Video Capture software (www.snipca.com/46411)
to resurrect footage from old video cassettes.
database?
Our heritage society has boxes full of old photographs,
Q newspaper cuttings and memorabilia. We want to
catalogue these and put them online for others to see.
Is there a searchable database we can use?
Joanna Fyson
Try using a content-management system like WordPress
A (www.wordpress.org), tagging each page so it’s easy to
find (see screenshot). The only catch is that WordPress
runs on a server, so we’d recommend signing up with a web host
that comes with WordPress or offers the option to host it.
Installers (offered by most web hosts) will set up WordPress, your
user account and the database in one go. Dedicated WordPress
hosting works in a similar way, but restricts you to hosting
content in only WordPress, not within your own directories
online. We’ve had
good experiences
with the following
web hosts: 34SP.
com (www.34sp.
com), Hostinger
(www.hostinger.
co.uk) and Ionos
(www.ionos.co.uk).

20 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661 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!
Mozilla’s hypocritical full-screen VPN advert
M
ozilla encourages
Firefox users to
install ad blockers,
describing them as “secret
weapons” to make your browsing
smoother. We suspect many users took
this advice after seeing Mozilla’s own ad
for its VPN (www.snipca.com/46435),
which costs $9.99 a month (about £7.90).
The advert (pictured) looks harmless
enough, but it irritated me (and thousands
of others) by slapping itself across my
screen while I was browsing the web in
Firefox. You couldn’t continue browsing
until you clicked one of the two options
at the bottom.
These kinds of intrusive tactics are
what you’d expect from money-chasing
giants like Microsoft and Google, not the
underdog Mozilla – which always claims
to be on the side of the little guy.
Mozilla has since said the advert was an
experiment that was meant to appear
only after 20 minutes of online inactivity
– like a screensaver. But we doubt it’s
WHAT ARE THEY
TALKING ABOUT?
WHAT THEY SAY
Lenovo
(www.snipca.com/46434)
“Meet the 2023 motorola
razr family – two devices
that blend style and premium specs to
deliver an innovative mobile experience.
Each feature of this new family was
carefully crafted to meet the needs
of modern consumers chasing a
balanced smartphone experience at
the intersection of style-driven self
expression and cutting edge technology.”
WHAT THEY MEAN
Priced over £1,000, these phones lie at
the intersection of expensive and ‘you’re
having a laugh’.
anyone’s idea of an attractive screensaver.
Certainly not mine.
Mozilla eventually apologised and
pulled the advert, admitting that it had
“accomplished the exact opposite of what
KEUMARS’ VILLAIN OF THE FORTNIGHT
Google
Simulator games range from
the popular (flight, railway,
truck) to the downright weird
(powerwashing anyone? –
www.snipca.com/46431).
But no game I’ve played
has been as repellent as
the Android app Slavery
Simulator (pictured), which
lets players “buy and sell”
black characters. The aim is to
“prevent the abolition of slavery and
accumulate wealth”.
It was listed on the Brazilian
version of the Google Play Store in
April, and was downloaded more
Although Mozilla encourages
ad-blocking, this is one
intrusive ad that was near
impossible to avoid
we intended”. But was it truly
sorry, or just sorry it got
caught? As experiments go,
it’s the kind that sets fire to
the chemistry lab and is only
stopped when someone rings
the fire alarm.
If Mozilla tries similar tricks
again, we recommend
installing the ad-blocker
extension AdGuard (https://
adguard.com). Some users
found that it stopped the
advert dead in its tracks. And besides,
don’t bother with Mozilla VPN – use the
free Privado (www.snipca.com/46437) or
paid-for NordVPN (www.nordvpn.com)
instead.
than 1,000 times.
Shockingly, the game had
received several positive
reviews, with one player
saying it was a “great way
to pass the time” – though
they criticised the lack of
“torture options”.
Mystery surrounds the
game’s creators – listed as
‘MagnusGames’ though
unrelated to a Malaysian firm of the
same name (www.snipca.com/46433)
– but Google are the real villains here.
It removed the game after a week or
so, but why was it ever allowed on?
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 21
 Reviews
New products tested by our experts New products tested by our experts
MINI PC | £699 from Amazon www.snipca.com/46416
Beelink SER6 Pro 7753HS
Little wonder
Intel invented the mini PC concept with
its NUC range – we reviewed the latest
model in Issue 660. However, if you’re
happy try other processors and live
without Intel’s superior case designs,
there are other manufacturers building
interesting mini PCs around AMD’s
chips. The Beelink SER6 Pro 7753HS
is a brilliant case in point.
High-quality
components make
this the best mini PC
we’ve ever seen
Its AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor
is an eight-core unit that’s designed
for laptops and, like many mobile
processors, it uses built-in graphics, so
there’s no need for a separate graphics
card. This isn’t ideal if you like to run
games such as Microsoft Flight Simulator
at their optimum settings, but the
graphics hardware here do a better job
than the Intel Iris Xe graphics you’ll
find on Intel processors.
These graphics are supported by
32GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD. In our
general Windows-performance test SER6
Pro improved on the Intel NUC 13 Pro
(£950, reviewed in Issue 660) by 8.5 per
cent. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but
22 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
bear in mind this PC costs £200 less.
There was an even greater improvement
in gaming benchmark tests, running at
least 20 per cent faster. A PC of this size
and configuration may not be ideal for
gamers, but for anyone who prefers a
smaller, space-saving footprint, this is the
best-performing model we’ve seen to date.
The case will look familiar to anyone
who has used mini PCs before. It has a
fabric-covered lid, and an airflow system
that draws cool air from the side and
ejects it out the back.
Internal access is achieved by
removing four small screws from the
underside and lifting away the metal
base plate from the chassis.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t give you
direct access to the SSD or RAM slots.
These are hidden away below a plastic
cradle, designed to take a 2.5in hard
drive. We wouldn’t recommend you
install one, however, because it would
restrict the airflow of the fan that’s used
to cool the components below it.
The SER6 Pro offers a generous
selection of ports. On the front panel
(pictured above) you’ll find two USB 3.0
and one Thunderbolt 4-compatible
USB-C port. There’s also a 3.5mm
headphone socket. At the rear there’s an
HDMI port, a DisplayPort, a USB 3.0 port,
a USB 2.0 port and a Gigabit Ethernet
socket (pictured below).
This is the fastest and best-value mini
PC we’ve reviewed to date. However, you
are sacrificing performance level for its
compact size when compared with a
standard desktop PC. Our current
favourite tower PC, the Palicomp AMD
Cobra (see page 30), runs Windows at a
similar speed and costs several hundred
pounds less. But if a small case is an
absolute must and you don’t want to
compromise too much on power, this
should be top of your list.
SPECIFICATIONS
Eight-core Ryzen 7 7735HS processor • 32GB RAM •
AMD Radeon 680M graphics • 500GB SSD • Wi-Fi 6E
• Gigabit Ethernet port • 1x HDMI port • 1x DisplayPort
• 1x USB-C port • 3x USB 3.0 ports • 1x USB 2.0 port •
Windows 11 Pro • 42x126x113mm (HxWxD) •
One-year warranty www.snipca.com/46416
VERDICT The most powerful mini PC
we’ve ever reviewed – and it doesn’t
cost the earth
★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE
GMKtec NucBox G1 £200 With a much
cheaper processor, this doesn’t offer
the same
performance
level, but it
represents
decent value
for money

LAPTOP | £999 from Laptop Outlet www.snipca.com/46428
MSI Prestige 13 Evo
Off colour
At first glance, the MSI Prestige 13 Evo
looks like it ought to be knocking our
current favourite laptop – the Acer
Swift 3 14in (£999 from www.snipca.
com/44367, reviewed in Issue 648) – off
its perch. That’s because at its core it has
an Intel Core i7-1360P processor, which
is the latest version of the i7-1260P chip
found in the Swift 3. However, in raw
performance, our benchmark tests
revealed the Evo to be slower.
Great battery life
can’t make up for
poor screen and slow
performance
A number of factors probably explain
this discrepancy, but it’s unlikely to
be the rest of the components in the
respective models, because both have
16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD.
But where the Evo really loses points is
in its 13.3in screen. In our tests it proved
to be bright enough, but we weren’t
impressed with its colours, which
covered only 79.4 per cent of the DCI-P3
standard. If you only intend to use it for
emails, browsing web pages and carrying
out office tasks, you probably shouldn’t
worry, but it’s not the optimum screen
for watching movies or editing photos.
What’s more, the Intel Iris Xe graphics
isn’t great at running games, but will
be sufficient if your settings (and
expectations) aren’t too high. It averaged
an acceptable 31fps at 1080p resolution in
relatively undemanding games, such as
the latest Civilisation release, but you
can’t expect to crank up the graphical
settings in a game such as Microsoft
Flight Simulator.
The laptop is relatively slim so isn’t
blessed with an array of ports, but MSI
has made the right choices to cater for
most modern computing needs. On the
left you’ll find the power socket, an HDMI
port, two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports and
a headphone jack. On the right there’s a
USB 3.0 port and a microSD card slot.
Where the Prestige 13 Evo comes up
trumps is in its battery life, so it’s likely
that the newer chip has been made to
work more efficiently, rather than
bringing more power. A single charge
lasted for over 12 hours, which is
50 per cent longer than the Swift 3.
If you’re looking for a laptop you can
use on the go, this is small, light and
has the battery life you’ll need.
Otherwise, we’d still recommend
the Acer Swift 3 over this.
SPECIFICATIONS
Twelve-core Intel Core i7-1360P processor • 16GB
RAM • Intel Iris Xe graphics • 13.3in 1920x1200-pixel
IPS screen • 1TB SSD • Wi-Fi 6E • 2x USB-C ports •
1x USB 3.0 port • 1x HDMI port • Windows 11 Home
• 16.9x299x210mm (HxWxD) • 1kg • One-year
warranty www.snipca.com/46428
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 long battery life, but a
slightly disappointing performance from
Intel’s latest-generation processor and
the screen could be better
★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE
Acer Swift 3 14in £999 Superior
performance and a larger,
higher-quality screen
make this a great option
if you don’t mind a 12th-
generation
processor
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 23
 Reviews
PC MONITOR | £399 from Argos www.snipca.com/46430
Lenovo L32p-30
Buy this for size
The bigger the screen on a monitor, the
greater the resolution needs to be to keep
it looking sharp. Standard 1080p screens
can start to look blocky if they are larger
than 30 inches, because the pixels have
to be bigger to fill the increased surface
area. Taking the necessary leap to 4K
resolution can be expensive, but this 32in
4K screen from Lenovo is one of the
best-value models we’ve seen to date.
It has a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels,
which provides a pixel density of 140dpi.
A large screen that
offers high resolution,
accurate colours and
decent brightness
Setting up the monitor is relatively
straightforward, requiring no tools
thanks to the pair of thumb screws that
hold the monitor securely to the base.
Beyond plugging the cables into the
rear, that’s all you need to do. The
stand itself is relatively basic, with
movement limited to forward and
backward tilting. There’s no height
adjustment or side-to-side rotation.
There is a generous selection of ports.
For extra monitors there’s both an
HDMI port and a DisplayPort, so you
can take your pick depending on
what you’re planning to connect to
it. There’s also a USB-C port, which
can provide 75W of power. Pricier
monitors sometimes come with
more powerful USB ports, so if
you intend to use this to charge a
laptop, it’s worth checking that
it has sufficient power for
yours. There are also four USB
3.0 ports, so you can use the
monitor as a hub to keep
peripherals such as your
keyboard and mouse
permanently connected.
The main problem
with these ports is
24 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
that they’re all on the back, mounted on
a suface that faces down. This makes
accessing them quite tricky – you’ll
almost certainly want to keep anything
that you have connected to it in position,
because you aren’t going to want to
scramble around the back of the monitor
very often.
Thankfully, the buttons for controlling
the on-screen display are easier to access
on the front of the monitor. These offer
quick access to brightness adjustment
and switching input sources. There’s
also a smartphone app (available for
Android and iOS) for managing the
monitor, but given the accessibility
of these controls, it’s somewhat
superfluous.
The screen has 3-Watt speakers built
in. While they’re fine for Windows
sounds, voice calls and speech radio,
they don’t offer enough bass to listen to
music, watch movies or play games.
We tested the L32p-30 with a
colorimeter and found peak brightness
levels reached 300cd/m2, which is easily
bright enough for indoor work, as long
as sunlight isn’t hitting the screen
directly from a nearby window. And it
reproduced the colours of the sRGB
standard perfectly, and made a very
good fist of reproducing the DCI-P3
standard.
Its refresh rate only goes up to
60Hz, which is fine for Windows
work and watching films, but
serious gamers might be looking for a
higher rate to guarantee ultra-smooth
graphics. However, you’d need a powerful
graphics card to get such a high frame
rate from a 4K resolution, but we think
this is more than sufficient for most users.
In summary, this is a high-quality,
affordable screen for those looking to
get a 4K resolution on a large desktop
PC screen. Its perfectly suited to work
that requires a lot of windows open
and visible at the same time, while its
accurate colours make it great for video
and image editing.
SPECIFICATIONS
31.5in IPS screen • 3840x2160-pixel resolution • 16:9
aspect ratio • 60Hz refresh rate • 4ms response time
• 1x HDMI port • 1x DisplayPort • 1x USB-C port • 4x
USB 3.0 ports • 523x714x207mm (HxWxD) • 7.8kg •
Three-year warranty www.snipca.com/46430
VERDICT A bright and vivid 4K
monitor that’s perfect for anyone
looking for a large screen with a high
resolution
★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE Iiyama ProLite
XU2492HSU-B1
£109 A 24in
Full HD monitor
(1920x1080 pixels)
that’s a bargain for
its size and quality
PRINTER ❘ £315 from Canon www.snipca.com/46533
Canon Pixma G3570
Tanks a lot
This is Canon’s latest all-in-one
printer/scanner/copier that uses
large ink tanks in an attempt to
reduce the sort of running costs
associated with cartridge-based
inkjet printing. Its appearance is
pleasing on the eye with nicely
rounded corners, textured plastic
finish and neatly integrated ink
tanks. However, being cheaper than
most ink-tank models in Canon’s range,
a few features have inevitably been
trimmed back.
To start with, the 1.35in non-touch
screen is small and the whole control
panel is fixed in place rather than having
a tilt capability, so you may need to crouch
over it to properly see what’s going on.
Canon has also dispensed with a front
paper tray, so you have to load all paper
via the tray behind the scanner. This can
hold 100 sheets but it’s not ideally
positioned for storing paper long term
because it’s likely to be exposed to dust.
Attractive printer
with low running costs,
but poor with photos
The Pixma G3570’s inability to print
both sides of the page automatically (auto
duplex) is the most annoying omission
though. Manually setting up double-sided
printing is time consuming and
defaulting to single-sided printing can
result in a waste of paper.
There’s an A4-sized glass scanning bed
on the top of the device and a USB port at
the rear. You can also connect via Wi-Fi
(with apps and drivers available for
printing from Windows, Android and
iOS), but there’s no Ethernet port.
SPECIFICATIONS
3-in-1 printer, copier and scanner • Four colour ink
tanks • 100-sheet paper capacity • 4800x1200-
dpi print quality • 1200x600-dpi scan quality
• Mono screen • USB and Wi-Fi connections •
177x416x337mm (HxWxD) • 6kg • One-year warranty
www.snipca.com/46533
On the plus side, setting up the printer
is straightforward, made easier thanks to
the mouldings on the necks of the
supplied ink bottles, which ensure you
can’t put the wrong colour ink into any
of the tanks.
The included ink is a key factor when
considering whether to buy a tank
printer. This comes with enough ink to
print 6,000 monochrome pages and
7,700 colour. For most casual users, this
could last for years.
The Pixma G3570 produces satisfyingly
crisp pages of dark black text. Pages are
churned out at the quoted standard rate
of 11 pages per minute. Our colour prints
looked bright, colourful and consistent.
Where it doesn’t work so well is
printing snaps on photo paper. While the
print resolution is fine, the colours don’t
pop, and the finish looks flat when
compared with printers designed for
photos. The similarly styled Canon Pixma
G650 (£280 from www.snipca.com/46535,
reviewed in Issue 610) is a little more
expensive to run thanks to its six inks,
but is a better photo printer.
VERDICT A reasonably priced all-in-
one printer with ink tanks that keep
running costs down, but those looking
for decent photo prints should look
elsewhere
★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE
Epson EcoTank ET-
1810 £170 An even
cheaper ink tank
printer, but it can’t
scan or copy
CHOOSE THE RIGHT SPECS
Printer
speeds
What do they do?
A printer’s quoted speed is the rate at
which it can produce printed pages.
Inkjet printers, for example, tend to print
line by line, so are typically the slowest
type of printer. Laser printers (such as
the Brother HL-L3270CDW, pictured
below) print each colour by rolling a
drum over the whole sheet of paper,
which is much faster.
How do they work?
Previously, companies used their own
very different documents to test their
models, so you could only accurately
compare printer speeds between
models from the same manufacturer.
Now, most use what’s called the ISO/
IEC 24712 standard document, so you
can easily compare speeds across
different brands. Tests are carried
out using multiple pages to calculate
an average - this is because the first
page out usually takes longer than
subsequent sheets, as the printer
needs to warm up.
What are their specs?
Print speed is usually measured in
ppm (pages per minute), though it may
also be quoted as ipm (impressions
per minute). The two measurements
are essentially the same. Some photo
printers may also use ppm to indicate
photos per minute. This shouldn’t be
confused with the pages-per-minute
measurement of a standard printer,
as a different test document will
have been used.
Can I change it later?
The print speed is determined by the
components built into the printer at the
manufacturing stage. These can’t be
upgraded at a later date.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 25
 Reviews
EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE | From £130 from Argos www.snipca.com/46498

Seagate Ultra Touch 5TB

No green deal

Seagate already has several 5TB drives
in its product range, and this Ultra Touch
is the latest. Like Acer’s Vero range of
products, this wears its eco-credentials
on its case, which is made from a
speckled-grey plastic that is formed
from used materials.
You pay extra for its
green credentials, while
standard size at 23x80x115mm (HxWxD)
and weighs 267g, so it’s small and light
enough to be carried around easily.
There’s an activity light and a USB-C
port (pictured below left), so should be
compatible with the latest laptops. A
50cm USB-C cable is the sole accessory
included in the box.
Its performance was slightly
disappointing. We put it through five
benchmark tests and the results were a
mixed bag. Write speed varied from 129

its transfer speeds are to 137MB/s while read speeds hovered

underwhelming
The downside is that Seagate is
charging the consumer a slight premium
for helping to save the planet. At the
time of writing the Ultra Touch costs
£130 at Argos, but you can buy other
Seagate 5TB drives, such as the Expansion
Plus 5TB Portable Hard Drive (www.
snipca.com/46499) for £107.
There’s nothing particularly striking
about the Ultra Touch. It’s a relatively
around an average of 140MB/s. In
real-world tests, a 10GB mix of files and
folders took around 74 seconds to
transfer, which is roughly 137MB/s.
This isn’t great, with better speeds
(averaging 249MB/s) from the larger
Seagate OneTouch Hub 12TB we reviewed VERDICT An eco-friendly external
in Issue 658. The OneTouch may be much hard drive, but it’s not the fastest we’ve
larger and less portable, but if you want seen and costs more than rivals
better speeds, these larger drives are the
way to go. You could also opt for an
★★★★★
external SSD for a smaller device that’s ALTERNATIVE
even faster, though larger capacities Segate Expansion
remain expensive in comparison. Plus 5TB Portable
Hard Drive £107 Pay
SPECIFICATIONS less for the same
2TB, 4TB and 5TB capacities • 1x USB-C port •
50cm USB-C to USB-C cable • 23x80x115mm
capacity without the
(HxWxD) • 267g • Three-year warranty www.snipca. green credentials
com/46498

WHAT SHOULD I BUY? We solve your buying dilemmas

What’s the best powerline system for an old farmhouse?

I need some good powerline
Q adapters for an old, stone-
walled French farmhouse. I’m
A the best choice in this scenario.
having fibre broadband installed
and the engineer will set the
adapters up for me when he
installs the internet. I’d like the
best possible signal up to 35
metres away from the router and
I’m happy to buy as many as I’d
need to ensure that good quality
Wi-Fi reaches every room.
Jerry Lloyd
Powerline adapters are definitely
Traditional stone walls will do a
phenomenal job of blocking
Wi-Fi signals, so a mesh Wi-Fi
system won’t cut it.
If all the internal walls are made
of stone, you’ll need an adapter
in every room. However, if some
rooms are separated by stud
walls, you may be able to get
away with fewer carefully
positioned adapters.
If we were looking for the best
adapters around we’d probably opt for
Devolo’s Magic 2 WiFi 6 products
(www.snipca.com/46511). With fast
Ethernet connections and Wi-Fi 6,
these will supply you with superb
coverage. Its wired connection will
overcome the problem of your thick
walls. A three-unit pack costs around
£330 from Amazon in the UK (www.
snipca.com/46512).
Do you need advice on what you should buy?
Email us at letters@computeractive.co.uk

26 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661

 Reviews
MOUSE | £60 from Amazon www.snipca.com/46461
Cooler Master MM712
Comes in handy
The Cooler Master MM712 is marketed
as a gaming mouse, but it’s actually a
delightful all-rounder that will also suit
regular Windows users.
On the surface it looks quite basic and
unassuming. Available in both black and
white, it has a symmetrical, ambidextrous
design that may not stand out from the
crowd but is useful if you’re left-handed
or share a PC with someone who is.
The only flash of colour is an outline
on the palm rest in the shape of the
Cooler Master logo – you can change
its backlight or turn it off using the
supplied software.
SPECIFICATIONS
Up to 19,000dpi • 1000Hz polling rate (2.4GHz and
wired modes only) • 6 buttons • 38x62x117mm
(HxWxD) • 58g • Two-year warranty www.snipca.
com/46461
HEADSET | £110 from Amazon www.snipca.com/46462
HyperX Cloud III
Taking the mic
HyperX was originally an offshoot of
memory storage manufacturer Kingston,
but is now owned by HP, probably best
known for its printers. HyperX has a
similar remit to its parent company –
producing decent-quality products at
reasonable prices, and this wired headset
and microphone combination is no
exception.
It’s the third offering in the affordable
Cloud range, and is easily the best yet. It
beats its predecessor with superior audio
quality, a more robust build, improved
comfort, more connectivity options, a
sleeker design and a better mic.
The headband and the ear cups boast a
softer foam than previous models, and a
pleasing leatherette finish. The band is
SPECIFICATIONS
53mm dynamic drivers • USB-C, USB 2.0 and 3.5mm
jack connections • Built-in volume control • 318g •
Two-year warranty www.snipca.com/46462
28 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
The simple design hides some handy
specifications. For example, it only
weighs 58g, which is very light and
makes it easy to manoeuvre. You can
also connect it to your PC in several
ways, including Bluetooth, 2.4GHz
wireless (using a supplied USB dongle)
or wired (via its USB-C port and fabric-
covered cable).
There’s a high level of accuracy
available if you need it, with the optical
sensor on the mouse capable of detecting
19,000dpi. It’s unlikely you’ll need this
kind of precision but it’s good to know
you can keep ramping it up as high as
you like. It also has a polling rate of
1,000Hz, so feels very responsive. The
buttons are responsive when pressing
and light to the touch.
In its 2.4GHz wireless mode the battery
extremely flexible, so you can adjust the
fit to the size of your head. The whole
headset is also incredibly light, so it
won’t feel heavy on your head, even if
you have to wear it for extended periods.
They can be hooked up to a 3.5mm
headphone socket or connected via USB,
with both USB-C and USB 3.0 options
available.
The mic is actually the Cloud III’s
best feature. It’s one of the best we’ve
tested as part of a headset at this price,
and it performed well in the voice calls
we made. It seemed to do a great job of
minimising sound from our immediate
surroundings, too. We could clearly hear
both our voice and the person we were
talking to above the noise of our typing.
Audio output with music, movies and
games is impressive, while conversations
in our video calls came through loud
and clear.
can last for up to 80 hours before needing
a recharge, while Bluetooth mode will
give you 180 hours. These durations will
be reduced if you keep the multicoloured
light switched on.
VERDICT An impressive mouse for
the price, with flexible connection
options and a high level of accuracy and
responsiveness
★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE Logitech Lift
Vertical Ergonomic Mouse £68 If
you value comfort over speed
and features, this similarly
priced model is a joy to use
VERDICT Excellent quality
headphones for the price, particularly
if you want to use them for a wide
range of activities, from listening to
music to making video calls
★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE
Jabra Evolve 40 MS £75
If you only want to make
voice calls, this more
affordable headset will
do the job
SMARTPHONE ❘ £100 from Argos www.snipca.com/46519
DO I REALLY NEED...
Samsung Galaxy A04s A tablet in a
Space saving briefcase?
What is it?
If you’re a fan of Samsung phones but LG has released a 26in touchscreen
you’re on a tight budget, there’s much to tablet/monitor built into a briefcase
like about this model. Considering its (pictured), so that it’s
price tag, it isn’t as sluggish as you might easier to carry around. It
expect. Its performance lags behind runs WebOS, which is the
phones around the £150 mark, and there interface built into LG’s
are moments when it struggles. But if all smart TVs and has its own
you want to do is browse the web, check app store with a wide
your emails and watch YouTube videos, range of popular apps.
it’s as good as many phones that cost
more. That said, it struggles dealing with What does it do?
detailed interfaces, such as Spotify, and Open the briefcase and the screen
when playing demanding games, but it extends out. You can have it in portrait
will handle less demanding and older or landscape mode, or leave it flat in the
games perfectly well. case to use like an interactive tabletop,
The screen is also surprisingly good. Its but you can’t fully remove the screen
1600x720-pixel resolution produces from the case.
sharp results across its 6.5in diagonal,
and we have no complaints about its What’s the catch?
colour accuracy – in our colorimeter test Currently it’s only available in South
it recreated 85 per cent of the sRGB Korea, with no immediate plans to launch
standard. Films and photos look great, it elsewhere. It costs 1,170,000 Korean
and its speaker is more than good enough has clearly made some big compromises Won (around £712). It’s also bulky,
to hear dialogue and soundtracks. At a here, and the photos we took were measuring 119x670x433mm (HxWxD)
push, we’d even listen to music through disappointing. Nature shots proved and weighing 12.7kg.
its speakers, although you may prefer to lacklustre and the camera’s automatic
take advantage of its 3.5mm audio jack. image processing went in far too heavy So can I do without it?
Samsung compromises on storage, when sharpening edges. Its low-light Yes. If a screen needs to be carried
with just 32GB on offer here. Should photos were also underwhelming. around in a briefcase, it’s probably too big
you fill that, there’s a microSD card slot, On the plus side, Samsung’s One UI to be practical.
which sits alongside space for dual interface is excellent, and a particular
nano-SIM cards. luxury on a phone this cheap. Samsung
We didn’t expect to get a USB-C also has a great reputation for keeping NEXT ISSUE
charger, but we were pleasantly surprised phones updated, and this should be no
– a compact 7.5-watt travel adapter is in exception. On Sale Weds 19 July
the box. This took the A04s from empty
to 100-per-cent charge in three hours,
though a 15W charger will roughly halve VERDICT A surprisingly decent PCSpecialist
that charging time. Battery life was smartphone for the budget price, but it’s Topaz Supreme
A gaming PC that
mixed. The AO4s gave up the ghost after still well worth paying a bit more if you
packs a punch at an
10 hours five minutes in our gaming can afford it affordable price
test, though it redeemed itself playing
videos, lasting a formidable 17 hours 22
★★★★★
Amazon Fire
minutes. ALTERNATIVE Max 11
Less impressives is the camera. Samsung Google Pixel 7a £449 Amazon’s most
Significantly more powerful tablet yet
SPECIFICATIONS expensive, but this is for less than £250
Eight-core Exynos 850 processor • 3GB RAM • 6.5in our favourite Android
1600x720-pixel resolution TFT touchscreen • 32GB
smartphone for its sensible These and much more...
storage • 50-megapixel rear camera • 5-megapixel
front camera • Wi-Fi 5 • Bluetooth 5.0 • USB-C port • balance between price, Subscribe to Computeractive at
Android 13 • 165x77x9.1mm (HxWxD) • 195g • features and performance www.getcomputeractive.co.uk
One-year warranty www.snipca.com/46519

Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 29

 Buy It
Our pick of products that have won the Buy It award
LAPTOP
Acer Swift 3 14in
£999 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. £799 from
www.snipca.com/44950
ANDROID TABLET
Samsung Galaxy Tab S8
£749 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 £950 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. £480 from
www.snipca.com/45244
30 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
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.
£622 from www.snipca.com/41500
APPLE iPHONE
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.
£214 from www.snipca.com/41609
32 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
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
£70 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. £70 from www.snipca.
com/41105
PRINTER
Epson EcoTank ET-1810
£170 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. £139 from
www.snipca.com/43670

COMPETITION
Win 1 of 4
iStorage datAshur
PRO+C 32GB drives
iStorage, specialists in encrypted
portable storage devices, has released
a new encrypted flash drive: the
datAshur PRO+C. It’s the world’s first
and only flash drive to be pending the
new FIPS 140-3 Level 3 validation
scheme, hitting a cryptography
standard approved by the US
government.
This USB 3.2 (Gen 1) Type-C flash
drive is fast – reading files at a
maximum of 310MB/s, and writing at
246MB/s. It’s easy to use and has a
rechargeable battery that lets you
enter an 8 to 15-digit PIN via the
SMART TV
TCL 55RP620K
£299 from www.snipca.com/45341
Tested Issue 654
This is a stunning 55in 4K TV with
features and apps provided by Roku.
Picture quality is incredible, and it has
all the catch-up services you need. It’s a
steal at under £300.
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. £980 from
www.snipca.com/43718
on-board keypad before
connecting the device to
a USB port. It comes with
a Type-C-to-Type-A adapter, so you
can use it with older devices.
Its advanced security features
provide complete data security and
maximum protection at all times. To
access it you need to type the unique
PIN. It means your data will be safe
even if you lose the drive or it’s stolen.
It can withstand brute-force attacks
by deleting the PIN if it’s incorrectly
entered 10 consecutive times.
To enter this competition, answer
SOLID-STATE DRIVE
Corsair MP600 Pro LPX
500GB
£53 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. £35 from
www.snipca.com/37304
Buy It
the question at www.snipca.
com/46527 and submit your details.
It ends at midnight Tuesday 18 July.
Good luck!
The 32GB version of the datAshur
PRO+C costs £99. It’s also available
in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB versions,
priced £149, £189 and £249
respectively. VAT is added to all prices
at purchase. Visit iStorage’s site for
details: www.snipca.com/46528.
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.
£100 from www.snipca.com/41111
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 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 661

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

35 Find and remove 40 Readers’ Tips PLUS
duplicate files for free 44 Phone & Tablet Tips 47 Make Office Better
42 Browser Tips:
38 Run 200 free tools from Disable ‘hover card’ 46 Make Windows 48 In the Club: Create
one USB stick previews for tabs Better volunteer forms

HOW TO...
Find and remove duplicate
files for free by Nik Rawlinson

What you need: Windows; Excel or other spreadsheet program Time required: One hour

D
uplicate files aren’t only a waste of
space: they’re a waste of time too.
The more files you have to search
through when looking for a particular
photo or document, the longer the
process will take. Then, when you’ve
edited, saved and closed a file, how do
you know it was the right one? If there
are two very similar versions in different
locations on your drive you could end
up making every edit twice over. Or,
worse, where entire folders of files have
been replicated, you might edit some
files in one, different files in the other,
and end up thoroughly confused.
Removing duplicates should be easy,
especially given so many products
promise to do it for you. The trouble is,
some also charge for the privilege.
Thankfully, there are some tricks you can
try before you spend any money. As we
reveal, Windows already has many of the
tools you need built in. Here, we’ll also
explore advanced Windows searches
and explain how to save your searches,
create batch files and analyse data using
a spreadsheet.

Search for a specific
1 phrase in your file name
It can be useful to make a copy
of files before making significant changes.
The easiest way to do this is to select a file
in File Explorer, press Ctrl+C to copy it (as
you can with text in a document) then
Ctrl+V to create a copy in the same folder.
Because the two would have the same
file name, resulting in the original being
overwritten, Windows adds ‘- Copy’
immediately before the file extension.
Unless you’ve subsequently changed the
file name, you can search for this term to
reveal copies still sitting on your drive.
Open a new File Explorer window,
and make sure Home is selected in the
sidebar. Click in the Search Home box
and type name:~="- Copy” (make sure
you put a space between the dash and
Copy – 1 in our screenshot) then press
Enter. Windows will search your whole
system for file names containing the
specified string, highlighting them in
yellow 2 .
It’s worth examining this search term
a little closer. We start by restricting
the search to only look for the specified
phrase (ie, - Copy) in file names, using
the name keyword. If we excluded this,
Windows would also search inside
the files, and include documents,
2 no matter what other
spreadsheets, and more that include
“- Copy” in the body text. That would
increase the number of files listed and
include several irrelevant results.
Typing ~= after the colon means
“must include this exact phrase but not
only this exact phrase”. If we excluded
the tilde (~), so the search string was
name:="- Copy", it would show file
names with exactly (and only) "- Copy".
On our PC, that would return no results.
We therefore need the
tilde to add a degree of
uncertainty to include
files that contain "- Copy",
words are in the file name.
1
Type this command to find
file names containing Copy

Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 35

 2
3
1 ever get around to doing it.
Save your search so you can search for
duplicates with one click
If we had instead typed name:~< Copy"
we’d be telling Windows that the file
must start with the search term. If we
typed name:~>"- Copy" we’d be telling
Windows that it must end with it.
As you can see in our screenshot above,
one of our files is called ‘annotating
screengrabs - Copy’ 1 . This file
would still appear if we searched for
name:~<"annotating" as ‘annotating’
appears at the start of the file name.
Another is called ‘untitled-1 - Copy.
md’ 2 , which would still show up if
we searched for name:~>"- Copy.md".
However, neither would show up if we
only searched for name:="- Copy" since
their names aren’t exactly “- Copy”.
Once you’ve isolated these files, check
their locations, which appear either in
the next column or on the line below, and
check those folders for the originals to
work out which you want to keep.
If you want to perform this operation
frequently to keep on top of unintended
duplicates, right-click the list of files and
click ‘Save search’ 3 . When the Save As
box appears, type Copies and click Save.
Notice how the contents of the File
Explorer address box changes to ‘[your
name] > Searches > Copies’. Click
‘Searches’, then drag the new Copies
file you just created into the Explorer
sidebar so you can find it easily in
future. Clicking it in the sidebar will
immediately compile an updated list of
Make your search easy to find in Windows 11 by dragging it to the
sidebar or pinning it to the Start menu
36 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
How I search for duplicates
I need to make a confession. of duplicate photos because
I know how to organise files I often back up whole folders
and find duplicates, but I hardly of shots even if I’m just going
to edit one or two of them, so
But now that I’ve written this that seems as good a place as
feature, I’ll be more diligent any to start.
in future. I know I have loads Nik Rawlinson
How do you search for duplicates?
Please let us know: letters@computeractive.co.uk
files on your system containing the term following: (@For /F "Delims=" %%A in
"- Copy". ('dir /B/S/A-D') Do @Echo %%~fA,
If you’re using Windows 11, you can %%~zA) >files.csv. You can copy and paste
also add the search to the Start menu this from our Pastebin account: www.
by right clicking the new Copies file snipca.com/46463.
( 1 in our screenshot below left) and Next, press Ctrl+S, then save the
clicking ‘Pin to Start’ 2 . Clicking it on file in your Documents folder as
the Start menu again runs the search ‘duplicates.bat’. Open a File Explorer
without you having to remember the window, navigate to the Documents
search term. folder, select the duplicates file (see
screenshot below) and press Ctrl+C to
Build a batch file copy it. Now click C: in the sidebar and
2 Not all duplicate files will be
so easy to find – particularly if
press Ctrl+V to paste it into the new
location. Windows will warn you that
they don’t have similar names. In that you need administrator permission to
case, your best option is to compare save it. Click Continue. It’s because of
file sizes rather than names. With a this need for administrator permission
few exceptions, it’s unlikely that two that we couldn’t save it in the C: directory
files of exactly the same size will have from Notepad, hence going via the
different contents. So, if we can compile a Documents folder. You can delete the
list of file names and sizes, then compare copy in Documents now.
the sizes of each, it will highlight the ones Before we run the code, we’ll explain
we need to examine more closely. We’ll how it works. The @ symbol at the start
do this by building a batch file. tells the batch file not to fill the screen
Helpfully, a contributor called with the text it generates while it’s
‘user6811411’ has already worked out how running. It then uses the For command
to do part of this on the question-and- to start a loop of code that keeps running
answer website Stack Overflow (www. until it runs out of things to work on.
snipca.com/46452). We can adapt their But what exactly is it working on?
contribution for our own needs. That comes in the next set of brackets.
Open Windows Notepad and type the The command dir /B/S/A-D tells the
Select and
copy the
‘duplicates’
1 file, then
paste it
2 into a new
location

computer to make a directory (dir) of all
of the files in the current folder. Because
that dir command is followed by three
options it does a little extra work, as
follows:
/B tells the computer to only take a note
of file names, not any other details it
encounters.
/S tells it to also look inside any sub-
folders it finds.
/A-D tells it not to include the names of
folders in the list of results.
So, our ‘loop’ is a piece of code that
looks in the current folder and takes a
note of the first file it finds. It then runs
again and if it finds another file, it takes a
note of that file’s name, too. This continues
until it runs out of files. Every time it
finds a file, it moves on to the second half
of the string of code, which is:
Do @Echo %%~fA, %%~zA
Here, Do tells the computer that what
follows is something it must do, which is
to write (Echo in batch-file terminology)
the file name and the file size to a file.
These are represented by %%~fA and
%%~zA respectively. But write them
where? The answer to that comes at the
very end: files.csv.
The arrow means ‘send the output
to’, and because it’s pointing to files.
csv, that’s the destination: a file called
files.csv (where csv stands for ‘comma
separated values’, which is a format for
saving data in a table, such as in Excel).
Run your batch file
3 To run your batch file, you
first have to install Windows
Terminal from the Microsoft Store. Visit
www.snipca.com/46553 and click ‘Get in
Store app’. It’s a tool for running multiple
command-line tools like Command
Prompt and PowerShell. Next, open File
Explorer, then navigate to the folder you
want to check for duplicates. Right-click
in any blank space and click ‘Open in
Terminal’ (in Windows 10 you’ll have
to press Ctrl when right-clicking; in
Windows 11 you’ll have to select ‘Show
more options’ after right-clicking).
At the command prompt, type c:\
duplicates.bat and press Enter. This runs
the batch file you saved at C: earlier. The
reason we saved it there is that it’s easy
to reference, meaning you can type that
command from inside any other folder
and know it will work.
Your computer will appear to be doing
nothing, but in the background it will be
going through every file in the current
Next issue: Run Linux software from within Windows
Find and remove duplicate files for free
Hover over ‘Open with’ then click the spreadsheet you want to use
folder, plus any subfolders, and
writing their name and file size to a
file called files.csv.
When it’s finished, the cursor
will move down to the next line.
Look in the File Explorer window
again, where you’ll see that the
‘files.csv’ file has been added to the
list. Right-click it, then hover over
‘Open with’ ( 1 in our screenshot at
the top of the page) and click your
preferred spreadsheet 2 .
The data won’t be easy to
interpret until you do a little work
on it. Click the A at the top of the
first column (which contains the
file names), then hold Ctrl while clicking
the top of column B (which contains
file sizes). Now organise them by file
size. In Excel, click Home, followed by
‘Filter & Sort’, then click ‘Custom Sort…’.
In the box that appears, select Column
B in the first dropdown menu ( 1 in
our screenshot below) and ‘Smallest to
Largest’ in the third 2 .
In LibreOffice Calc, click the Sort
Ascending button on the main toolbar.
Because you selected column B second,
the data will be sorted by file size.
Now, click in cell C2 and type
=SUM(B2-B1) and press Enter. This
subtracts the size of the file on that row
1 2
Sort your files according to size to make them easier to
analyse
1 2
Our little bit of maths makes these zeros really stand
out, making potential duplicates easier to spot
from the size of the file on the row
above. Select cell C2 again and press
Ctrl+C to copy it, then select all the cells
in column C, from C3 down to the last
row with a file name. So, if the last file
name appears on row 100 of column A,
select from C3 down to C100, then press
Ctrl+V to copy the same formula into
each cell.
Next, simply look through the numbers
in column C for any instances of zero. This
is easy to spot, and you don’t need to
manually compare an ever-changing list
of file sizes. As you can see from the
screenshot above, seven of the 93 files in
our list have exactly the same file size
(because the difference is zero).
However, despite having
suspiciously similar file
names, they wouldn’t have
shown up in the Windows
search we performed in Steps
1 and 2. We therefore know
that we need to check them
out, as there’s a good chance
they’re duplicates.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 37
 Workshop
Run 200 free tools
from one USB stick
What you need: NirLauncher 1.30; a USB flash drive with 128MB or more space
Time required: 20 minutes

I t’s no secret that we at Computeractive

love NirSoft’s excellent free tools.
Indeed, the developer produces so many
great little programs that it’s difficult to
single out which ones we like best.
Luckily, you can download the whole lot
in one fell swoop, thanks to NirLauncher
– a regularly updated package containing
all NirSoft’s great tools under one roof.
Naturally, there’ll be some you use more
than others, so NirLauncher’s new
Favourites feature (introduced in version
1.30) provides quick access to the tools
you need most. Here we show you how
to create and customise a handy
NirLauncher toolkit on a USB stick.

STEP Insert a USB stick into your PC, then go to www.snipca.

1 com/46479 and click the green Download button 1 .

This will download a ZIP file to your PC – right-click this
3
and select ‘Extract all’. Click ‘Browse’, navigate to the root of your
USB stick and click Select Folder, then click Extract. The ZIP is
password protected but you’ll find the password (currently
nirsoft9876$) on the tool’s download page, below the Download
button 2 . Clicking the password will copy it to your clipboard. 4
Next, click in the ‘Password needed’ box 3 , and press Ctrl+V to
paste it. Click OK 4 . You’ll need to wait a while as the packages
are extracted.
1 2

1 5

3 2

3
1
4

2 4

STEP To run NirLauncher from your USB stick, open a File

STEP Depending on your security software, some of 3 Explorer window, navigate to the drive, then double-

2 NirLauncher’s tools may be wrongly identified as a

potential threat. Windows Defender, for example,
displays multiple security alerts as you extract the ZIP to your
USB drive. It’s safe to ignore these, however, because NirSoft is a
trusted source. When you run NirLauncher for the first time,
Windows Defender may actively block some of its tools. To
unblock them, click the shield icon in the taskbar, then click
‘Virus & threat protection’. Click an item listed under ‘Current
threats’ 1 , then click ‘See details’ 2 to double-check that it’s
related to NirSoft. If so, click OK, select the ‘Allow on device’
option 3 and click ‘Start actions’ 4 .
click the ‘NirLauncher.exe’ file 1 . If you see any
security alerts at this point, refer back to Step 2 to resolve them.
At the top of the NirLauncher window, you’ll see a selection of
buttons 2 – Password Recovery Utilities, Network Monitoring
Tools and so on. Clicking one of these will narrow the selection
of tools displayed in the main window 3 by the relevant category.
Alternatively, you can click the All Utilities button 4 to view all
NirSoft’s tools in one long list. Click the Name column header 5
to organise the list alphabetically.

38 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661

 2 1
3
1
STEP As we mentioned earlier, the latest version of
4 NirLauncher introduces a new feature that lets you
add specific tools to your favourites. To do this, locate a
tool you use frequently in the main window, then right-click it
and select Add To Favorites 1 . To access your favourite tools,
click the View menu 2 and select Show Only Favorites 3 .
Click View, Show Only Favorites again to go back to the full
list of tools, or use the F2 key to switch between your favourites
and the full tool list.
STEP If you plan on using NirLauncher’s tools on the same PC on a
6 regular basis, you could make it quicker and easier to access
your favourites by customising some of the program’s
settings. For example, you might want to consider clicking Options 1
and selecting Run NirLauncher At Windows Startup 2 , so that your
toolkit is ready for use every time you boot up your PC. Similarly,
you could select Put Icon On Tray 3 from the Options menu,
which will show a notification-area icon in the bottom right of your
taskbar whenever NirLauncher is running. This will let you start
NirLauncher with one click.
2 7
1 tools via the Packages menu 2 .
Next issue: Remove PC junk using a powerful new tool
4
STEP You can run a tool from NirLauncher by double-clicking
5 its entry in the list. Some tools, however, need to be run
with administrator privileges to work properly. For
example, if you wanted to diagnose slow broadband problems,
you could use NetworkTrafficView. But instead of double-
clicking it in the list, you’d need to right-click it and select Run
As Administrator. Unfortunately, it’s not always obvious when
administrator privileges are required. One option is to click
Options 1 , Advanced Options 2 and select Run As Administrator
from the ‘Double-Click on item’ menu 3 , then click OK 4 . From
now on, all tools will run with administrator privileges by
default when you double-click them.
1
3
STEP You can expand your arsenal by adding
further free tools to NirLauncher. To add
Microsoft’s brilliant Sysinternals Suite, for
example, go to www.snipca.com/46480 and click
Download Sysinternals Suite. Extract the ZIP and
drag the resulting SysinternalsSuite folder into the
NirSoft folder on your USB stick. Next, go back to
www.snipca.com/46479 and scroll down to Additional
Downloads. Right-click the ‘sysinternals6.nlp’ link
and select ‘Save link as’ 1 (or Save Target As,
depending on your browser) and save the file to the
SysinternalsSuite folder on your USB drive. Now drag
the ‘sysinternals6.nlp’ file from the SysinternalsSuite
folder into the NirLauncher window. You can switch
between NirLauncher’s tools and Sysinternals Suite’s
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 39
 ,
Readers’ Tips
TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT

Create your own stamps for PDFs

I’m the latest member of the PDFgear
(www.pdfgear.com) fan club. I agree
with all the readers and your writers
who say it makes managing PDFs
amazingly simple.
Beyond all the features you’d expect
in a PDF editor, it has several hidden
tools like the ability to create your own
stamps to say things like ‘Approved’,
‘Final’ or ‘Sold’. But before you create
your own, click the Insert tab at the top
then the Stamp dropdown menu and
choose Preset. You’ll then see all the 1
stamps that PDFgear comes with.
If what you want isn’t there, hover
your cursor over ‘Custom Stamp’ ( 1 in
our screenshot), then click ‘+ Custom 2 3
Stamp’. Write a message and it’ll replace
the sample text below. You can also
change its colour by clicking one of the
coloured circles. Tick ‘Save the custom indicated by initials 2 . When I need
startup’, then click OK. to use one, I click it and
I created four differently coloured move it around the PDF 3 .
‘Approve’ stamps for individual people Frank Pearson.

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

EMAIL seconds, which is nowhere near long

Delay messages sent in Gmail
Like Al Frederick (Readers’ Tips,
Issue 660), I also have clumsy
fingers that accidentally send emails
before they’re finished. But unlike Al, I
use Gmail, so I couldn’t follow his tips for
delaying emails in Outlook. I reasoned
that Gmail must have a similar tool, and
so it proved. I found it by clicking the
top-right cog icon (Settings), then ‘See all
settings’ and looking next to ‘Undo Send’.
The default delay is a mere five
enough for me to ‘unsend’ an email
if I’ve made a mistake. Al said he has
set his Outlook delay to five minutes,
but the maximum Gmail allows is
30 seconds (see screenshot below
left). Better than nothing, I thought, 2
so selected it. I now have some
breathing space to react if I press
‘Send’ too early.
Ron Fenton
WINDOWS
Open two File Explorer 1
windows from taskbar
In your answer to Brian King’s
problem (Issue 656, page 66) you Explorer, it places a yellow folder icon
suggest that one way to open a new File on your taskbar ( 1 in our screenshot
Explorer window in Windows 11 is to above). Right-click this, then right-click
right-click a folder and choose ‘Open in a File Explorer in the menu that appears.
new tab’. I use a more efficient way of You’ll see the option to ‘Open’ it in a
opening two File Explorer windows at the new window 2 .
same time. When you first open File Louise Hunt

Why I stopped using…

The basic Kindle
In recent years, I realised that I
was finding it harder to get to
sleep after switching off my Kindle. I
had the 10th version of the cheapest
model, released in 2019. It had served
me well, but I wondered whether I
needed another model with a specific
light for bedtime reading.
And what I use instead...
I researched the options and decided
that the Kindle Paperwhite
was the best device because
of its warm light. When you
turn this on it gives the
screen a yellowish tint that
soothes the eyes as you read
(pictured). It’s made a big
difference to my sleeping patterns.
Turning on warm light is as easy as
tapping the down arrow from the top of
the home screen then changing the
intensity of the light using the sliders.
You can also set a schedule so
the light turns on at a particular
time.
I bought the 16GB version for
£150 (www.snipca.com/46383).
This is with adverts on the lock
screen, which annoyed me so
much that I then paid an extra tenner
to remove them.
James Meredith
Tell us why you stopped using a website, app
or program: letters@computeractive.co.uk

40 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661


1
2 Reader recommends…
SOFTWARE
3 As a club secretary I was given
See list of programs
installed on your PC
In your How To on reinstalling
Windows (Issue 660, page 35) you
suggested writing down all the software
installed on your PC as preparation.
Another option is to use the Free PC
Audit software (www.snipca.com/46310).
When you run the program it will scan
your machine for a few minutes. Once
that’s done, click the Software tab at the
top and you’ll see all your programs listed
alphabetically ( 1 in our screenshot
above). Scroll to the right and you’ll see
other details including version number 2
and installation date 3 .
Ian Bailey
GAMES
Play old DOS titles online
I used to play lots of DOS games
many decades ago on my Win16 PC
systems. I had forgotten all about them
until I came
across the site
RGB Classic
Games (www.
classicdosgames.
com) which lets
you play loads of
them online.
You’ll see the
full list by clicking ‘Play DOS games
online’ at the top. You can also download
games from the site, but I prefer playing
them online so I don’t clutter up my PC.
Interestingly, there’s a game called
Wordle on the site (pictured), though it’s
more like Boggle than the current Wordle
game that’s so popular online. My other
favourites include Jetpack, Lemmings
and Mah Jongg.
John Ainsworth
PERIPHERALS
Use keyboard with touchpad
to save space
As the owner of a mini PC (a Chillblast
model that I love), I welcomed your
advice on saving space in Issue 660’s
Cover Feature on mini PCs. You provided
some good tips on using compact mice
and keyboards, but didn’t mention what I
use, which is Logitech’s K400 Plus
Handy hints and tips from your fellow readers
Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Canon Maxify GX4050
£380 from www.snipca.com/45482
the task of finding a printer that
could print hundreds of documents
every week at a price that wouldn’t
bankrupt us. It was a tough call in this
era of rising prices, but your review of
the Canon Maxify GX4050 (Issue 655,
page 26, pictured) seemed promising.
You said it cost £430, but I managed to
find it for £50 less.
We’ve had it for a month and it’s
transformed our club’s admin. It’s
much faster than the ancient printer
we were using (also Canon), and the
35-page document-feeder for the
scanner is flawless.
But it’s the cheap running costs that I
think will make it a great purchase in
the long term. Most of the pages we
Wireless Touch (£38.50 from www.
snipca.com/46396, pictured above).
It cleverly adds a touchpad to the right
of the keyboard, where the numeric
keypad would otherwise be. It’s totally
wireless and is designed to be used on
your lap on the sofa, where you can
control a PC that’s connected to a TV. This
makes it the perfect peripheral for any
mini PC you use as a streaming device.
James Read
BROWSERS
Block pop-ups and tracking
in Safari
Your Workshop on blocking
annoying junk as you browse the
internet (Issue 658, page 38) reminded
me how bad web browsing can often be
on a mobile phone – with ads and videos
that randomly pop up and obscure
everything. They’re also hard to close,
particularly on certain news websites.
You can block these on iPhones and
iPads using Safari’s privacy settings, but
this doesn’t always work. I stumbled
across an even simpler and more
print are in colour, and we’ve chosen
the economy mode so we’ve barely
touched the 21,000 documents it can
handle before the ink runs out. You
can’t argue with 0.2p per page – or at
least the club treasurer didn’t argue
when I suggested we should buy it
based on that cost!
Abigail Walsh
Want to recommend hardware or software
to fellow readers?
Email letters@computeractive.co.uk
2
1
permanent solution while needing to make
my phone more accessible following
recent eye surgery – namely Reader Mode.
In Safari’s search bar there are two As
where you can change the font size ( 1 in
our screenshot above), but you can also
tap them to bring up options including
Show Reader 2 . Tap this and it converts
the page to text. End of annoying junk
covering your screen.
If you find you like reading mode, you
can activate it on all websites. Open
Settings on your device, then tap Safari.
Scroll down to Reader, tap it, then select
All Websites. If you ever need to view the
page as originally intended, select the
double As then Hide Reader. You may
need to do this if you want to click any
links on the page.
John McCormick
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 41
 Browser Tips
CHROME
Disable ‘hover card’
previews for tabs
When you hover your cursor over
a tab in Chrome, it shows you a
preview image of the relevant web page.
This saves you needing to click the tab to
view its content, but because these ‘hover
cards’ can be triggered accidentally, some
people find the feature annoying and
similar to viewing pop-ups in your browser.
Thankfully, Chrome 114, which was
released at the beginning of June, gives
you the option to disable hover-card
previews, if they’re more of a hindrance
than a help. Type chrome://flags into the
browser’s address bar and press Enter to
load the Experiments page. Search for
the entry Tab Hover Card Images (see
screenshot below), click the dropdown
menu next to it and select Disabled.
Relaunch Chrome and you’ll no longer
see image previews when you hover
your cursor over tabs.
Chrome 114 also introduces an auto-
correct function for mistyped web
addresses. When you type a URL into the
address bar, it will now detect mistakes
WORKSHOP Try Edge’s new ‘Browser essentials’ feature
1
2 2
1 Click the ‘Browser essentials’ button on
Edge’s toolbar 1 to open the ‘Browser
essentials’ sidebar. In the Performance
section 2 , you can check whether
‘efficiency mode’ and ‘sleeping tabs’ are
enabled, and if your tabs are using
excessive memory and processing power.
42 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
and suggest the site it thinks you’re
trying to access. The new feature is
intended to “increase accessibility
for people with dyslexia, language
learners and anyone who makes
typos” (www.snipca.com/46400),
but it also protects you against
typosquatting – when hackers set
up malicious websites with URLs
similar to popular ones.
EDGE
Manage your performance
and safety settings
Microsoft has added a new option
called ‘Browser essentials’ to Edge’s
increasingly cramped toolbar. This lets
you monitor and manage the browser’s
performance and security without
needing to open Settings first.
When you click the ‘Browser essentials’
icon (which looks like a heart-rate monitor)
on the toolbar, it opens a sidebar that
shows you the current status of Edge’s
performance and safety settings, and lets
you adjust them accordingly. If you don’t
find the feature useful, right-click its icon
and choose ‘Hide from toolbar’.
See our Workshop below to learn how
to make the most of ‘Browser essentials’.
BRAVE & EDGE
Display web pages on
vertical tabs
When you have lots of web
pages open, the tabs displayed
across the top of your browser can
become so narrow that you can’t read
their titles. To solve this problem, Brave
1 2
3 3
2 To adjust these settings, click the
three-dot icon and select ‘Manage
performance settings’ 1 . This opens the
‘System and performance’ section of Edge’s
Settings, where you can tweak Efficiency
mode 2 and activate sleeping tabs 3 to
conserve system resources.
2
1
3
1.52 (released in June) gives you the
option to use vertical tabs. This displays
tabs in a resizable panel down the
left-hand side of the browser, so you can
see the full page titles no matter how
many tabs you have open.
To activate vertical tabs, click Brave’s
three-line menu button and choose
Settings then Appearance. Scroll down
to the Tabs section and switch on ‘Use
vertical tabs’ ( 1 in our screenshot above).
You can hide the vertical-tabs panel by
clicking the ‘Minimise tabs’ button in the
top-left corner 2 , and either click it again
or hover your mouse over the button to
reveal the panel.
The ‘New Tab’ button is moved to the
bottom-left corner of the window 3 , but
you can still access standard tab features
such as Close, Pin and Duplicate by
right-clicking a tab. To switch back and
forth between vertical and standard
horizontal tabs, choose ‘Use vertical tabs’
in the right-click menu.
Vertical tabs are also available in Edge.
To enable the feature, either press
Ctrl+Shift+, and then right-click a tab
1
3 The Safety section 1 of ‘Browser
essentials’ shows you how many sites
and downloads Edge has scanned for
malware. Click the three-dot icon and
choose ‘Manage security settings’ 2 to
boost its security by switching from
Balanced to Strict mode 3 .

BEST EXTENSION FOR… Downloading images in bulk
Imageye
Chromium
www.snipca.com/46404
Firefox
www.snipca.com/46405
Although downloading a web image
involves little more than right-clicking it and
choosing ‘Save image as’, it can be time-
consuming when you want to save multiple
pictures from a site. Imageye makes life
easier by automatically detecting all the
images on the page you’re viewing, then
letting you download them all (see screen-
shot) – or just selected pictures - in one go.
and select ‘Turn on vertical tabs’; or click
the new ‘Tab actions menu’ in the top-left
corner and select the option there.
VIVALDI
Access Bing Chat
without using Edge
Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing Chat
tool is now available in everything
from Skype and SwiftKey to the Windows
11 search box and, of course, Edge. It
recently announced plans to make the
chatbot accessible through non-Microsoft
browsers, but Vivaldi has jumped the
queue by introducing the option now.
Vivaldi 6.1 (https://vivaldi.com), released
on 8 June, lets you access Bing Chat
without being prompted to ‘Open in
Microsoft Edge’. To do so, it ‘masquerades
Secret settings and the best extensions
Use its filters to show only images of a particular
size, format or orientation, and click its Preferences
cog to change how detected images are presented.
You can specify which folder pictures are saved to
and convert WEBP images into JPEG format.
If you don’t like that, try…
Quick Image Downloader
Chromium
www.snipca.com/46406
This extension finds and downloads images
impressively quickly, but it’s almost too thorough,
detecting banners, icons and other design elements
you’re unlikely to want.
as Edge’ when you visit the Bing Chat
website (www.snipca.com/46394). This
means that rather than being redirected
to that browser, you’ll see a button to
‘Start chatting’ (see screenshot below).
Click this to launch the chatbot – or
‘AI-powered copilot’, as Microsoft calls it
– then choose your conversational style
and ask Bing Chat anything you want.
You don’t need to sign into a Microsoft
account to use the feature.
Bing was already Vivaldi’s default FIREFOX
search engine, so it makes sense for the Search your bookmarks and
browser to offer access to Bing Chat browsing history
ahead of Chrome, Brave and Firefox. Firefox 114, released in June, makes
If you want to use the chatbot in those it easier to search your Bookmarks,
browsers, install the extension ‘Bing which is handy if you’ve amassed a large
Chat for All Browsers’ (www.snipca. collection of saved web pages. Click the
com/46395). browser’s three-line menu button and
choose Bookmarks, then ‘Search bookmarks’.
This will add a Bookmarks filter to your
address bar that lets you search your
bookmarks directly from there.
To save you a couple of clicks, you
can add the Bookmarks menu to your
toolbar. Right-click the toolbar and
choose Customise Toolbar, then drag the
‘Bookmarks menu’ option to a suitable
place on your toolbar. Click its icon,
which looks like a star in a tray, and
choose ‘Search bookmarks’ (see
screenshot above) to perform your
bookmark search.
Additionally, Firefox now lets you
search only your browsing history from
the address bar, and exclude results
from the web and your open tabs. Type
a query into the bar and click the History
(clock) icon at the bottom of the
dropdown menu to view matching
results from your history.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 43
 Phone and Tablet Tips
ANDROID & iOS However, it could point you in the right
Identify skin problems direction when a skin problem is difficult
using Google Lens to describe with words alone.
Although no mobile app is a
substitute for a professional ANDROID
medical diagnosis, a new feature in Find tablet apps faster
Google Lens could help you identify the in Google’s Play Store
cause of minor skin complaints, such as Google has redesigned its Play Store
rashes, insect bites, psoriasis and eczema. app to make it easier to find and
Simply take a picture of the affected install apps for your tablet. These are
area using the Google Lens app for optimised for the larger screens of tablets,
Android (www.snipca.com/46507) or rather than just stretching the standard
the Google app for Android and iOS mobile app to
(www.snipca.com/46508), or select a fill the display.
photo of the problem from your library. To browse
Google Lens will then search the web for tablet-friendly
images that match your skin complaint. apps in the
Select a result (see screenshot below) to store, tap the
visit the source web page for information ‘Other devices’
and advice. tab below the
Google says the feature also works for search box and iOS
other blemishes on your body, such as choose Tablet Add accessibility tools
“a bump on your (see screenshot to your Lock or Home button
lip, a line on your right). This will Apple keeps streamlining the design
nails or hair loss filter the apps of its iPhones and iPads to remove
on your head”. to show those physical buttons and make you access
Obviously, you designed for more functions by tapping your screen.
shouldn’t accept tablets, across categories including But the Lock button on the side of newer
its results as Educational, Stylus-friendly and iPhones and the top of iPads, and the
evidence of a Creativity. You can install an app on your Home button on older devices, can be
particular tablet from your phone by tapping the customised to give you instant access to
medical condition, down arrow next to the Install button and more than a dozen accessibility options.
and should selecting your tablet in the list. These are listed in an Accessibility
consult a doctor The Play Store has also added a Shortcuts menu that opens when you
or pharmacist if Chromebook filter, so you can search for triple-press the Lock or Home button on
you’re really and install apps for your Chromebook your device. They include Magnifier,
concerned. from your phone. Colour Filters, Background Sounds

BEST NEW APPS What you should install this fortnight

Reading mode Dropblock Rex

Free Free Free
Android www.snipca.com/46501 Android www.snipca.com/46514 iOS www.snipca.com/46510
Google has updated its ‘Reading mode’ iOS www.snipca.com/46515 This app makes it easy to share
app, which we covered in Issue 648 Not to be confused with Dropbox, this new recommendations (or ‘rex’) of places you’ve
(page 45), with a app lets you store and visited with friends
useful background- share files securely and family – and
playback feature. from your phone or vice versa. Rex
This means that tablet. It offers 5GB of identifies hotels,
when you tap the free online storage restaurants, shops,
button to hear (3GB more than attractions and
online content read Dropbox), ransomware more from your
aloud, you can now protection and photos and adds
continue to listen end-to-end encryption. them to a shared
while you switch Dropblock uses AI to map. You can also
to other apps and provide ‘insights’ about organise your
when your screen your data without favourite places in
is turned off. decrypting it. themed ‘playlists’.

44 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661


(which masks distracting noises),
Left/Right Balance (for tweaking audio
output), AssistiveTouch (which makes it
easier to open apps and select on-screen
items) and Voice Control.
To enable this hidden feature, open the
Settings app on your iPhone or iPad, and
choose Accessibility (see screenshot left)
then Accessibility Shortcut. Select all
the options you want to include in the
Accessibility Shortcuts menu and a blue
tick will appear next to each one.
Triple-press the Lock or Home button
to launch the new menu, and choose the
desired accessibility tool.
ANDROID & iOS
Explore more cities immersively
in Google Maps
Last summer, Google Maps
introduced a feature called
Immersive View, which lets you take 3D
tours of landmarks in several major cities
(see Issue 639, page 45). The feature
combines AI with high-definition Street
View, satellite and aerial imagery, so you
can experience tourist attractions as if
you were flying around
them in a helicopter.
Immersive View has
now been updated to
include four more
cities – Amsterdam,
Dublin, Florence and
Venice – to complement
existing options such
as London, New York,
Paris, San Francisco
and Tokyo. It has also
added 500 more
landmarks spanning
various locations,
including Prague
Castle and Sydney Harbour Bridge (see
screenshot above).
To use the feature, search for a landmark
in Google Maps, then tap the Immersive
View tile in the grid below the map. This
will launch your immersive 3D tour, so
you can admire the landmark from all
sides. Tap to explore it in greater detail.
ANDROID & iOS
Book flights directly
through Uber
As well as letting you book a
taxi to the airport, Uber now
lets you arrange your flight from it. The
company has added a Flights option (see
screenshot above right) to the Travel
section of its app, which allows UK users
Brilliant things to do on your device
to find and book domestic and
international flights.
The new feature is powered by online
travel agent Hopper and you need to
grant Uber permission to share your
contact information and payment details.
Select your departure and return dates
to search for available flights from
hundreds of airlines, compare prices
and book directly through the app.
Alternatively, choose Price Freeze to be
notified when the cost of a flight is
reduced to a more affordable amount.
Uber also lets you book tickets for UK
trains, coaches and Eurostar, and arrange
car and bike hire.
BEST APPS FOR... Managing your mobile data
My Data Manager
Free
Android www.snipca.com/46522
iOS www.snipca.com/46523
This app will help you avoid exceeding the
monthly data limit of your mobile-phone
plan. My Data Manager tracks your data
usage across 4G/5G, Wi-Fi and when
roaming. It notifies you when you’re
near your limit and tells you which apps
consume the most data. The iOS version
also includes an optional VPN.
Best For Monitoring your data usage
Meteor Speed Test
Free
Android www.snipca.com/46524
iOS www.snipca.com/46525
This app tests the download and upload
speeds of your mobile or Wi-Fi network,
and rates the performance of individual
apps. This allows you to see, for example,
if your current connection is fast enough to
smoothly stream videos. It also includes a
signal coverage map and lets you compare
different locations.
Best For Testing your connection speed
Files by Google
Free
Android www.snipca.com/46526
When your Android phone or tablet is
running out of storage, this excellent app
frees up space by identifying and deleting
large files, unused apps and duplicate
items, or by moving them to your SD card.
It makes it easy to find data hogs in
categories such as Downloads, Images and
Videos, or by searching for files by name.
Best For Finding and deleting data hogs
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 45
 Make Windows Better
WINDOWS 11
Change Print Screen so it
doesn’t open Snipping Tool
With the third ‘Moment’ update
for Windows 11 automatically
installed on computers on 13
June, Microsoft changed the Print Screen
(Prt Scn) key so it opens the Snipping
Tool, rather than saving a screenshot to
your Pictures folder.
To change this back, press Windows+I
to open Settings, then click Accessibility
( 1 in our screenshot below). Now scroll
down to the Keyboard section, under the
Interaction options. Next, in the ‘On-
screen keyboard, access keys and Print
screen’ section, turn off the ‘Use the Print
screen key to open Snipping Tool’ slider 2 .
2 Once installed, open
1 left. Click ‘Open Settings’,
WINDOWS 10
Create a folder
that can’t be deleted
Command Prompt lets you create
a folder that can’t be renamed,
moved or deleted, though you
can copy files and other folders into it.
In File Explorer, navigate to the location
where you’d like to create your secure
folder. Click the address bar, type cmd
( 1 in our screenshot below), then press
Enter to open Command Prompt. Type
md aux\ 2 , press Enter, and a folder
named ‘aux’ will be created where you
chose in File Explorer 3 .
If you attempt to delete the folder, a
warning message will appear 4 . To delete
the folder, first remove all its contents,
then type rd aux\ into Command Prompt
and press Enter.
1 2
3
46 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
Expert tips for every version
WINDOWS 10 & 11
Use keyboard and mouse across
multiple PCs
Launched in 2018, the
program Mouse Without
Borders lets you use
the same keyboard and mouse setup
across multiple computers. Previously
you’ve had to download the tool
separately, but in May Microsoft added
it to version 0.70 of PowerToys.
To use it, first download the latest
version of PowerToys from www.
snipca.com/46313 by clicking
‘PowerToysUserSetup-
0.70.1-x64.exe’ under the
‘Installer Hashes’ heading.
PowerToys then click
Mouse Without Borders ( 1
in our screenshot) on the
turn on Enable Mouse
1
Without Borders 2 , then
click ‘New key’ 3 . This will
generate a short string of
random characters 4 .
WINDOWS 10 & 11
See your drive space as bar charts
File Explorer tells you
how much space your
files and folders occupy,
but to visualise this data you need to use
a third-party program like the free
RidNacs. Download RidNacs from www.
snipca.com/46509, then launch it by
double-clicking the desktop shortcut ( 1
in our screenshot below). Now double-
1 3
Follow the same process on your
second computer, but press ‘Security
key’ instead of ‘New key’. On your
second PC, enter the key you’ve
generated in the ‘Security key’ field,
and enter the first PC’s name – found
in ‘Host name of this device’ 5 under
‘Device name’. Your PCs will now
connect. You can arrange them under
the ‘Device layout’ options by dragging
and dropping the tiles 6 .
2
4 3
6
5
click a drive and RidNacs will begin
analysing it, presenting this information
in a bar chart 2 .
You can also see bar charts for specific
folders rather than entire drives. Right-
click a folder then select ‘Analyze Disk
Space Usage with RidNacs’ 3 (in
Windows 11 you’ll first need to click
‘Show more options’ after right-clicking).
You now need to select the folder, which
is listed under your drives.
Make Office Better
LIBREOFFICE & MICROSOFT OFFICE
Link spreadsheet data to document tables
LibreOffice lets
you link data in a
Calc spreadsheet
with a table in a Writer
document, so when you change
the former it’s automatically
updated in the latter.
First, create a table in Calc,
then highlight the selection
(see 1 in our screenshot).
Next, right-click and select
Copy. Now open Writer, then
right-click and select Paste
Special, followed by ‘More
Options…’. Next, select the
‘Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE
link)’ option 2 , and then click OK. This
makes the table appear in Writer 3 .
MICROSOFT EXCEL
Group rows in your dataset
The more data you add to a
spreadsheet the harder it can be
to manage. The solution is to
group rows and columns together, so
you can expand and collapse them
with a few clicks.
In our example, we’re grouping three
rows: Drinks, Food and Decorations. To
create our first group, we highlighted
rows 5-10 ( 1 in our screenshot below).
We then clicked Data 2 at the top then
clicked the Group button 3 within the
Outline category. We did the same for
rows 12-17 and 19-24.
When you create a group, buttons will
appear to the left of your dataset. The
Drinks group is expanded in our example,
while Food and Decorations are collapsed.
Click the minus symbol 4 to collapse a
group, and the plus symbol 5 to expand
one. The 1 and 2 buttons 6 let you collapse
and expand all groups respectively.
You can also create subgroups, which
are smaller groups nested within existing
6 by dragging and dropping it. Now click
2 3
5 settings. Here, we’ve reduced the
1 5
4 you’re happy with your changes and the
Top tips for the best office programs
3 have to manually refresh it.
2 Excel, then highlight your
Every change you now make in your
spreadsheet will be automatically updated
in the document table.
groups of rows or columns. To do this,
highlight a row or column that already
sits within a group and follow the same
process.
MICROSOFT WORD
Add interactive checkboxes
It’s easy to add a checkbox in
Word, but to make it interactive
– so you can actually fill it by
clicking – you need to turn on a feature
in the Office developer controls.
To access these, click File on the toolbar,
followed by Options. Next, click Customize
Ribbon ( 1 in our screenshot below).
Scroll down the ‘Customize the Ribbon’
menu and tick the Developer
box 2 . Click OK. The Developer tab will
now appear at the top 3 .
Next, click the Developer tab followed
by the ‘Check Box Content Control’
button 4 , which looks like a tick box, in
the Controls category. A blank box will
now appear in your document where you
last left your text cursor 5 . Click the box
to check or uncheck it.
4 3
1 giving you access to sliders, filters and
2
Microsoft lets you do
something similar, though
the table isn’t updated
automatically. Instead, you
First, create your table in
data, right-click and select
Copy. In Word, right-click
and select the ‘Link & Use
Destination Styles (L)’ icon
1 under Paste Options. The
table appears, but changes
won’t automatically carry over.
After making changes in Excel,
you can update the table in
Word by right-clicking it and selecting
Update Link.
1
2 3
4
ONLYOFFICE
Edit an image within
documents and spreadsheets
OnlyOffice’s Photo Editor
plug-in lets you edit images
within a document or
spreadsheet, saving you the hassle of
using another program.
To open it, click the Plugins tab ( 1 in
our screenshot above) then the Photo
Editor icon 2 . If you can’t see the Photo
Editor plug-in, install it from www.
snipca.com/46420.
You’ll first need to import your image
the image, then select Photo Editor,
followed by Start in the dropdown menu.
The Photo Editor window 3 will appear,
brightness of the photo and activated the
Grayscale setting 4 . Click OK when
window will close.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 47
 In The Club
Run a club or society? Here's how your tech can make it easier
Create your own volunteer forms
I f you often need volunteers to help
run your club, you should make it as
easy as possible for people to sign up.
This is where Jotform comes in. This
handy website automates the entire
process, letting you create registration
forms so you can gather all the details
you require.
Choose your template
Before doing anything else, create an
account at www.jotform.com by clicking
the top-right ‘Sign Up for Free’ button.
You can sign in using your Google account,
Facebook account or email address.
The Starter plan, which is free, has a
monthly limit of five ‘active’ forms and
100 volunteer applications. Once you’ve
signed up double-check you’re on the
Starter plan by clicking your profile
picture at the top right.
Next, visit www.snipca.com/46417 to
see Jotform’s volunteer templates. For
our example we’re using the ‘Volunteer
Registration Form’, which is at the far
right on the second row. Other templates
are more specific, such as those for
festival volunteers and for church
donations. Click a template to view it,
then click the green Use Template button
at the top right of the screen. Next, drag
and drop your club logo into the template
( 1 in our screenshot below), then type
your club’s name in the Organization
Name field 2 and click Save 3 .
1 2
Enter your club’s name and logo, then click Save
48 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
1
Click ‘Properties’ on your template to reveal editing options
Edit your template
Now you can start editing your template.
You’ll see the form in your browser with
three tabs above it: Build, Settings and
Publish. Build is selected by default and
lets you customise the template and
build your form.
Click any element on the form and a
blue frame will appear around it ( 1 in
our screenshot above). Clicking the
Properties option 2 reveals an editing
panel 3 where you can customise every
element of the template, including how
the boxes in the form are aligned.
You can now go through the form and
tailor it to your needs – in particular the
section requesting what applicants are
happy to volunteer for. Once you’ve
finished, click the Settings tab at the top,
give your form a name, then set a date
when it stops being available.
1
3
You can access completed forms in Jotform’s homepage
Next issue: Take meeting notes using Google Keep
2
3
Next, click the Publish tab, where
you’ll see the public URL for your form.
There’s a button that lets you copy this
and an option to ‘Open in a new tab’ if
you want to see what it looks like in a
web browser. There are also options for
sharing your form via email, Facebook,
Twitter, Linkedin and more. You can even
create your own app for sharing your
forms – click the ‘Create app’ button to
get started.
Once someone has entered their details
they simply need to click ‘Submit form’.
To see all submitted forms, click All
Forms at the top left of Jotform’s home
page ( 1 in our screenshot below) and
you’ll see them listed in the centre 2 . To
read one, hover your cursor over it and
select Inbox. Each form submitted is also
emailed to whatever email address you
used when you signed up with Jotform.
2
What’s All the
Fuss About...
Windows Ink
Microsoft’s digital-pen software is getting a touch more useful

What is it?
Microsoft’s software for writing on your
screen using a stylus such as the Surface
Pen (www.snipca.com/46493) or your
finger. Added to Windows 10 in 2016, it
lets you write Sticky Notes, annotate
screenshots and add text in programs
like OneNote. You can also use it to
present slides in PowerPoint and edit
text in Word, as well as in third-party
apps (see some of them at www.snipca.
com/46491). And soon you’ll be able to
write inside boxes that are actually part
of Windows, making it even more useful.

What kind of boxes?

Microsoft calls them “edit fields”, which
are any areas in software where you can
type. They’re also known as input fields
and text-input boxes. You’ll find them in
forms, dialog boxes and other interactive
elements of software. To start typing you
just need to click inside the field.
Can you give me some
examples?
Yes – the search bar in File Explorer, or
when you’re renaming files and folders.
Microsoft itself gives the example of
searching in Windows Settings, as our
screenshot above right shows. Once
you’ve finished writing, Windows Ink
converts it to text.
Whose handwriting is that?
Presumably it belongs to Brandon
LeBlanc, senior program manager at
Microsoft, who’s searching for the ‘Start
menu’ in Settings. The screenshot is
All fingers and thumbs: our laptop’s screen
has 10 touch points
taken from Microsoft’s blog (www.
snipca.com/46481), which says the
long-term aim is to let people use
Windows Ink “anywhere they can type
on their Windows device”. It’s also
working on a “scratch out gesture” for
when you need to change what you’ve
written.
What does that involve?
We think it simply means crossing over
words on screen to delete them. Such
features would make your stylus or finger
as useful (and important) as your keyboard.
Are these new features
available now?
Yes, but they’re part of the Preview build
23481, and only selected Windows
Insiders can use them. They’re similar to
Apple’s Scribble feature (www.snipca.
com/46492), which you can use if you
have an iPad and a compatible stylus
such as the Apple Pencil (www.snipca.
com/46488). As usual, Microsoft will
wait for feedback on the changes before
adding them to the full version of
Windows 11 (Windows 10 will almost
certainly miss out). And when they do
arrive you’ll only be able to use them if
your laptop supports touchscreen.
How do I find that out?
Right-click the taskbar and look for
the ‘Show Windows Ink Workspace
button’ option. If it’s there, click to
tick it and you’ll see the Windows Ink
Workspace icon (a pen/stylus) appear
in your taskbar. Click this to open apps
you can use with Windows Ink (see
www.snipca.com/46478). Another way
of checking is to search for About in
Windows, then press Enter and look
for ‘Pen and touch’ next to ‘Device
specifications’. Our screenshot left shows
that our Microsoft Surface laptop has
‘Touch support with 10 touch points’.
What’s a touch point?
That’s how many places on the screen
can respond to being touched at the
same time. The more the better, giving
you greater accuracy when performing
finger gestures such as zooming, rotating,
swiping and pressing. Our laptop with 10
touch points means it can respond to
every finger and thumb on the screen at
the same time. That’s handy.

Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 49

 COVER FEATURE

SMART TV
PROBLEMS
FIXED!
Don’t let poor picture
and sound quality,
unresponsive apps and
annoying ads spoil your
viewing experience.
Robert Irvine explains
how to solve the most
common issues with
smart TVs

B
ack in the terrestrial era, when
WHAT YOU CAN DO your television went on the blink
you could usually get it working
• Fix a pixelated or distorted picture on again by fiddling with the aerial
your smart TV or giving it a good whack with the flat of
•S  top the ‘soap-opera effect’ making your hand. But today’s smart TVs have
video look unnatural introduced a whole new range of problems
•M  ake dialogue sound clearer in TV – and aren’t as sturdy and slappable as
shows and films the cathode-ray-tube sets of old.
•P  revent audio from becoming out of From a pixelated picture and muffled
sync with the picture sound to buffering video and frozen apps,
•F  ix problems that cause your TV to smart TVs can go wrong in so many ways
freeze and crash that they don’t seem particularly ‘smart’
•F  ree up space from apps so you can at all. This is partly due to the delicacy
install new ones and complexity of digital technology, but
•B  lock personalised adverts and also caused by compatibility issues,
autoplaying trailers unreliable internet connections, wrongly
configured settings and other factors.
Thankfully, there are simple solutions
to most smart TV problems that don’t
involve spending hundreds of pounds on
a new telly. In this feature, we explain how
to fix the most common issues related to
your TV’s picture, sound, performance,
apps and remote control – as well as
annoyances such as personalised adverts.
Because there are so many makes and
models of smart TV, we’ve focused on
providing instructions for Samsung, LG
and Google/Android TVs, which include
sets from Sony, Panasonic, Philips,
Toshiba and Bush, plus Amazon Fire TV
devices where applicable.
If the traditional trick of turning your
TV off and on again doesn’t help, then
hopefully our advice will.

50 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661


FIX YOUR PICTURE PROBLEMS
How can I fix a pixelated
picture?
The most common cause of pixelation,
which makes the picture on your TV
look distorted or blurry, is a loose or
faulty cable. This affects live digital
channels more than streaming content,
because it weakens the TV signal, but
it’s usually easy to fix.
First, unplug the coaxial aerial cable
that connects your TV or set-top box to
the wall socket, and inspect it for signs of
damage. If it looks fine, plug it back in and
ensure it’s connected securely at both
ends. If the cable is plugged into a splitter,
unplug it and connect it directly to the
wall socket to improve the signal strength.
Should you notice the aerial cable is
frayed or worn, you can buy a new one
from Amazon for under £10 (www.
snipca.com/46421, pictured below).
Before you replace the cable, go into your
TV’s settings and use the ‘auto-tune’
function to refresh the channels and see
if that solves the problem.
Interference from nearby devices can
cause your picture to pixelate when
streaming content over the internet.
Move away any Wi-Fi-enabled devices
that are located near your TV – such as a
laptop, tablet or smart speaker – and turn
them off when not in use.
Also try connecting your TV or set-top
box directly to your router using an
Ethernet cable, as this will make
streaming more reliable than over your
Wi-Fi network.
It’s even possible that a 5G mast is
interfering with your TV reception –
we explained how to fix this problem in
our ‘Stop 5G killing your TV’ feature back
in Issue 651 (buy it from www.snipca.
com/46422).
Replace an old, damaged aerial cable with a
new one to fix picture pixelation
Why does my picture look
stretched or squashed?
When the picture on your smart TV
doesn’t look right – for example, people’s
faces look strangely elongated or parts
of the image disappear off the edge of
your screen – the problem is almost
certainly caused by an incorrect aspect
ratio. To switch to the correct ratio, open
the Picture or Display settings on your TV,
and look for an option called Picture Size,
Aspect Ratio or similar – this may be
under Screen or Inputs.
Select ‘Direct Fit’ or ‘Just Scan’ (see
screenshot above) to automatically adjust
your TV’s picture based on the content
you’re watching. If you don’t see this
option, choose ‘16:9’ as this is the aspect
ratio used by most TV shows and films
today. For older programmes, you may
need to switch to the ‘4:3’ format. Ensure
that Zoom or Stretch isn’t enabled, because
this will crop or distort your picture.
How do I fix the ‘soap-opera
effect’ on my screen?
One common complaint about smart TVs,
especially from viewers who have just
upgraded from standard-definition sets,
is that the picture quality is too smooth
and looks strange. This is often referred
to as the ‘soap-opera effect’ because it
makes TV shows and films seem like they
were filmed using cheap cameras.
It’s caused by a feature called motion
smoothing, which reduces blurring and
juddering in fast-moving images, so you
can watch sporting events and play
games in seamless quality at a high
frame rate. However, because most
programmes and movies are filmed at a
lower frame rate (usually 24fps), motion
smoothing is unnecessary and makes
content look unnatural.
Thankfully, you can disable motion
SMART TV
PROBLEMS
FIXED!
Stop your TV’s
picture looking
distorted by
adjusting the
aspect ratio
Prevent the ‘soap-opera effect’ by streaming
at the correct frame rate
smoothing if you find this effect
annoying, though the method varies
between TV manufacturers.
The option is usually located in the
Picture or Display settings, but may be
called Motion Enhancement or
Motionflow (on Google/Android TVs),
TruFlow (on LG TVs), Auto Motion Plus
(on Samsung TVs) or Action Smoothing
(on other models).
If you can’t find it, look for a Match
Original Frame Rate setting, and switch
this on (see screenshot above) to prevent
unwanted smoothing.
How can I make
my picture less dark?
Although you can control your TV’s
brightness and contrast via its standard
picture settings, you may still find that
your screen looks too dark. This is likely
to be caused by its ambient light sensor,
which adjusts the TV’s brightness
depending on how light or dark it is in
the room. It’s intended to be a power-
saving feature, but sometimes it makes it
difficult to see what’s on screen.
You can usually turn off your TV’s
ambient-light sensor (sometimes called
‘intelligent mode’) through its Picture or
Display settings – it may be listed under
Backlight or Energy Saving. On Samsung
TVs, go to Settings, then General and look
for the option there.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 51
 FIX YOUR SOUND PROBLEMS
Why is there no sound coming
from my smart TV?
When you have a picture but no sound on
your smart TV, and you’ve confirmed the
volume isn’t muted or set extremely low,
there are several fixes you can try. First,
switch off your TV and unplug it from
the mains. Wait a few minutes before
reconnecting and turning it back on –
and your sound may be restored.
If not, check the audio settings for any
connected devices, such as a streaming
stick, set-top box or DVD/Blu-ray player,
and make sure they’re correctly plugged
in. That may seem obvious, but if you
mainly use your TV’s remote control to
adjust its sound, it’s easy to forget that the
remotes for other devices have their own
volume buttons.
If your TV uses a pair of external speakers
or a soundbar, ensure the device is
securely connected and working properly
– especially if it’s plugged in with an
HDMI cable. Try changing the audio
output to your TV’s built-in speakers to
hear if they produce any sound. You can
do this through your Audio, Sound or
‘Display and sound’ settings. Also check
your Bluetooth settings in case someone
has been listening through wireless
headphones and that’s where the audio
is now being sent.
Some TVs include a diagnostic test
that identifies audio problems. On a
Samsung set, for example, open Settings
and choose Support, then Self Diagnosis.
Select ‘Sound Test’ (see screenshot above
right) and wait for the test to finish. If
any issues are detected, go to Settings
then Sound, choose Expert Settings and
select Reset Sound.
It’s also possible that a software update
has caused your sound to drop. If this is
the case, your TV’s manufacturer should
have released a patch for the problem,
and manually checking for and installing
the latest update should fix it. See page
53 for more on updating your TV’s
firmware.
How can I make dialogue
sound clearer?
If you have trouble hearing the actors
speaking in some shows and films, you’re
certainly not alone – muffled dialogue is
among the most frequent complaints
about today’s programme-making. Other
than turn up the volume on your TV,
which may make music, sound effects
and other noises unbearably loud, try
52 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
tweaking its audio settings.
Most smart TVs offer a choice of sound
modes, including one designed to make
dialogue clearer. This uses ‘dynamic
range compression’ to reduce the volume
of loud sounds such as music and effects,
and boost softer sounds, such as speech
and vocals.
On LG, Samsung and older Sony TVs,
this option is called Clear Voice, and can
be activated in your Sound/Sound Mode
or ‘Display and sound’ settings. If you
can’t see the option (or similar), consider
disabling Dolby Digital surround sound,
which is often responsible for poorly
balanced audio. For example, on a Google
TV, select ‘Advanced system settings’ in
the ‘Display and sound’ menu and either
choose ‘None: never use surround sound’
or select Manual and switch off Dolby
Digital (see screenshot below).
Alternatively, you can enhance the
volume of on-screen dialogue by buying a
soundbar, a pair of RF headphones or a
TV speaker with a dedicated voice-boost
function. See our ‘Boost your TV’s sound’
feature in Issue 656 (buy it from www.
snipca.com/46429) to discover the best
devices to buy.
Switch off Dolby Digital to get a better sound
balance on your smart TV
Some smart TVs
let you run a
test to diagnose
problems with
their sound
Turning off your TV’s Game Mode can fix
problems with out-of-sync audio
Why is the audio out of sync
with the pictures?
Watching a TV show or film with
out-of-sync audio can be a very
frustrating experience, as the sound lags
behind the picture – or vice versa – like a
poorly dubbed martial-arts flick from the
1970s. You may be able to fix this problem
using the solutions we’ve already covered,
such as restarting your TV, updating its
software, checking that external audio
devices are securely connected and
switching to its built-in speakers.
It’s also worth checking whether a
feature called Game Mode is enabled.
When you’re playing games on your TV,
this reduces video-processing time to
make on-screen actions respond faster to
the buttons you press on your controller.
But when you’re watching a programme
or movie on a streaming service or
Blu-ray/DVD, it can result in the sound
and picture becoming out of sync.
To disable Game Mode on a Google/
Android TV, go to Settings then ‘Display
and sound’, choose ‘Advanced display
settings’ and switch off ‘Allow game
mode’ (see screenshot above).
On a Samsung TV, go to Settings then
General, select External Device Manager
and turn off Game Mode there. And on an
LG TV, go to Settings, then Picture and
change the mode from Game Mode to
Standard Mode.

FIX YOUR PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
Why does my TV keep
freezing or crashing?
There are lots of ways a smart TV can
malfunction, from unresponsive apps
and buffering videos to a frozen picture
and the whole set restarting – and several
potential solutions to these problems.
Once you’ve tried turning it off and on
again, here are some other fixes to try.
Update your TV’s firmware
Smart TV manufacturers regularly
release software updates for their devices
to fix security flaws and bugs. If your
TV set’s firmware is out of date, this could
be causing the freezes or crashes. The
option for updating your TV’s software
is usually located under Support in
Settings, or in System, then About. If you
can’t find the option, consult the
manufacturer’s support site.
Disconnect other hardware
To ensure the problem is with your TV
and not another device, disconnect
hardware such as your set-top box,
external hard drive or soundbar, to see if
this improves its performance. If so, it’s
possible that the HDMI or other cable
connecting the device to your TV needs
replacing. You can buy a replacement
HDMI cable from Amazon for £6 (www.
snipca.com/46432, pictured below).
Free up space from apps
Smart TVs and streaming sticks don’t
have much internal storage, and – as with
your PC and phone – are more liable to
freeze and crash when they start running
out of space. Uninstalling unused apps
(see page 55) is the best way to free up
storage, but clearing the cache of other
apps will also make your TV more stable.
The latest Samsung TVs (from 2020
onwards) let you clear the cache of all
your apps in one go. Go to Settings then
Support and select Device Care. Choose
You can buy an Amazon Basics replacement
HDMI cable for just £6
Factory-reset a smart TV or streaming stick
Google/Android TV
Go to Settings, then System and choose
About. Select ‘Factory reset’ then ‘Factory
reset’ again.
Amazon Fire TV
Open ‘Settings’ then My Fire TV, choose
‘Reset to Factory Defaults’ and press
Reset.
Samsung TVs
Go to Settings, then General and select
Reset. Enter your PIN (0000 is the
default), choose Reset again and press
OK. Alternatively, go to Support, then Self
Diagnosis and choose Reset.
Test the connection speed of your smart TV
using a speed-test app
‘Start Device Care’ to free up space from
your apps. On other TVs, you’ll need to
clear each app’s cache individually. Go
into the Apps or Storage settings, select
an app and choose ‘Clear cache’. If the
option isn’t available, reinstall the app.
Check your internet connection
Because streaming apps rely on the
internet, a weak Wi-Fi signal can cause
buffering, freezes and crashes. You can
test your TV’s connection speed by
visiting www.speedtest.net in its web
browser, or by installing a speed-test app
such as Speed Test WiFi Analyzer for
Google/Android TV and Fire TV (www.
snipca.com/46436, see screenshot
above). If your connection seems slow
– ideally, it should be at least 8Mbps for
reliable streaming – try moving your
router closer to your TV, disconnecting
other devices from your network and
using an Ethernet cable instead of Wi-Fi.
Restore your TV to factory settings
If all else fails, try factory-resetting your
TV, though bear in mind that this will
wipe all your apps, accounts, device
SMART TV
PROBLEMS
FIXED!
LG TVs
Open ‘Settings’ followed by All Settings
and choose General. Select ‘System’
then ‘Reset to Initial Settings’ and
press OK.
Roku devices
Go to Settings then System and select
‘Advanced system settings’. Choose
‘Factory reset’ then ‘Factory reset
everything’.
Apple TV
Open ‘Settings’ then System and choose
Reset. Select either Reset or ‘Reset and
update’.
Some smart TVs offer a test for detecting
connection problems
preferences and other data. See our box
above for instructions for different makes.
Why does my TV keep losing
internet connection?
If your TV keeps disconnecting from
your Wi-Fi network, or has gone offline
altogether, but your internet is otherwise
working fine, there are a few things you
can try. As we’ve already mentioned,
move any devices that may be causing
interference, switch from Wi-Fi to
Ethernet and also reboot your router to
see if this prompts the TV to reconnect.
Some smart TVs offer a network-
diagnosis test for identifying connection
problems. On a Samsung TV, for example,
go to Support then Device Care, select
Self Diagnosis and run the Smart Hub
Connection Test. On some Google/Android
TVs, go to Settings, then ‘Network and
Internet’, select ‘Advanced settings’ then
‘Network status’ and choose Check
Connection (see screenshot above).
You could also try removing your Wi-Fi
network from your TV, then reconnecting
– look for a ‘Reset network’ or ‘Forget
network’ option in your network settings.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 53

FIX YOUR PROBLEMS WITH TV APPS
Why aren’t apps opening or
working properly?
If an app won’t open or keeps crashing, it
may no longer be compatible with your
smart TV, especially if you recently
installed a firmware update. Apps should
be updated automatically to avoid this
problem, but the setting might be
disabled so it’s worth checking.
On a Samsung TV, select Apps on your
home screen, choose Settings in the
top-right corner and switch on Auto
Update. On a Google/Android TV, open
Settings then Apps, select ‘Manage
updates’ and enable ‘Auto-update apps’
(see screenshot right). Also choose ‘See
available updates’ to check if there’s one
available for the troublesome app.
On an LG TV, go to All Settings then
General, select ‘About this TV’ and turn
on ‘Allow automatic updates’.
If the update option is already enabled,
try clearing the cache of the app (as
explained on page 53) or reinstalling it.
Select the app in your TV’s Apps manager
and choose Delete, Uninstall or Remove
– or Reinstall if available. Download the
app again from your TV’s app store, and
hopefully it will work better than the
previous version.
How can I remove
preinstalled apps?
While it’s easy to remove apps you
install yourself, it’s more difficult – and
sometimes impossible – to uninstall
apps that came with your smart TV.
These often include bloatware from the
manufacturer and its third-party partners,
which you’ll never use. This means they
just waste valuable space and slow your
TV by running in the background.
Google/Android TVs list several
Disable age verification in the YouTube app
Unless you’ve added an account for a
child to your smart TV, it won’t prevent
you from watching age-restricted
content – but YouTube might. Sometimes
it blocks you from viewing videos until
you “complete a brief check to show
you’re old enough”, which is very
annoying when you’re the adult who
owns the TV.
To stop this happening on any device,
go to the ‘Personal info’ page in your
Google account settings (www.snipca.
unremovable apps under ‘System apps’
in the Apps section of Settings. These
include Google Play Games, Google Play
Movies and ‘Speech services by Google’,
which is only useful if you use Google
Assistant on your TV remote. Although
you can’t uninstall these apps, selecting
Disable (see screenshot below) will stop
them running, delete their data and
prevent them from appearing on your
Home and Apps screens.
Samsung only lets you uninstall some
preinstalled apps from its TVs. On newer
models, go to Support, then Device Care
and choose Manage Storage; on older
sets, choose Apps, then Settings and
delete apps from there. On certain
Samsung TVs, you can remove preinstalled
When it’s not possible to remove a preinstalled
app, disable it instead
com/46455) in a desktop or mobile
browser – this must be the account you
use for YouTube on your smart TV. Click
the Birthday section and enter your date
of birth (or an approximate one), then click
Save. Google and YouTube will now know
you’re old enough to watch age-restricted
videos without verification.
Next, open the YouTube app on your TV
and select Settings then ‘Restricted mode’.
Set the mode to Off to stop YouTube
hiding ‘potentially mature’ videos.
SMART TV
PROBLEMS
FIXED!
Update your
TV apps
automatically
to avoid
compatibility
problems
apps by enabling ‘Developer mode’, but
this is quite a fiddly process – watch the
video at www.snipca.com/46445 for
instructions.
Why can’t I install
any new apps?
There are several reasons why you may be
unable to install apps from your TV’s app
store. These include a lack of available
space on your device, which you should
be able to fix by uninstalling apps and
clearing their caches; and out-of-date
firmware, which you can resolve by
installing the latest update (see page 53).
As always, also check your internet
connection and restart your TV, to see if
that helps.
Another potential solution is to sign out
of, and then back into, your account with
the relevant app store. On a Samsung TV,
open the Apps screen, choose Settings
and select your Samsung account. Choose
‘Sign out’ (see screenshot below) then
restart your TV and sign back in.
On a Google/Android TV, you’ll need to
sign out through your Google account in
a desktop or mobile browser. Go to the
‘Device activity’ page (www.snipca.
com/46451), select your Google TV and
click ‘Sign out’. Restart your TV, sign back
in and try installing apps from the app
store again.
If you can’t install apps on your TV, sign out of
then back into your account
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 55
 BLOCK ADS & AUTOPLAYING VIDEO
How do I disable personalised
ads on my TV?
Some smart TV manufacturers use
automatic content recognition (ACR) to
analyse your viewing habits across
streaming services, digital channels and
even DVDs and Blu-rays. This enables
them to show you adverts based on your
perceived interests and location, which
may be better than seeing irrelevant ads
but is also an invasion of your privacy.
To turn off ACR and prevent
personalised ads on a Samsung TV, open
Settings, choose Support and scroll down
to ‘Terms & Privacy’. Select ‘Privacy
Choices’ and turn off Viewing Information
Services and Internet-Based Advertisements.
On older Samsung sets, choose ‘SyncPlus
and Marketing’ and select ‘Disable SyncPlus
and interactive marketing services’.
On LG TVs, go to Settings then All Settings,
choose General and turn off Live Plus. On
the User Agreements screen, which is
usually under ‘About this TV’, opt out of
Viewing Information, Interest-Based
Advertisements (or Personalised Advertising)
and the Live Plus User Agreement.
Google collects viewing data across all
its streaming platforms and products,
including Google/Android TV. This can’t
be stopped, but you can delete your
advertising ID to prevent apps from
showing you personalised ads. Go to
Settings, then Privacy, select Ads and
choose ‘Delete advertising ID’.
Amazon says its Fire TV platform doesn’t
use ACR, but it still collects data about
the apps you use so it can target you with
ads. To stop this happening, go to Settings
and choose Preferences, then Privacy
Settings. Switch off ‘Device Usage Data’,
‘Collect App and Usage Data’ and ‘Interest-
based Ads’ (see screenshot above right).
How can I block all ads
on my smart TV?
If you don’t want to see any ads on your
smart TV, personalised or otherwise, you
Change your DNS server to reduce the
number of ads on your smart TV
56 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
could try changing your DNS server. As
we explained in our ‘Switch to a new DNS
server’ feature in Issue 660 (page 62),
AdGuard DNS (www.snipca.com/46326)
blocks ads and trackers automatically,
and can be set up on a wide range of
devices – including smart TVs.
For example, on a Google/Android TV,
go to Settings, then ‘Network and
internet’ and select your internet
connection. Choose ‘IP settings’ and
switch from DHCP to Static. Leave the
IP address, Gateway and ‘Network prefix
length’ settings as they are, but on the
DNS 1 screen, replace the existing DNS
server details with the AdGuard DNS
address 94.140.14.14. For DNS 2, enter
94.140.15.15. Save the new settings,
restart your TV and you should now see
fewer ads. Switch back to DHCP in your
‘IP settings’ if you have any problems.
Sadly, because adverts are built into
many TV apps, changing your DNS server
won’t block them all. Streaming services
including ITVX, Channel 4 and Now offer
paid-for plans without ads, but even
these contain some ‘commercial messages’.
You can, however, enjoy an ad-free
YouTube experience without upgrading
to its Premium plan by installing an app
called SmartTubeNext (www.snipca.
com/46308) on your Google/Android TV
or Fire TV. See our ‘Easy When You Know
How’ column in Issue 660 (page 74) for
more information.
How can I block
autoplaying videos?
Many smart TVs promote shows and
films on their home screens using
autoplaying trailers. These videos,
which are essentially adverts, can be
very annoying – especially when they
include loud audio – but thankfully it’s
possible to block them.
On a Google/Android TV, open Settings
Disable your
Amazon Fire TV’s
data-collection
options to stop
it showing you
personalised ads
Disable annoying auto-playing trailers on your
smart TV’s home screen
and choose ‘Accounts and sign-in’. Select
your Google account and disable the
‘Auto-play trailers’ option (see screenshot
above). In the same menu, switch on
‘Apps-only mode’ to hide other promotional
content on your home screen.
On Samsung TVs, go to Settings then
General, choose Smart Features and
deselect the option ‘Autorun Last App’.
You can also disable the Samsung TV Plus
app, which is responsible for most
autoplaying videos. Select the app on
your home screen, press the down
button on your remote control and
choose Remove, then Disable.
Amazon’s Fire TV devices also bombard
you with autoplaying content on your
home screen. To stop this happening,
open Settings and select Preferences.
Choose ‘Featured Content’ and switch
off Allow Video Autoplay and Allow
Audio Autoplay.
To block autoplaying videos in Netflix,
sign into your account in your web
browser, select Manage Profiles and click
your profile. Untick the ‘Autoplay
previews while browsing on all devices’
option. Prime Video no longer lets you
stop autoplaying videos, but you can at
least make them silent. Open Settings in
the app, choose Previews then tick ‘Mute
previews’.

FIX REMOTE-CONTROL PROBLEMS
How can I fix a defective
remote control?
If your TV isn’t responding to your
remote control, and you’ve tried replacing
the batteries, you may need to pair the
devices again. On a Samsung remote,
press the Return/Back button and the
Play/Pause button simultaneously for at
least three seconds and you should see a
message on screen that it’s been paired
with your TV. On an LG remote, press the
Back and Home buttons for five seconds
to re-pair it with your TV. The remote
controls for Google/Android TVs vary by
make and model, so consult the
manufacturer’s website for instructions.
If you have an infrared (IR) remote
control, you can check that the IR signal
is working using the camera on your
phone. Point the front tip of the remote at
the camera lens, and press the power
button while looking at your phone’s
screen. You should see a red light or beam
coming from the remote to confirm that
IR is active.
You can buy replacement remotes for
all smart TV brands from Remotes4u
(www.snipca.com/46467) – just search
for the model number of your set.
Alternatively, purchase a universal remote,
such as the One For All URC1210 (www.
snipca.com/46468), which costs £11 and
works with all makes of smart TV.
While you’re waiting for your new
remote to arrive, you can control your TV
from your phone or tablet using a remote
app. All the main TV
brands now offer this
feature as part of their
official mobile apps,
including Google TV for
Android (www.snipca.
com/46470, see
screenshot right) and
iOS (www.snipca.
com/46471); Samsung
If your TV’s remote isn’t
working, control it using
the manufacturer’s app
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Fix smart TV problems with a streaming stick
If the advice in this feature doesn’t fix
your smart TV problems, but
you can’t afford a new TV,
a streaming stick could be
the ideal solution. You can
buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick
from £35 (www.snipca.com/46482),
a Roku device from £30 (www.
snipca.com/46483) and a Chromecast
with Google TV for £35 (www.snipca.
com/46484, pictured) to get a smart-TV
experience for a tenth of the price. They’re
also faster, easily portable and less prone
to technical trouble.
Streaming sticks simply plug into an
HDMI port on your TV, and can be set
SmartThings (Android www.snipca.
com/46472, iOS www.snipca.
com/46473); LG ThinQ (Android www.
snipca.com/46474, iOS www.snipca.
com/46475) and Amazon Fire TV
(Android www.snipca.com/46476, iOS
www.snipca.com/46477). These apps
usually connect to your TV both over
your Wi-Fi network and via Bluetooth.
Why isn’t the voice-control
function working?
Pressing the voice-control (microphone)
button on your remote control lets you
search for and play content much faster
than having to type queries and
select options manually. The feature
should be enabled by default, but if
it has stopped working it may have
been disabled by someone or
something (such as an app, software
update or external device).
To reactivate voice commands on a
Google/Android TV, open Settings
then ‘Accounts and sign-in’ and
choose your Google account. Select
‘Google Assistant’ and switch on
‘Voice control’ (see screenshot above
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SMART TV
PROBLEMS
FIXED!
to launch instead of its built-in
software. On a Samsung TV, open
Settings, then General,
select Smart Features and
disable Autorun Smart Hub
and Autorun Last App. On
an LG TV, go to All Settings then
General and choose System. Select
‘Additional Settings’ then Home Settings
and disable Home Auto Launch and
Home Promotion.
On a Google/Android TV, open Settings,
then System and choose ‘Power &
Energy’. Select ‘Power on behaviour’ and
change the setting from Google TV to
‘Last input’.
Switch on ‘Voice control’ if your remote’s
microphone button isn’t working
right). On a Samsung TV, go to Settings,
then General and choose Voice. Select
‘Voice Assistant’ and activate either
Bixby, Google Assistant or Alexa – if the
current assistant doesn’t work, one of the
others might. On an LG TV, open All
Settings then General and choose AI
Service. Select ‘Voice Recognition
Settings’ and switch on ‘Use Hands-free
Voice Control’.
ON SALE
Weds
19
July
57
 STOP
YOUR
LAPTOP
OVERHEATING
Now that summer’s here, there’s a greater danger of your
laptop burning itself out. Daniel Booth explains how to keep
your machine cool
T
here’s much less space in a
laptop than in a desktop PC,
forcing components closer
together and increasing the
heat they generate. This can become a
severe problem when performing
resource- intensive tasks like playing
games, sharing files, ripping CDs or
streaming TV. Laptop manufacturers use
two methods to keep the heat down:
passive cooling (reducing the power used
by components) and active cooling (fans).
But you can’t assume they’ll do enough
to stop your laptop sizzling.
How can you tell your
laptop is overheating?
Stupid question, you might think. Just
touching it could tell you, like placing
your palm on the forehead of a child who
feels poorly. But a warm laptop isn’t
necessarily too hot. It may simply be
using more processor power to perform
a particularly demanding task.
A sure sign that your laptop is sweltering
is if its cooling fan (assuming it has one)
is making a lot of noise. You may also (or
instead) notice that it becomes slower as
its processor reduces the clock speed to
cope with the heat. It might even shut
down completely and refuse to restart
until it has sufficiently cooled.
To find out your processor’s
temperature, download the free program
Open Hardware Monitor (OHM,
www.snipca.com/46534) – you’ll need to
extract the files first before running the
software). When it opens, look under the
60 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
Temperatures heading to see how hot
each processor core is.
The temperatures will alter in real time,
showing how the heat fluctuates as you
use the laptop in different environments
and perform various tasks. You can
change the default temperature from
celsius to fahrenheit in the Options menu.
You don’t have to open OHM every time
you want to check these temperatures.
Instead, right-click a core, then select
‘Show in Tray’ (see screenshot 1 ). Now
click the up-pointing arrow at the
right of your taskbar and you’ll see the
temperatures updating in real time 2 .
These numbers remain one click away
even if you close OHM.
You’ll notice that we’ve given each
processor core temperature a different
colour to make them easier to identify. To
do this, click one of the numbers, then
1 of a problem, and certainly not as
Add OHM’s core temperatures to your system
tray…
click Change Color. Select a colour in the
box that opens, then click OK. If you
can’t remember which core is which, just
hover your cursor over one.
One way to measure which tasks are
making your laptop overheat is to plot
temperatures on a graph over time. Click
‘View’ at the top, then Show Plot, and
tick the boxes to add to the graph. This
will update in real time. To select a
different time interval on the graph,
right-click it, then choose Time Window.
Seeing your processor temperature isn’t
much help unless you know how hot is
too hot. You should aim to keep your
processor between 35-55° celsius in
general use. It should nudge higher only
when you’re performing intensive tasks.
And if it heads north of 70° celsius, your
laptop will probably slow down to
compensate. Conversely, temperatures
falling to around 20° celsius are less
hazardous as overheating. Also bear in
mind that it’s normal for your processor
to run at a higher temperature than the
room you’re in.
2
…and change their colours to make them
easier to identify

Lavolta’s Laptop Table Desk
has two USB-powered fans
to keep your laptop cool
Buy a laptop cooler
There are two types of laptop cooler –
passive and active. Whether you need to
make a choice between them depends on
how your laptop sucks in air and then
exhales it. Most laptops bring air in from
the bottom and let it out at the sides or
back. Feeling for hot areas of your laptop
should reveal where this happens.
If it lets out air on the side or back,
then it doesn’t especially matter which
type of cooler you choose. You’ll probably
be fine with a passive cooler. They’re
cheaper than active alternatives, and
much quieter because they don’t have
fans. You can also use them as adjustable
laptop stands, making them ideal for
desks. The £14 aluminium stand from
Amazon’s Basics range (www.snipca.
com/46540) is a good budget choice.
Because active coolers have fans, they
are better at lowering temperatures, but
you’ll have to pay more for this. And you
shouldn’t use them if your laptop lets out
air at the bottom. Placing a fan under
your laptop will counteract the cooling
process, and cause it to overheat.
One of the best active coolers we’ve
seen is the Lavolta Laptop Table Desk
(£40 from www.snipca.com/46542,
pictured above). It has two fans
(highlighted in our photo), and elevates
your laptop by up to 48cm.
If you use your laptop on your lap –
Can hot laptops make you infertile?
Many biologists believe that the reason
evolution pushed testicles out of the body
is to store sperm at a cooler temperature.
Sperm production is most effective at 35°
celsius, which is two degrees lower than
inside the human body.
This theory has led to research testing
whether using a hot laptop on laps can
raise the temperature of testicles enough
to reduce sperm production – potentially
causing infertility. A 2005 study (www.
snipca.com/46559) showed that using
This Targus Chill Mat uses
two fans to cool your laptop
and has a four-port USB
hub built in
and you’re happy with the risks (see
box below) – you’ll want a cooling pad
instead, such as the Targus Chill Mat for
17in machines (£34 from www.snipca.
com/46564). It has two fans to push air
around your laptop, and is tilted slightly
for more comfortable typing. Targus also
makes a version of the Chill Mat that
comes with a four-port USB hub (£45
from www.snipca.com/46565, pictured
above). For bigger laptops, up to 19 inches,
buy the Thermaltake Massive pad (£70
from www.snipca.com/46547).
Change Windows’
power settings
If OHM’s temperature readings start to
worry you and a laptop cooler doesn’t
help, then consider creating a power-
saving plan in Windows to prevent your
components from working too hard. In
either Windows 10 or 11, search for and
then open Control Panel.
Click ‘Power Options’ (you may need to
click ‘Hardware and Sound’ first), then
‘Create a power plan’ on the left. On the
following screen, click ‘Power saver’,
followed by Next, then Create. Once
activated, this will reduce processor
use and energy consumption.
If this doesn’t have much impact, try
creating your own power-saving rule.
Open ‘Power options’ again and click the
‘Change plan settings’ link to the right of
a laptop for just one hour increased
“scrotal temperature” by nearly 3° celsius.
Follow-up research found that sitting with
knees together traps heat and increases
the problem. However, the study’s
co-author, Dr Yefim Sheynkin, said it’s not
clear just how much heat testicles can take
before it affects their reproductive power.
In short, if you’re worried, it’s not worth
the risk - so use the Targus Chill Mat we
recommend above, or simply never use
your laptop away from a hard surface.
1
2
Choose an active or passive system-cooling
policy to prevent your laptop from overheating
the power plan you just created. Next
click ‘Change advanced power settings’.
Next, click the ‘+’ to the left of
‘Processor power management’, then the
‘+’ to the left of ‘System cooling policy’.
Now either choose Passive ( 1 in our
screenshot above), so Windows slows
down your processor before ramping
up the speed of the fan; or Active 2 to
run the fans more quickly while
maintaining processor speed.
Our advice would be to try the Active
setting for a while to see what difference
it makes – and whether you can put up
with the extra fan noise.
Some Windows users have found
that the Processor Power Management
option is missing. You can add it by
editing the registry. Search for regedit in
Windows, then open the registry editor.
Now visit our Pastebin page at www.
snipca.com/46566 and copy what’s in
the Raw Paste Data box. Return to the
registry editor and paste this into the
address bar at the top.
Next, right-click an empty area on the
right, and select New, followed by
‘DWORD (32-bit) Value’. Type Attributes
as the name, then right-click it, select
Modify, and change the ‘Value data’ to 2.
Click OK to confirm.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 61
 Don’t get
Why you should be worried
about AI voice scams
We’ve all received ‘robocalls’, which

scammed
claim to know, for example, that we’ve
been involved in an accident or are
being investigated by HMRC. Most have a
giveaway pause or click before they begin
and use stilted, disembodied voices, so

by AI
we know to hang up immediately.
The latest AI voice scams, in contrast,
are often very convincing, because they
clone the voice of a real person, such as a
friend or family member, to trick you into
handing over money. The only thing the
scammer needs is a short (three-second)
audio sample of the person’s voice, which
they can obtain from content posted Cybercriminals are
online and previously recorded scam calls.
This is then fed into AI voice-cloning now using AI tools to
software to impersonate the supposed
caller by generating messages that sound
create sophisticated
just like them.
In the most sophisticated scams, the
and convincing
scammer responds to you in real time by scams. Robert
typing text that AI converts into speech.
Meta has just unveiled a speech-generating Irvine explains how
AI tool called Voicebox, which it says is
too risky to release yet because it could be
to identify and avoid
abused for criminal purposes like this being caught by these
(see www.snipca.com/46550).
Recent research by McAfee found that devious new tricks
77 per cent of people who received calls
from AI voice clones lost money, because
they believed the caller to be a loved one when asking for help and/or money. On an iPhone, you can turn on the
(www.snipca.com/46532). These scams Your phone should have a built-in Silence Unknown Callers option to avoid
pretend the person has been robbed, option for blocking spam and scam calls getting calls from numbers you don’t
injured, arrested or is in another emergency from unknown numbers. On an Android know and redirect them instead to your
situation that requires immediate phone, open the Phone app, tap the voicemail. Open the Settings app, tap
financial aid. Some scammers even three-dot icon and choose Settings. Select Phone and activate Silence Unknown
research personal information about ‘Caller ID and spam’ and switch on ‘See Callers. To block specific numbers, tap
who they’re impersonating to make caller and spam ID’ and ‘Filter spam calls’ the ‘i’ icon next to them in your Recents
their calls more believable. (see screenshot below). To block and list and select ‘Block this Caller’. WhatsApp
report specific numbers, long-press them has just added a similar tool – see page 8.
Identify and block in your call-history list and choose ‘Block/ You should also take precautions to
AI voice scams report spam’ (see screenshot below right). ensure your own voice isn’t stolen by
Receiving a call from an unknown
number won’t necessarily make you
suspicious because the AI voice may
claim the cloned person’s phone has been
lost or stolen or has run out of battery.
But listen carefully for unnatural pauses,
strange intonation, distorted audio
quality and urgent, unusual requests
- such as for your payment-card details.
If you’re in any doubt, hang up and
either call the person directly on their
usual mobile number or landline, or
contact them by email, text message
or WhatsApp, to confirm they really
called you. McAfee recommends that
you set a verbal codeword with family
members and trusted close friends, Your phone should include options to filter …and to block scammers’ numbers to stop
and use this in calls and messages suspected scam calls… them calling you again

62 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661

scammers and used in AI scams – and
warn your friends and family to do the
same. These include being careful about
posting personal videos with audio on
social-media platforms such as YouTube,
Facebook and TikTok; never sharing voice
messages through services that don’t
have end-to-end encryption; and never
leaving voicemails for individuals and
companies unless you know you can trust
them. Even calling back an unknown
number could give scammers a long
enough audio sample to clone your voice.
Spot and avoid AI phishing scams
The speed and simplicity of AI tools such
as ChatGPT, and their ability to generate
detailed and accurate content based on
simple prompts, makes them ripe for
exploitation by scammers.
They’re particularly useful for
criminals who create phishing scams in
languages other than their own, because
the resulting messages aren’t blighted by
telltale spelling and grammatical errors.
This also makes the emails less likely to
be flagged as dubious and redirected to
your Spam folder.
Ask ChatGPT to write you a phishing
email and it will refuse, because it’s
“programmed to follow ethical guidelines,
which strictly prohibit engaging in any
form of illegal or harmful activities,
including phishing”. But try a workaround
such as ‘write an email in which the
recipient has won a prize and must click
a link to claim it’, and it will generate an
instant phishing message that matches
that prompt (see the last response in our
chat at www.snipca.com/46539 and our
screenshot below). Hackers can also
remove ethical restrictions from AI tools
to use them for criminal purposes.
While the content and tone of AI
phishing emails may appear credible, you
can identify scams from other giveaway
signs, so you know to block and delete
them. These include hovering your cursor
over links to see their destination pages,
ChatGPT claims not to write phishing emails,
but this restriction is too easily overcome
Identify pictures created by AI
A new online tool called ‘AI or Not’ (www.
snipca.com/46552) helps you determine
whether an image you’ve been sent or
that you’ve come across on the web has
been generated using AI. This is useful for
exposing photos created by scammers of
fake or altered people, places, products
and events.
Upload an image to the site in JPEG or
PNG format, or copy and paste its URL create the image, such as DALL-E, GAN
from a web page. ‘AI or Not’ will then or Stable Diffusion.
use “advanced algorithms and machine ‘AI or Not’ isn’t always right, and
learning techniques” to analyse the picture sometimes it can’t decide either way,
and tell you whether it was generated but you can improve its accuracy by
by a human or AI (see screenshot). It can clicking the green Correct button or the
also detect which AI software was used to red thumbs-down icon.
verifying the sender’s email address, and
looking for distorted or incorrect
company logos and fonts. See our ‘Spot
all scam emails’ feature in Issue 648 (page
62) for more advice.
You can use AI to detect phishing
scams by installing the new Chromium
extension Criminal IP (www.snipca.
com/46541). Sign up for a free account,
then click the add-on’s toolbar button
and switch on the options Advanced
Mode and ‘AI based Scan’ (see screenshot
below). Criminal IP will then scan every
site you visit to rate its safety and warn
you of the likelihood of it being a
phishing URL. Right-click a link in an
Copyleaks AI Content Detector identifies
email and choose ‘Pre-Check this Link’ machine-generated reviews
to scan the page without opening it.
A free plan limits you to scanning 100 poor-quality products on sites such as
URLs a month. Amazon. Fake reviews written by
humans are already a big problem, and
Detect and disregard AI reviews the speed at which AI can churn out
Lots of websites now use AI tools as an plausible opinions now makes this
easy free way to create news stories, danger an even bigger one.
blog posts and articles. Although the You can avoid being scammed by AI
result is often adequate, AI-generated reviews by installing an extension that
reviews are a major concern because exposes machine-generated content.
they can trick you into buying One of the most reliable is Copyleaks AI
Content Detector for Chromium browsers
(www.snipca.com/46548), though you
need to register for a free account.
Highlight a review or any other text on
a web page, then click the add-on’s
toolbar button to see if AI content was
detected (see screenshot above) or if it
was written by a human.
Alternatively, there’s FakeSpot (www.
fakespot.com) for Chromium and Firefox,
which was bought by Mozilla in May.
This uses AI to identify fake reviews on
Chrome extension Criminal IP uses AI to Amazon and eBay, including those that
detect possible phishing sites were produced using AI.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 63
 Problems Solved
Our experts solve all your tech problems
PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
Would broadband replace my
phone sockets?
I’m not new to computers
Q but, like many silver surfers, I
don’t understand the practical
side of installing a fibre-to-the-
premises (FTTP) broadband and
telephone system.
At present I have a copper
connection to my home, which is fed
from a fibre-enabled street cabinet
that’s about a mile away. Openreach
has laid fibre cable immediately in
front of my house, but it’s not
connected to the building.
I’m thinking about subscribing to an
FTTP service, but I’m not sure what
this will involve. Is all installation work
done by Openreach? If so, would they
follow the route of my existing copper
cable to my main phone socket? This is
in a first-floor study, with the cable
A confused, because all these
running through my loft.
With FTTP installed, would my
existing telephone handsets and wired
extension sockets need to be replaced
with something else? Would I need to
buy a new broadband router? I’m sure
that many readers of a certain age are
just as confused as I am, so I’m hoping
you can explain for all of us.
Bob Evans
With a BT Smart Hub, a handset or cordless base
station can be plugged into a socket on the router
64 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
It’s entirely reasonable to be
factors and more are by no
means obvious. We’ll do our best to
summarise what to expect.
First, you are free to choose your own
service provider, based on whatever price
or benefits attract you. Many folks opt for
BT, of course, but you don’t have to.
That aside – and ignoring Virgin Media,
which maintains its own fibre-optic
network – then yes, it will be Openreach
(which is owned by BT) that installs the
FTTP equipment in your home.
1 Your chosen broadband provider
should supply you with a new
router before Openreach visits.
On the day, the Openreach
engineer will agree with you a route
for the cable from the property’s
boundary to the exterior wall and
then into your house. This could
follow an existing path but doesn’t
have to: it’s for you to discuss and
agree with the engineer present
what is possible and reasonable.
Inside your home, the engineer will
install what’s known as an optical
network terminal, or ONT. The
specific unit might vary, but
2 BT's Digital
Voice Adapter
lets you use
your existing
home phones
when you
switch services
to Digital Voice
typically it’ll be small box
with inputs for power and
the fibre cable, plus one
Ethernet output for a router.
Phone services are a whole other
matter, and we covered them in detail
in Issue 659’s Cover Feature (if you
missed it, you can pick up a back issue
at www.snipca.com/46413). A potted
version is that, by 2025, only digital
telephone services will be available
– meaning all ‘landlines’ will work via
broadband. With a BT Smart Hub, for
example, a single ‘traditional’ handset
(or cordless base station) can be
plugged into a socket on the back of a
router (see screenshot 1 ). Alternatively,
one or more BT Digital Voice phones
can connect cordlessly via the Smart
Hub. Your existing copper-based
sockets will be dead, and thus useless.
In theory you could keep them alive by
continuing to pay for a traditional
copper landline, on a separate contract
– though only until 2025 at the latest.
As an alternative to keeping existing
handsets working, BT – if that’s your
chosen provider – sells mains-powered
Digital Voice adapters 2 (for £15,
www.snipca.com/46268) that offer a
single socket. You could, for example,
purchase one for each room where you
want to plug in an existing traditional
phone.
 Email us your problem and we’ll try to help:
noproblem@computeractive.co.uk

Can I bring my Samsung tablet back from the dead?

I recently placed my Samsung
Q Galaxy Tab S SM-T800 tablet on
charge. After a time an Android
update began. When it was finished the
tablet failed to restart, and since then it
has been completely dead. It’s old so I’m
not too bothered, but I’m curious as to
what happened. Did the download cause
this? Any advice would be gratefully
received.
James Scott
On the Samsung Galaxy Tab S, select factory
reset, then ‘Yes – delete all user data’ (right)
It sounds like automatic updates
A were enabled on your tablet, so
it went ahead and attempted to
this on a Samsung tablet, press and hold
down the power, home and volume-up
install one – but for whatever reason, that buttons – again for several seconds. When
process failed. That’s unfortunate but not the system recovery menu appears, use
necessarily irrecoverable. the volume up and down to choose
In the first instance, try forcing your ‘reboot system now’, and then press the
tablet to restart. To do this, hold down power button to select it.
both the power and volume-down If this doesn’t work, then your last
buttons for 10-20 seconds. If it springs hope is to perform a factory reset, which summon the system recovery menu, but
back to life following this, great! will wipe everything, including personal this time choose ‘wipe data/factory reset’,
If not, you’ll need to summon the data – but should get the tablet back in followed by ‘Yes – delete all user data’ (see
Android system recovery menu. To do working order. Repeat the steps to screenshot above).

Why can’t I click links in Word or Excel?

When I hold down Control 1 Choose Apps
Q (Ctrl) before clicking a link in
Word or Excel, I now get a box
(1) and then
deselect
Microsoft Edge
telling me that the operation was as your default
cancelled due to restrictions in place browser (2)
on my machine. It used to work fine.
Copying and pasting links into Microsoft
Edge works fine. I am using Windows
10 Home with Office 2010 Professional 2
Plus, all up to date.
Andrew Gore

Microsoft ended all support for
A Office 2010 a few years ago,
with the last update arriving
in October 2020. So, being fully
updated doesn’t necessarily mean that
it’s ‘up to date’. In other words, future
updates to Windows might break
something in Office 2010 and it is
unlikely Microsoft would ever fix it.
However, we don’t think this
particular problem is terminal. In fact,
the breaking of the ability to click links
in Office documents is a quirk that has
plagued Windows over many years. The
easiest way to fix it is to briefly change
your default web browser to something
other than Edge, before restoring Edge
as the default.
To do this in Windows 10, click Start,
followed by the Settings cog and then
Apps (see screenshot 1 ). Next, on the left,
click ‘Default apps’ and then, on the
right, under ‘Web browser’, click the
Edge icon 2 and then choose any other Close the window, then repeat this
option (even Internet Explorer will do, if process to restore Edge as the default
that’s all you have). browser.

Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 65

 Problems Solved
Can I recover
crypto cash?
I need help with the
Q recovery of some
cryptocurrency accounts,
which belong to my son, who had a
major stroke. Fortunately, he has
made a reasonably good recovery
and is now out of hospital but has
difficulty with his memory and
walking. However, he cannot
remember the passwords he set up
to access his crypto accounts.
Without this money he will be
unable to get his life back on track.
Do you know any companies that
can help?
John Bridge
You didn’t give us any
A information about the
specific accounts or services
but, regardless, there’s no magic trick
that’ll reveal forgotten passwords.
Recovery techniques depend on the
specific program or service. For
example, with a major cryptocurrency
exchange – you need to click the
‘Forgot password’ link on the login
page and then follow the prompts
(see screenshot). The process would
be similar in almost every other case.
If your son’s condition is such that
he needs you to act on his behalf in
this regard, then you’d need to obtain
a lasting power of attorney (LPA).
The starting point for that is on the
UK Government website, at
www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney.
Can I use my old PVR hard drive?
Is it possible to play a hard disk
Q taken from a faulty Panasonic
DMR-HW100 PVR?
Michael Westmacott
We’re not sure what you mean
A by play? If you mean can you
watch any recordings that it
might contain, then no: these are
protected by digital-rights-management
(DRM) encryption. This means they can
only be played back on the original
recording device – which is broken.
There’s no practical way around that.
But if you’re asking whether the drive
itself can be extracted and made to work
on a PC, then the answer is yes. First, you
need to put the drive into a 3.5in USB
enclosure, like the pictured Wavlink
model (around £22 from Amazon,
www.snipca.com/46264), then connect it
to your PC. Then, press Windows key+X
and choose ‘Windows PowerShell
(Admin)’. Next, type diskpart and press
Enter (see screenshot right). Now type
list disk and press Enter.
In the displayed list of detected drives,
your PC’s main drive will almost certainly
be ‘Disk 0’, and the newly attached USB
one is likely to be highest – so ‘Disk 1’ or
‘Disk 2’, say. To be sure, check the
capacities under the Size column (we
think your DMR-HW100 has either a
320GB or 500GB drive). Make a careful
note of the correct drive, because if you
get the next bit wrong you could wipe
the wrong the drive – instantly.
Now type select disk X, substituting X
for the relevant disk (so, ‘select disk 1’,
for example), then press Enter. Next,
type clean. When you press Enter the
selected drive will be wiped, with no
way back.
Next, you must ready the drive for use
with Windows. First press Windows
key+R to open the Run box, then type
diskmgmt.msc and press Enter. When
asked if you want GPT or MBR, bear in
mind that the first is generally best for
Windows – but MBR offers better
compatibility with non-Windows systems.
Then, next to the label for the relevant
disk number, right-click the Unallocated
bar, and then choose ‘New Simple
Volume’. Finally, follow the prompts to
create one or more new partitions and
then format the drive ready for use.
Fit an old PVR drive
into a Wavlink
enclosure case (left).
In PowerShell, type
diskpart (above)

Q: How is a PIN safer than a

password?
A: Issue 637, page 64 – find it on
our 2022 Back Issue CD
On Binance.com, click the ‘Forgot Buy it from
password’ link and follow the prompts www.snipca.com/44660

66 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661

 Why does Edge always open Google?
I had a problem with the Edge
Q icon going straight to Google
and opening it – even when I
typed ‘msedge.exe’ with the Run
command. After much trial and error,
the problem seemed to go away. But
now it’s back. I’ve made my default
browser Edge, but it still opens Google.
So I went into Google to see what it had
to say. Yes, you got it: “Your default
browser is Edge”. Being 85 years
young, I don’t have much hair, but if I
don’t find the answer soon, I won’t
have a scalp!
Denzil Botting
It’s easy to confuse company
A names with their flagship
products – and we think that
has a significant bearing here. Edge is
the web browser made by Microsoft,
and included with Windows. Google’s
browser is called Chrome. However,
Google – and specifically the Google
home page – is also synonymous with
searching the web.
From your description of the problem,
we’re confident you’re launching and
seeing Edge, but this browser has had its
home page set to Google search. This has
most likely happened because Microsoft
and Google are as bad as each other at
playing dirty little tricks to get users to
switch default browsers or, in this case,
default home pages.
To fix it, first click to open the Edge
menu (three dots, top right), and then, on
the left, click ‘Start, home, and new tabs’.
You can stop the
www.google.
co.uk page
opening at startup
by clicking the
three dots to the
right and choosing
Delete
Then, on the right, look under the
‘When Microsoft Edge starts’ heading.
There, we suspect ‘Open these pages’
will be selected, with the Pages section
below set to www.google.co.uk. You
can delete these by clicking the three
dots to the right and then choosing
Delete (see screenshot). Then, or as
well, you can set Edge to open with the
standard Microsoft-themed new tab
page by choosing the ‘Open the new
tab page’ option.

How do I disable 1 In Windows 10,

clear the tick from
the box labelled
Xbox Game Bar? ‘Open Xbox
Game Bar…’ (1),
In Windows 11,
How can I get rid of the very
Q
choose Never (2)
annoying Xbox Game Bar? It
still keeps popping up, even
though I have tried to stop it.
Alec Neville
2
You didn’t tell us what you’ve
A tried, but there’s really only one
way to disable Xbox Game Bar.
This involves different methods,
depending on whether you’re using
Windows 10 or 11.
In either version, first click Start
followed by the Settings cog, and then
Gaming, followed by Xbox Game Bar.
Then, in Windows 10, just click to flip the
Xbox Game Bar to its Off position. We’d
also advise clicking to clear the tick from
the box labelled ‘Open Xbox Game Bar Regardless, it stops Xbox Game Bar followed by ‘Installed apps’. Next, scroll
using this button on a controller’ (see appearing only when the Xbox button is down to find the Xbox Game Bar entry.
screenshot 1 ). This will stop it popping pressed – so it’s not as useful as the Then, to its right, click the menu button
up if you hit the Xbox button on a joypad. Windows 10 option. Instead, you have to (three dots) followed by ‘Advanced
In Windows 11 there is a switch entitled delve deeper to prevent Xbox Game Bar options’. Finally, under the ‘Background
‘Open Xbox Game Bar using this button ever appearing. Return to the main app permissions’ heading, click to open
on a controller’ rather than a tickbox. Settings page and then click Apps, the dropdown menu and choose Never 2 .

Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 67

 Problems Solved
What’s this 1 Open the Chrome
menu, then select

mystery VPN?
‘More tools’ (1).
Under the
‘HideMyAss for
Chrome’ entry,
When I check the traffic analysis
Q
click Remove (2)
feature on my router, it shows a
relatively small amount of traffic
for HMA VPN. I do not use a VPN at all. I
have checked in every way I can to see if
there is anything on my desktop PC or
laptop, as it shows activity on both. I’ve
run scans for malware to look for rogue
entries. I can find nothing. I am at a
dead end. Any ideas, please?
Adrian Russell
2

We think this probably relates to the HideMyAss VPN,

A or HMA as it likes to be known. Years ago, it offered a
browser extension for Chrome that acted as a basic
VPN-style proxy. The extension has been discontinued, but it
sounds like it’s still installed on the browsers on both computers
(if you’re logged into Google, Chrome will sync both of them).
We doubt it’s doing anything untoward, but it was probably
coded to ‘report home’ every now and then, hence the small
amount of data. To remove it, open the Chrome menu (three
dots, top right), then hover over ‘More tools’ (see screenshot 1 ),
and then, under the ‘HideMyAss for Chrome’ entry, click
Remove 2 .

Can I turn RAM into a PC drive?

I came into the world of the 1 2
Q PC relatively late, following
many years as an Amiga user.
My PC has 64GB of RAM. Sometimes
I’d like to store my own temporary files
in this copious RAM, instead of
needlessly using up the life of an SSD.
Is there a way a Windows 11 Pro PC can
have an Amiga-style desktop RAM disk?
Steven Holmes

Yes, though we’d say it is

A possible to worry too much
about SSD wear and tear. Sure,
it happens, but modern drives are very
good at managing themselves in this
regard. It’d likely be many years before
the typical SSD would break down.
But we’re here to answer questions,
so let’s do that. Yes, a Windows PC can
be set up with an RAM disk. There
are numerous tools to do this, but a
popular choice is ImDisk (a free
download from www.snipca.
com/46269. Once installed, from the
Windows Start menu click to launch
the RamDisk Configuration app.
Select the size in GB (1). Then in File Explorer, right-click R: and choose Format (2)
There are lots of options to explore, but
the fundamentals are these. First, in the
Basic tab, set the size you want (probably
in GB, in your case – see screenshot 1 ).
Next, choose a drive letter for the RAM
disk – though the default of R: is logical
enough. Then, if you want the RAM disk
to be available every time Windows
launches, click to tick the ‘Launch at
Windows Startup’ box. Now click OK.
Next, you’ll need to format the new
‘drive’ for use – just as with any other
drive. So, in File Explorer, right-click R:
then choose Format 2 . Click to tick
Quick Format, then click Start.
If you later want to return the space
to use as RAM, return to the RamDisk
Configuration app, select the relevant
drive letter and then click the
Unmount button.

68 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661

 ?? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN...
Apple Music and iTunes?
I’m an occasional listener to
Q music. I used to be able to pay
for and download the odd
album from iTunes. However, it seems
not any more, without signing up for
some kind of monthly subscription.
Can I download and pay for albums or
the odd single without having to tie
myself into a monthly contract?
Pamela Viccars
This comes down to Apple’s
A messy line-up of products,
and the differences between
them. For the bulk of its two-decade
history, Apple iTunes has been the front
end for everything related to listening
to music on Apple devices, and for
Windows users wanting to manage
their music libraries using the PC
version of the program.
Complementing iTunes is the iTunes
Store. On Macs and Windows, this is
part of the iTunes program itself – so
the distinction isn’t obvious. On
iPhones and iPads, iTunes Store is a
distinct app. You buy music from
iTunes Store to play in iTunes.
What’s causing my Wi-Fi to disconnect?
My Asus X552C laptop
Q disconnects from my TalkTalk
Wi-Fi at random times, about
once a day. It has only started doing this
recently, maybe after I replaced the hard
drive with an SSD. No other device seems
to suffer from this problem and Wi-Fi
signal strength is good. Once
The TP-Link
USB Wi-Fi
dongle
Apple Music is a separate, subscription-
based program (or app) on both Apple
and Windows devices, introduced in
2015. You don’t buy music from Apple
Music, but it will catalogue and play
tunes purchased via iTunes Store. Apple
has formally killed iTunes on new Macs,
in favour of Apple Music (which, just to
add to the confusion, has integrated
access to the iTunes Store), but for now at
least it remains for older Macs, and for
Windows. Currently, there’s no Apple
Music app for PCs, but it can be accessed
online, via https://music.apple.com, or
via iTunes for Windows.
disconnected the only way to reconnect
seems to be to restart the laptop. Any
suggestions, please?
Samuel Woolley
It’s possible that the swapping
A of the drives has resulted in
this problem. SSDs tend to
run cooler overall than hard drives, but
they do generate heat, and the source
of that warmth might be closer to the
Wi-Fi components than any hotspots that
the hard drive might have generated.
Prolonged exposure to a new, closer heat
source might cause the Wi-Fi module to
halt every now and then. Restarting the
laptop gives time enough to cool down
sufficiently.
However, all this is just a theory. The
Wi-Fi module might be faulty, or
suffering a driver glitch. So, first, we’d
advice visiting the Asus support page, at
www.snipca.com/46265, to check that
To buy a track
or an album in
Apple Music,
click the price-
labelled Buy
button below
the cover art
These distinctions bring us back to
your problem. The root cause is Apple’s
desire to get you to subscribe to Apple
Music, which in iTunes for Windows
manifests itself with a prominent
‘START YOUR TRIAL’ banner at the top.
However, you don’t have to do this. Go
to the far left and you’ll see a tiny grey
cross: click this to clear the banner.
Then, to buy a tune or an album, just
click the price-labelled Buy button
below the cover art (see screenshot).
Want to know the difference between
technical terms? Email noproblem@
computeractive.co.uk
your laptop has the latest firmware and
drivers installed.
If this doesn’t resolve matters, then, as
the Wi-Fi part is probably built into the
motherboard, the only solution will be
to to purchase a USB Wi-Fi dongle. The
pictured TP-Link model costs around £7
(www.snipca.com/46267)
ON SALE
Next Issue Weds
19 July
• Do USB sticks degrade
photo quality?
•H
 ow do I stop Android and
Windows syncing?
•C
 an I save an app to USB?
...And many more
Subscribe to Computeractive at
www.getcomputeractive.co.uk
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 2023 69
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
Has PowerToys doubled
my PC’s boot time?
I’m booting Windows 11 Pro
Q from my M.2 SSD and was very
happy with my startup time.
However, after installing Microsoft’s
PowerToys (www.snipca.com/46172)
following your many recommendations,
I set it as a startup item and it seems to
have doubled my boot time. I haven’t
seen you mention this, so is it something
you’d expect?
Dave Ingram
In general, adding or removing
A any startup items in Windows –
including PowerToys – will have
some kind of impact on boot speeds. That
said, we’ve not noticed any significant
slowdowns as a result of installing
PowerToys on any of our test systems.
To diagnose the problem, our suggestion
would be to try blocking PowerToys from
running at boot to see if this makes any
difference.
To do this, right-click the PowerToys
icon in your system tray to the right of
the taskbar (you may need to click the
small up arrow to reveal the icon), then
click Settings. In the Settings window,
click General on the left ( 1 in our
screenshot below), then scroll down to
the ‘Run at startup’ option on the right 2
and click the switch to turn this off 3 .
Try rebooting your PC a couple of times
to see if startup speeds have improved. If
not, the problem must be caused by
something else – such as other software
and updates you’ve recently installed.
1 A
2 3
If startup is slower after installing PowerToys,
try blocking it from running at boot
Should I enable or disable
Brave’s security feature?
In Issue 657’s Cover Feature
Q (‘How to be invisible online’,
page 56), you mention that Brave
recommends turning off an obscure
Windows feature called ‘Smart multi-
homed name resolution’. After searching
for ‘Turn off smart multi-homed name
resolution’, you said to select the entry,
click Go and choose Enabled followed
by OK. Now I’m confused – should it be
disabled or enabled?
Brian Windsor
Our instructions for this were
A correct, though we’ll admit that
Microsoft’s wording is somewhat
confusing. By enabling the setting that
turns off smart multi-homed name
resolution, you’re effectively disabling a
Windows feature that’s switched on by
default – if that makes sense!
Can PDFgear convert
Publisher files?
I’ve recently had problems
Q converting Microsoft Publisher
files to PDF. I’ve used the
‘Microsoft Print to PDF’ option and the
Nitro PDF Creator (www.gonitro.com),
but find it hard to follow the instructions.
I decided to give PDFgear (www.pdfgear.
com) a go after reading about it in Issue
656 (page 18). Downloading it was
simple, but I can’t find the option to
convert Publisher files. Am I missing
something?
Roy Cross
Unfortunately, Publisher’s .pub
format isn’t currently listed
among PDFgear’s supported file
formats (see the Tech Specs box at www.
snipca.com/46388), so you’ll need to look
elsewhere for a way to convert Microsoft
Publisher files to PDFs. The good news is
that you won’t actually need to install a
conversion tool in order to do this
because Microsoft Publisher has
Convert Publisher files to PDF: click File, Save
As and select PDF in the ‘Save as type’ menu
integrated support for exporting .pub
files as PDFs.
In the latest version of Publisher
(included in Microsoft 365), simply open
your .pub file, then click File, Save As and
select PDF from the ‘Save as type’ menu
(see screenshot above). We don’t know
which version of Publisher you’re using
but, according to Microsoft (www.snipca.
com/46389), it’s also possible to save .pub
files as PDFs in Publisher 2010 and 2007.
Did you wrongly say
ProtonVPN is free?
The ProtonVPN browser
Q extension (www.snipca.
com/45744), as you
recommended in Issue 657 (page 51), is
available only as a paid-for version – not
free, as you stated. The developers told
me it’s a “closed beta only for paid users”.
Did you make a mistake?
Fred Isaac
Apologies for any confusion, but
A we didn’t actually say the
browser extension was free. We
mention there’s a free ProtonVPN plan,
but then go on to suggest that tools
ProtonVPN has recently added to its paid-
for plans – including the new browser
extensions – help to make them better
value for money. If anyone has made a
mistake, it’s ProtonVPN itself, since the
extensions don’t appear to be part of any
closed beta – they’re currently available
to all paid users.
Issue 661 • 5 – 18 July 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.
8K Video with a resolution of
7680x4320 pixels. Currently the
highest resolution available.
Administrator Someone who can
make changes to a computer that
will affect others who also use it.
AI Artificial Intelligence.
Intelligence demonstrated by a
machine rather than a human
being. Often used to describe
technology that can perform
human-like tasks.
Aspect ratio A measurement of
the shape of a screen. Traditional
PC screens are 4:3. Widescreen
displays are 16:9 or 16:10.
Batch file Commands that are
processed in sequence, often
without requiring input from the
user.
Benchmarking Comparing
software and products with an
accepted standard.
Beta A version of software that’s
being tested. Beta versions are
often released so problems can be
ironed out.
Bloatware Unwanted software
built into a new device.
Buffering Downloading a certain
amount of data before starting to
play a video. Can cause delays to
your streaming.
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 recreate conversation
with human users, especially over
the internet. Typically used to offer
automated customer support.
72 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
Clock speed The speed at which a
computer processor can perform
operations. Measured in Gigahertz
(GHz).
Coaxial A type of cable
where one wire is surrounded
by insulation, which is then
surrounded by another wire.
Colorimeter A tool for measuring
the colour accuracy of monitors by
calibrating its brightness, contrast
and colour.
Command line A way to control
a computer by typing instructions
one at a time. In Windows this is
called the command prompt.
Core Units on a processor that
carry out program instructions.
Cryptocurrency An online
currency not backed by any
country. The most popular is
Bitcoin.
DCI-P3 A colour space that has a
wider spectrum than sRGB. Used
by US film industry.
Dialog box A window that
pops up to display or request
information.
DHCP Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol. A system
where one device on a network,
normally the router, distributes
network addresses to the others
on request.
DisplayPort A new socket for
connecting monitors.
DNS Domain Name System.
A technology that associates
computers with their addresses on
the internet.
DOS Disk Operating System. DOS
was the predecessor to Windows.
dpi Dots per inch. A measure
of printed image quality, or the
size an object will be shown on
screen.
Driver A file that tells
Windows how to work with an
external device.
DRM Digital Rights Management.
Software that limits the copying
of a file.
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.
False positive When an antivirus
program wrongly detects a
malware infection.
File extension The part of a
file name after the full stop. For
example, .doc is the file extension
for Word documents.
Firmware Basic software stored
on hardware, such as a processor,
to control its operation.
Fps Frames per second.
Normally used to indicate gaming
performance.
Frame rate The number of still
images, or frames, shown per
second to create a moving image.
Higher frame rates make games
appear smoother and more
realistic.
FTTC Fibre to the cabinet. A
broadband technology that
uses fibre-optic cable between
a telephone exchange and
residential streets before
transferring to the normal
telephone wires.
FTTP Fibre to the premises. Fibre
broadband that goes straight to the
doorstep. Faster than FTTC (fibre
to the cabinet).
GHz Gigahertz. A measure of
how many instructions a chip can
process per second. 1GHz is equal
to 1,000MHz.
GPT GUID Partition Table. A way
of partitioning data that allows for
bigger drives than the older MBR.
Graphics card A component in a
computer that produces the image
shown on the monitor.
HDMI High-definition media
interface. A type of connection that
transmits high-definition video and
audio signals.
Hotspot A public area covered by
a Wi-Fi network that allows you to
access the internet, either free or
for a fee.
Hz Hertz. Measures the frequency
something happens: 1Hz equals
once a second.
IP address Internet Protocol
address. A unique set of numbers
used to identify computers and
websites on the internet.
JPEG Joint Photograph Experts
Group. A common type of image
file created by most digital
cameras. Some image quality is
lost with each save.
M.2 A standard specification for
internal PC expansion cards and
connectors.
Machine learning The science of
teaching computers how to learn
by themselves, without further
human input.
MBR Master Boot Record. The
area on a hard drive that is checked
by a computer when it first starts.
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.
Nano-SIM The smallest SIM card,
measuring 12.3x8.8mm.
OLED Organic light-emitting
diode. A thin-film organic light-
emitting diode used in computer
displays and television screens.
ONT Optical Network Terminal.
Installed inside or outside your
home as part of a FTTP broadband
service. Converts the optical signal
into separate signals for TV, voice
and data.
Partition A large hard drive can
be split into two or more partitions
or ‘virtual’ drives. Once partitioned,
each section is treated by Windows
as though it were a completely
separate, smaller hard drive.
Phishing A form of internet
fraud that tries to trick you into
revealing personal details.
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.
Proxy server A computer that
sits between your computer
and the internet and filters the
connection.
PVR Personal video recorder.
Also known as DVR (digital
video recorder). These set-top
boxes let you pause and record
digital TV.
QR code Quick Response code.
A barcode that can be read using
smartphones and dedicated QR-
reading devices.
RAM Random-access memory.
The computer’s working area,
used for data storage while the
PC is switched on. Its capacity is
measured in megabytes (MB):
the more memory your PC has,
the more things it can process
simultaneously and the faster it
will seem.
Ransomware Malware run by
hackers who lock files on your PC and
demand a payment to release them.
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.
RF Commonly associated with
set-top boxes and video recorders.
RF stands (Radio Frequency)
means a TV signal is transmitted
on a TV frequency (channel).
Roaming charge Fee incurred
for using your phone to receive
data through overseas mobile
networks.
SD card Secure Digital card. A
popular type of memory card.
Splitter A device that lets you
stream video from a single source
to multiple screens.
sRGB A standard RGB colour
space for use on monitors,
printers and the internet.
SSD Solid-state drive. Storage that,
unlike a hard drive, uses no moving
parts. Faster but more expensive
than conventional hard drives.
Temporary file A file created by a
browser to store website data.
Tethering Turning a phone into a
modem to give internet access to
a computer.
Thunderbolt A very fast port for
connecting external storage to a
computer. Can be used to connect
monitors, a network and more.
UPS Uninterruptible Power
Supply. A device that sits between
a computer and its main power
supply to provide a (usually brief)
emergency power supply in the
event of a cut.
USB 2.0/3.0/3.1 Faster successors
to USB.
USB-A The original type of USB
connector, released in 1996.
USB-C A new connector that’s
reversible.
VPN Virtual private network.
Keeps all internet communication
safe and private.
WEBP Google’s image format
designed to create files that are
smaller for the same quality, or of
higher quality for the same size,
than JPEG, PNG and GIF.
Wi-Fi 6 Wi-Fi standard with
speeds up to 10 times faster than
802.11ac. Also called 802.11ax.
Wildcard A character that can
be substituted for one or more
characters in a web search, much
like the blank tile in Scrabble.
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
Desperate to get back online without exceeding his
mobile-data allowance, Robert Irvine tries to…
Turn his phone into a
Bluetooth hotspot
U
nfortunate timing is a recurring
theme in my life this year. In April,
I caught Covid days before I was
scheduled to have a booster jab; in May, I
had to cancel a trip to Scotland because it
coincided with a rail strike; and in June I
lost my home internet connection just
after I’d ditched my mobile network’s
unlimited-data plan for a limited one.
Wi-Fi risked guzzling
my data like someone
devouring hot dogs in
in a competitive eating
contest
I don’t regret the switch, because I now
pay only £5 a month with Smarty rather
than £30 with Three – and you don’t need
to be Martin Lewis to calculate that this
saves me £25. But it also means I need to
watch my data carefully, so I don’t exceed
my 4GB monthly allowance. Previously, I
would have turned my phone into a
Wi-Fi hotspot to get my PC
back online until the
Openreach engineer
arrived. However, sharing
my 5G connection between
the devices – or tethering
them, if you will – now
risked guzzling my data
like someone wolfing
down hot dogs in a
Bluetooth tethering lets you
share your mobile connection
without using Wi-Fi
74 5 – 18 July 2023 • Issue 661
competitive eating contest.
I wondered if it might be more prudent
to turn my phone into a Bluetooth hotspot
instead. Although this would undoubtedly
be slower than using Wi-Fi or connecting
the devices with a USB cable, it would
theoretically use less data.
I say theoretically, because both
tethering methods would still use my
mobile network to load web pages,
download files and check for emails, but
– to apply self-defeating logic – the
limited transfer speed of Bluetooth would
make me more cautious about my
data-consuming activities than if using
unbridled 5G. Plus, Bluetooth uses less
battery power than Wi-Fi, so I wouldn’t
need to keep charging my phone, and it
doesn’t require a password. Tethering
with a USB cable would have offered the
fastest speed, but again there was a risk of
burning through data, and besides I
didn’t have a free USB port.
To get started, I opened the
Settings app on my Android
phone and chose ‘Network &
Internet’ then ‘Hotspot &
tethering’. I switched on
‘Bluetooth tethering’ (see
screenshot left) and – hey
presto! – my handset was now a
Bluetooth hotspot.
Next, I needed to pair my
phone with my laptop. I opened
the Settings app in Windows 10,
selected Devices and turned on
Next issue: Robert tries to install software using PowerToys
Robert turned his phone into a
Bluetooth hotspot to connect his PC
to the internet
Bluetooth. I then clicked ‘Add
Bluetooth or other device’ and
chose Bluetooth in the box that
opened. Windows detected and
listed a long list of devices,
including my neighbour’s Sony TV,
Sky Q box and Apple AirPods (he’s
clearly doing alright for himself), but
frustratingly not my phone.
Turning Bluetooth off and on again
didn’t help, so I restarted my PC, tried
again and this time my handset was
listed. The PIN on my PC matched the
one on my phone’s screen, so I tapped
Pair on the latter and Connect on the
former, and Windows confirmed the two
devices were now paired.
I now tried browsing the web, but kept
seeing the error message ‘This site cannot
be reached’, so clearly the Bluetooth
hotspot wasn’t working yet. To remedy
this, I clicked the Bluetooth icon in my
system tray and chose ‘Join a Personal
Area Network’. I right-clicked my phone
in the window that opened, selected
‘Connect using’ then ‘Access point’ (see
screenshot above), and – finally – I was
back online.
Although web pages were slow to
load – according to Speedtest.net, my
download speed was a mere 1.23Mbps –
at least Bluetooth let me get my work
done without draining my data allowance
or phone’s battery.
I checked my Smarty balance at the
end of the day, and was pleased that my
cautious browsing had kept my data usage
under 300MB. And with impeccable
timing, the Openreach engineer arrived
first thing the next morning to get me
properly back up to speed.
Need help creating a Bluetooth hotspot? Let
us know: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk
9000