MOVE YOUR PHOTOS

FROM ONEDRIVE
HIDE PASSWORDS
IN AUDIO FILES WIPE
MORE
Clever way to keep them safe p74
Beat Microsoft’s new restrictions p35
NOV 2023
ISSUE 669 ❘ 25 OCT – 7

JUNK
Target the part
of your PC
every issue you ALWAYS
Learn something new in forget p38
Canning spam – page 49

NEVER PAY FOR

PC REPAIRS
14 FREE FIXES you thought
would always cost a fortune p50

1. Repair broken system files 8. Fix broken internet connection

2. Stop your apps crashing 9. Get your Wi-Fi working again
3. Undo Microsoft’s mistakes 10. Mend a dodgy network
4. Find undetectable drives 11. Make Windows update fully
5. Restore corrupted Recycle Bin 12. Reset vital Windows tools
6. Bring back the Start menu 13. Avoid antivirus failures
7. Prevent memory errors 14. Stop software being blocked

STAY ANONYMOUS ONLINE

PLUS
BEST FREE
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& KEYS page 62 Two you must use – one to avoid p24
WELCOME
EDITORIAL
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From the Editor
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Computeractive is available for licensing and syndication.
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Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 3

 Contents
25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669

6 News Google ditches passwords for

passkeys as default login

10 Question of the Fortnight Have Google’s

search results wrecked the internet?

11 Protect Your Tech

Rise in fake car ads online

12 Letters Passwords are dead, but be gentle

when explaining passkeys

14 Consumeractive
Can I get a refund for faulty ‘missold’ laptop?
p10
16 Grow Your Family Tree
Find divorce records for England & Wales Ad infinitum

18 Best Free Software

FastStone Image Viewer 7.8 Huawei MateBook
16s 2023
21 Named & Shamed
Recoverit’s bait-and-switch trickery
p22

Reviews
22 Huawei MateBook 16s 2023
Snappy laptop relieves Windows pain

23 Geekom Mini IT13

Powerful mini PC stands fast

24 The best VPNs – free & paid-for

We test the latest VPN services for
speed, safety and location options

26 NEC MultiSync E274FL Geekom Mini IT13

PC monitor fails to pass the resolution
p23
pxx
28 MSI Vigor GK50 Elite
Mechanical keyboard makes the
right switch
Anker Soundcore Space One
Noise-cancelling headphones are
clear winners

29 Fairphone 5
Sustainable phone goes the distance

30 Buy It/Competition Win a Toshiba 4TB

Canvio Basics external hard drive

4 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669

 Subscribe now!
See page 58 for our special subs offer

Workshops & Tips Snaps out of OneDrive

p35
35 
How to… Beat OneDrive’s new
photo storage restrictions

38 
Wipe more junk by targeting the
Recycle Bin

40 R
 eaders’ Tips
Search within books in Internet Archive

42 Browser Tips Recover lost favourites

and fill forms faster

44 Phone and Tablet Tips

Download maps to explore offline

46 Make Windows Better Redact

contact information using Snipping Tool

47 Make Office Better See calendar

NEVER PAY FOR
PC REPAIRS
entries and to-do tasks in the same view

48 In the Club
Take notes using Google Docs’ template

49 What’s All the Fuss About? 14 FREE FIXES you thought

Spam would always cost a fortune
50 COVER FEATURE 1. Repair broken system files 6. Bring back the Start menu
Never pay for PC repairs 7. Prevent memory errors CO
2. Stop your apps crashing
Avoid spending money to get your computer FEATVER
3. Undo Microsoft’s mistakes 8. Fix broken internet connection UR
fixed with our handy guide to DIY repairs P50 E
4. Find undetectable drives 9. Get your Wi-Fi working again
60 Windows Copilot: must-use tool or 5. Restore corrupted Recycle Bin 10. Mend a dodgy network
annoying gimmick?
We reveal whether Microsoft’s AI search tool
is worth the hype or just looking for trouble

62 Stop losing your devices

Locate lost or stolen phones, keys and other
items with built-in tools, trackers and tags
Windows Copilot:
64 Problems Solved Must-use tool
How do I see screensaver locations?
or annoying
71 Reader Support How do I export videos
from DaVinci Resolve? gimmick?
72 Jargon Buster

74 Easy When You Know How

p60
Robert Irvine hides his passwords in
audio files

Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 5

 News
Google ditches passwords
for passkeys as login option
G
oogle has made
passkeys the default
option for signing
into accounts, replacing
passwords.
Passkeys are methods of
logging in that require you to
WHAT WE THINK
Google is right when
it calls passkeys “a big
step forward”, but is also
correct to note that “new
technologies take time to
catch on”. We’ve all relied on
passwords for decades, so
we don’t blame people for
being unsure about passkeys.
But there’s no doubt they
are considerably safer than
passwords. Once you start
using them you’ll not want
to go back. We’ll explain
this momentous change in
more depth in our next Cover
Feature – out on Wednesday
8 November. You’ll learn
how to use them on all
your accounts and across all
your devices.
CHECK IF YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IS ON DARK WEB
Google has made it easier to
check whether your Gmail
address has been leaked on
the dark web for scammers
to buy.
Sign into the Google app on
your Android phone, then tap
your profile photo and you’ll
see the ‘Dark web report’
option (pictured).
You’ll like this…
O2 has increased the amount of mobile data
in its Big Bundles (www.snipca.com/47922)
6 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
The top stories in the world of technology
prove your identity in
ways other than by typing
a password. These include
biometric scanners that
read your fingerprint or
face, typing a code and
clicking a message sent
to you on another device
you own.
Tech companies are
increasingly offering
passkeys as options for
signing in, claiming
they’re much safer than
typing passwords because
hackers would need to
physically use your devices
to access your accounts.
Microsoft added
passkeys to Windows 11
with the release of the
Moment 4 update in
September, while Apple
introduced them in iOS
16, released last year, and
WhatsApp is planning to
add them soon.
Password managers
including 1Password and
Bitwarden (see page 11) have
also implemented passkeys.
Google said that another
Tap this and Google
will give you the option
of monitoring your Gmail
address across web
pages on the dark web.
To do this previously you
had to dive deeper into
Google’s settings.
The dark web is a
hard-to-reach part of the
www.snipca.com/47914).
The company said the
response from users has
been “really positive”, with
64 per cent finding passkeys
easier than passwords. It
claims also that signing in
with a passkey is 40-per-
cent faster than with a
password.
Google added that when
you next sign into your
account, you’ll see prompts
to create and use passkeys
(pictured), and that the
‘Skip password when
possible’ option will be
turned on in your Google
Account settings.
benefit of the technology is However, you’ll still be
“that they spare people the given the option to use
headache of remembering all passwords and “opt out” of
those numbers and special passkeys by turning off ‘Skip
characters in passwords” (see password when possible’.
Google launched passkeys
earlier this year, announcing
the move in a blog post titled
internet that you can ‘The beginning of the end of
access only by using the password’ (www.snipca.
specialised browsers. com/47915).
No web pages from To set up a Google passkey,
the dark web appear visit www.snipca.com/47917,
in Google’s search then click the blue ‘Get
results. passkeys’ button and follow
Google said it will the instructions.
add the option to
iPhones soon.
• Delete past 15 minutes of
on Chrome web history –
see page 8
but not this…
Hackers sent fake warning to Israeli citizens
of a nuclear attack (www.snipca.com/47921)
YouTube blocks ads if you
use Edge’s Strict mode
Y ouTube appears to be
blocking some Microsoft
1
Edge users from watching
videos if they have the
browser’s ‘Strict’ mode
switched on.
This mode limits the extent
to which companies can track
you across the web, so that the
adverts you see will be based
less on websites you visit and
products you search for.
Google, which owns
YouTube, makes most of its
money from online adverts.
Many of these have been
personalised to promote
products or services you’ve
shown an interest in.
Researchers at the website
Windows Latest found that
when YouTube detects an
Edge user has Strict switched
on, it shows a message titled
‘Ad blockers violate YouTube’s
Terms of Service’ ( 1 in our
screenshot).
It says that videos will
continue to be blocked unless
Microsoft axes support for
first version of Windows 11
M icrosoft has ended support
for the first version of
Windows 11, called 21H2 and
released in October 2021.
It confirmed this on its
‘Release health’ page for
Windows 11 (www.snipca.
com/47924), saying that the
October 2023 security update
(KB5031358, www.snipca.
com/47925) is the final one
for that version. It means that
21H2 will no longer receive
security fixes or new features.
On machines running 21H2
Microsoft will trigger an update
to version 22H2, which was
released in September 2022
and will receive updates until
October 2024 (www.snipca.
com/47926).
You can set this to install
2 3
you allow adverts on YouTube
either by ‘allowlisting’ – also
known as whitelisting – the
site, or disabling your
ad-blocker 2 .
The message ends with two
options: ‘Allow YouTube ads’
and ‘Try YouTube Premium’ 3 ,
which costs £12.99 a month
and removes adverts.
Throughout 2023 YouTube
has ramped up its efforts to
prevent users from watching
videos when it detects they
are blocking adverts.
However, it’s thought this is
the first time it has responded
to a browser’s ad-blocking
mode, rather than a third-
2 Northwestern University,
when you’re not using your
PC by setting ‘active hours’ in
Windows. Press Windows
key+I to open Settings, then
click Windows Update
followed by ‘Advanced options’.
Make sure the dropdown
menu is set to Manually ( 1 in
our screenshot), then choose
the start and end times 2 . Once
done, Windows won’t install
updates during these hours.
party ad-blocker like Adblock
Plus.
To switch from Strict mode,
type edge://settings/privacy
into Edge’s browser bar then
select Basic or Balanced.
Alternatively, turn off
Strict just for YouTube by
adding the site to Edge’s list
of exceptions. Click the
Exceptions section below the
Basic, Balanced and Strict
boxes, then ‘Add a site’ and
type YouTube’s URL. Click
‘Add’ to confirm.
For more on browsers that
don’t track you read Issue
668’s Cover Feature – buy it
from www.snipca.com/47923.
TOMORROW’S
WORLD
1 Illinois, say the software
The next major release,
version 23H2, is now
available to Insiders and is
expected to start rolling out
to everyone in November.
In September, Microsoft
released its Moment 4
update for 22H2 containing
over 150 new features,
including redacting text in
screenshots taken with
Snipping Tool (see page 46).
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 7
IN BRIEF
USE NEW SAMSUNG
TABLETS IN WATER
Samsung has released two
water-resistant Galaxy Tab
tablets that are cheaper
than the usual models.
The Tab S9 FE (pictured
below) has a 10.9in
2304x1440-pixel screen,
while the Tab S9 FE Plus
is larger at 12.4 inches and
2560x1600 resolution.
Prices start from £449 and
£599 respectively – see
www.snipca.com/47929.
GIFFGAFF NETWORK
LAUNCHES eSIM
Budget mobile network
Giffgaff has launched its first
eSIM, which is an electronic
alternative to a SIM card that
makes it easier to switch
networks. For the moment
it’s restricted to existing
Giffgaff users, though it
will be made available to
everyone “very soon”. For
details visit www.snipca.
com/47928.
This misshapen blob is what
AI software designed when
asked to create a robot
that walks. Researchers at
failed several times before
learning from its mistakes
– a process they’ve called
“instant evolution”. Watch
it move at www.snipca.
com/47910.
 News
IN BRIEF
CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO
REGENERATES ON iPLAYER
Episodes from the original
1963-1989 run of Doctor
Who will be available on the
iPlayer for the first time from
1 November.
They’re part of
the BBC’s 60th
anniversary
celebrations of
the show, which
also include a new online
archive of interviews, photos
and previously unheard
audio at www.bbc.co.uk/
doctorwho. Read more at
www.snipca.com/47877.
WATCH SONY FILMS
ON PLAYSTATION
Sony has launched its
movie-streaming service on
PlayStation 4 and 5 devices.
The service, previously called
Bravia Core when available
only on Bravia TVs and Xperia
phones, is now called Sony
Pictures Core. It contains over
2,000 films to rent or buy,
and will offer “early access”
to selected movies released
by Sony Pictures. Read more
at www.snipca.com/47874.
THE WORLD’S
GONE MAD!
There are loads of lovely
places in the UK for selfies,
so why did these two cyclists
take photos at the Calcot Mill
level crossing in Berkshire?
It’s not even an attractive
level crossing. Network Rail
released the footage to warn
of a rise in trespassers on
its Western route – watch at
www.snipca.com/47881.
8 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
Change Lycamobile password
after hackers access personal info
M obile network
Lycamobile has urged
users to change their
passwords after admitting
that hackers have accessed
“at least some of the personal
information held in our
systems”.
The attack started to cause
problems on 29 September,
as customers in the UK and
other countries complained
that the network was
unavailable.
Lycamobile, which uses
EE’s network to provide a
signal, said it became aware
of the attack a day later, and
took “immediate action” to
contain it, including shutting
down affected systems.
On 3 October it said it was
investigating whether any
customer data had been
accessed, before confirming
this was the case a few days
later. The company has since
contacted customers to advise
them to “be vigilant in case of
any suspicious activity”.
Delete past 15 mins of Chrome web history
G oogle will soon let you
delete the previous 15
minutes of your browsing
history in Chrome.
Currently, Chrome gives
you the options to erase the
past hour, 24 hours, seven
days and four weeks – or all
your history.
The 15-minute setting is
part of the Canary preview
version of Chrome
120 (www.snipca.
com/47882),
scheduled to be
released at the
end of November.
If you use the
Canary version,
you can activate the
feature by typing
It added that it will “take
some time” to work out what
data was stolen and how
many customers are affected.
Personal information that
Lycamobile can hold on
customers include name,
address, date of birth,
alternative contact number
and/or email address.
It can also hold proof of
identification that customers
sent when they signed up,
such as copies of passports,
and the last four digits of their
payment card – though the
full number is encrypted.
Lycamobile added that the
attack has also limited its
ability to provide porting
chrome://flags in the address
bar ( 1 in our screenshot),
then searching for Clear
Browsing Data Timeframe
Experiment on Desktop 2 .
When that appears, change
the dropdown menu to
Enabled 3 and relaunch
Chrome.
Once activated, press the
shortcut Ctrl+H then click
1
authorisation codes (PAC)
for customers looking to
move their number to
another network.
For more information
call its customer support
team by phoning 322, and to
make a formal complaint
about the lack of service
email complaints@
lycamobile.co.uk.
Lycamobile said it’s keeping
Ofcom and the Information
Commissioner’s Office up to
date about the investigation.
“While we hope to bring all of
our systems back online as
soon as possible, we are doing
so carefully to minimise any
further issues,” it added.
‘Clear browsing data’ on the
left side of your screen.
Earlier this year Google added
the 15-minute option to Chrome
in Android. To activate it, type
chrome://flags in the address
bar, press Enter, then search
for Enable quick delete.
Finally, tap the dropdown
menu below it, select Enabled
and relaunch Chrome.
2
3
Brits saved £325m in 10 years
using smart thermostats
B rits using smart
thermostats at home have
saved almost £325m on their
bills over the past 10 years,
according to Hive.
The UK company, which
like British Gas is owned by
Centrica, made the claim
to mark 10 years since it
released its first smart
thermostat.
Hive said this “industry
first” product helps customers
to “easily control their heating
from their phone, smart
watch or tablet”.
More than two million
people in the UK use Hive
thermostats. It said that
“extreme weather, working
HIVE SWITCHES OFF CAMERAS & ALARM
Hive has told customers
that three products
– the HomeShield
alarm system and both
the Hive View indoor
and outdoor cameras
– will stop working
on 1 August 2025 (see www.
Facebook ‘to start charging
to block adverts’
M eta is planning to
introduce a fee to let you
use Facebook and Instagram
without adverts, according to
sources from the company
who spoke to the Wall Street
Journal.
They said an advert-free
subscription to block ads on
your computer would cost
$17 (£13.90) a month within
the European Union.
It would be slightly cheaper
at $14 (£11.46) to block ads
when using Instagram on
your phone.
The move comes after Meta
from home and a desire
to be more sustainable
has seen customers
look for ways to
better manage
their energy use
and save money”
(see www.snipca.
com/47848).
It added that by
controlling their
energy use customers
have prevented one
million tons of carbon
from being released
into the atmosphere.
That’s enough carbon to
power 366,483 homes a
year, drive four million
miles and charge 380 billion
snipca.com/47849). It will
cancel all subscriptions
too. Hive’s terms and
conditions allow it to
axe devices as long as it
gives customers 30 days’
notice — see next issue’s
Consumeractive for your rights.
held talks with EU regulators
who are keen to limit how big
tech companies make money
from the data they collect
from users.
In July, the EU’s Court of
Justice ruled that Facebook
must gain the consent of users
to access their personal data.
Judges said it would have to
prove users willingly gave
permission, such as by
allowing them to pay for a
subscription to block adverts
that track online behaviour.
Meta may introduce a
subscription in the next few
smartphones, it claimed.
Hive said that 87 per cent
of Brits are worried about
climate change, but aren’t
sure how to make their
homes more sustainable.
It claims smart thermostats
help to clarify this by letting
people monitor how much
energy they use.
The company’s cheapest
thermostat is the Mini
(pictured), priced £139 from
www.snipca.com/47851.
weeks because it has until
the end of November to
comply with the ruling.
Many online services,
including Netflix and
YouTube, now offer paid-for
packages that remove adverts.
Elon Musk is thought to
be considering a similar
subscription in X (formerly
Twitter).
The report didn’t mention
whether Meta will implement
the plan in countries outside
the EU, such as the UK.
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 9
IN BRIEF
ROKU LAUNCHES NEW
BUDGET SMART TVs
Roku and JVC have released
a range of budget smart TVs
sold exclusively at Currys.
The cheapest, priced £170,
is the LT-24CR230 (www.
snipca.com/47840, pictured
below), which has a 24in
screen and HD resolution.
More expensive models
go up to 43 inches and a
resolution of Full HD. For
details visit www.snipca.
com/47839.
MICROSOFT SAYS TOR
‘NO LONGER MALWARE’
Microsoft Defender will no
longer identify Tor Browser
as malware, after a recent
spate of false-positive
results. Microsoft said that
the browser, which we
recommended in Issue 668
(buy from www.snipca.
com/47843), doesn’t fit its
“definitions of malware or
unwanted applications”. If
you still see the warnings,
follow the instructions to
remove them on the Tor
Browser forum: www.snipca.
com/47841.
SPOTIFY ADDS
150,000 AUDIOBOOKS
Spotify has added 150,000
audiobooks that Premium
subscribers can listen
to without paying more.
However, free listening
is restricted to 15 hours a
month, after which you’ll
have to pay £9.99 for an
extra 10 hours. You can
also download books to
play offline. Read more on
Spotify’s site: www.snipca.
com/47842.
 Questionof
Question ofthe
theFortnight
Fortnight
Have Google’s search results
wrecked the internet?
There are too many ‘clickbait’ adverts says former employee
S
earch for anything to
buy on Google and
the first several results
are usually ‘sponsored’ – or
adverts to you and me. Give it
a go and see what you get.
‘Holidays in Cornwall’ gave
us four sponsored results, as
did ‘hotels in Paris’ and ‘cars
for sale near me’.
Searching for tech is worse.
We typed ‘best laptops under
£800’ and got a scrollable row
of more than 30 products (see
screenshot). Google calls this
row a ‘carousel’ which is a
slyly charming description
for what is essentially a giant
digital billboard.
Google has always shown
adverts of course. About 80
per cent of its revenue comes
from ads, and most of that
from ads in its search results
Information people actually
want when they search Google
is buried below lots of guff
– $162bn in 2022. But many
people – tech experts and
everyday users alike – now
think there are simply too
many ads, and that they’re
having a bad effect on the
rest of the internet.
This view was powerfully
expressed recently by Mustafa
Suleyman, co-founder of the
British AI firm DeepMind that
Google bought in 2014. He told
the Telegraph that Google’s
business model of adverts,
adverts and more adverts had
“broken the internet”.
He said search results are
infested with “clickbait” to
10 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
keep people “addicted and
absorbed on the page as long
as possible”. Clickbait is the
term used to describe
sensationalist and deliberately
misleading headlines on the
web. They ‘bait’ you with
dramatic headlines, enticing
you to click almost without
thinking.
Suleyman, who left Google
in 2022, knows he’s being
provocative when he
compares adverts to clickbait.
Most ads on Google are
legitimate and from reputable
companies, and don’t intend
to mislead. But Suleyman
thinks the effect of too many
ads is as harmful to the
experience of browsing the
internet as clickbait headlines.
He says that the information
people actually want when
they search on Google is
“buried at the bottom of a lot
of verbiage and guff”, beneath
adverts. Other websites use
Google’s advertising software
to do the same, he says,
leading to a “spiral of decline”.
And if you think it’s bad
now, prepare for it to get even
worse. In August, some people
complained that they were
seeing five sponsored results
at the top of a search result
– one more than Google sets
as its limit (see www.snipca.
com/47938).
Google’s ad team responded
by saying “this is not working
as intended and we’re
working to address it”. But
what does that mean? Was it a
trial of five adverts that ended
up being shown to too many
people? Did it go live before it
was supposed to? Don’t be
surprised if this ‘mistake’
becomes reality next year.
Adverts might also be
THE FACTS
• AI pioneer and former
Google employee Mustafa
Suleyman said the firm’s
advertising business model
has created a “spiral of
decline” on the internet
• About 80 per cent of
Google’s revenue comes
from online adverts
• Both Brave and
DuckDuckGo have
options to show results
without adverts
coming to Google’s homepage
(www.google.com – or www.
google.co.uk in the UK). It’s
running a trial in India showing
news headlines, weather
forecasts, share prices and sports
scores below the search box (as
spotted by MSpoweruser.com
– see www.snipca.com/47940).
It doesn’t yet have any adverts,
but for how long can Google
resist that temptation?
For many users, the
solution is to switch to a
search engine that doesn’t
show any adverts. If you use
Brave Search (https://search.
brave.com) within Brave’s
browser (not Chrome), then
searching for ‘best laptops
under £800’ brings up
reviews of suitable devices,
not sponsored listings.
It’s the same in DuckDuckGo
(https://duckduckgo.com) if
you turn off ‘Advertisements’
in Settings.
Nobody expects Google to
give up adverts. But it might
learn the hard way that people
will only tolerate so much
before they give up Google.
Protect your tech
Scams and threats to avoid, plus new security tools
WATCH OUT FOR...
Rise in fake car adverts online
What’s the threat?
Car scams rose by 74 per cent in the first
six months of 2023 thanks to a wave of
fake adverts on social-media sites and
online marketplaces like Facebook and
Gumtree. Research from Lloyds Bank
found that victims lost £998 on average.
When a potential buyer responds to
an advert, the scammer asks them to pay
a deposit to “secure” the car, or even to
pay the full amount. If the buyer asks
whether they can view the car, the
scammer comes up with an excuse why
this isn’t possible.
Scammers will try to pressure the
victim into buying, using aggressive
tactics such as claiming the car is
extremely popular and they’re
considering several offers from other
people. If the victim agrees, they are
asked to send the money by a bank
transfer. The scammer then keeps the
money and removes their profile from
the site the car was advertised on.
New tools Bitwarden’s two-factor authentication
www.snipca.com/47804
Password manager Bitwarden
has added extra two-factor
authentication (2FA) login
methods for users on its free
package.
It now works with two of the
best biometric security systems:
Windows Hello, which lets you
log in using a code sent to your
phone, or by reading your face or
fingerprint; and Apple’s Touch ID,
which reads your fingerprint. You can
also sign in using a security key such
as a YubiKey USB device.
Previously these options were
available only in Bitwarden’s Premium
and Families plans, which cost $10
(£8.27) and $40 (£33.10) respectively
a year (see https://bitwarden.com/
pricing). The free version already
gave you the choice to use 2FA by
Lloyds’ analysis
showed that there
were more fake ads
for the Ford Fiesta
than any other car.
Audis and BMWs
were also common,
as were ads for
alloy wheels.
How can you
stay safe?
The golden rule is
to be suspicious if
the seller won’t let
you view the car.
There’s no harm in
asking for a live click the ‘Search by image’ icon (next
chat too – don’t be fobbed off with a to the microphone icon). Now drag
prerecorded video. the picture into the box and Google
Scammers often use the same photo in will show you where the image has
adverts, so perform a reverse-image search appeared elsewhere (see screenshot).
on Google. Download the photo in the ad, For more instructions visit www.
then visit https://images.google.com and snipca.com/47819.
ScamWatch
Readers warn readers
2 Fake Halifax website
I have a mortgage with Halifax, so I
paid close attention to an email
supposedly from them asking me to
refresh my contact details. It looked
genuine, so I clicked the link and was
1 taken to a website that featured the
Halifax logo and seemed authentic.
There are boxes to type your username
email ( 1 in our screenshot) or an and password into, but then I checked
authentication app such as Authy or the URL and noticed it contained
Google Authenticator 2 . See www. ‘hlfx-online’ - which I read online had
snipca.com/47807 for details. been registered in September - not
All these new options count as the real address of www.halifax.co.uk
‘passkeys’, which are methods of or www.halifax-online.co.uk. This was
signing into accounts other than by enough to make me think twice and
typing passwords, and are widely seen phone Halifax, who confirmed it was
as more secure. We’ll have more tips on a scam. A lucky escape.
how to use passkeys in our ‘Stop using Russell Grayson
passwords’ Cover Feature – out on Warn your fellow readers about scams
Wednesday 8 November. at letters@computeractive.co.uk
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 11
 Letters
Tell us what’s on your mind
Why we switched to
digital phone lines
I’m delighted that BT is pushing
ahead with the Digital Voice
rollout, and hope it doesn’t get deterred
by those who are scared of modernisation
(see Issue 668, page 8). The objection I’ve
read most often is how people won’t be
able to make phone calls during power
cuts, but everyone
seems to forget that
the current copper
network can also
stop working.
As a case in point,
my old business was
once without a phone
line for a week after a
digger helpfully cut
through the cable. I
remember my boss
saying afterwards
that he was going
to switch to a digital
line as a precaution. He made that move
seven years ago, so he’s well prepared for
the 2025 deadline.
In another incident about 20 years ago,
we lost our home landline for a few days
when our local exchange was flooded. At
that very point I decided to buy my first
mobile phone to avoid being cut off in
future. It’s interesting how disasters can
trigger a permanent change in behaviour.
Frank Ridley
Facebook is useful
for local news
I agree with Claire Henderson that
using Facebook to follow national
and international news is a waste of time
(Letters, Issue 668), but she shouldn’t
dismiss its importance in keeping
residents aware of local issues. I belong to
lots of community groups on Facebook,
and among the naff jokes and nostalgic
recollections are many nuggets of
information that people find useful.
Scrolling through the pages for the
past week, I can see warnings about
door-to-door scammers, updates on the
installation of fibre broadband, and
timetables of roadworks. That kind of
local information is more useful to many
people than reading about the bigger
international stories.
Helen Grayson
12 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
Don’t forget the limitations
of MiniDiscs
In Issue 668, MJ Pink laments the
passing of the MiniDisc without
mentioning the ridiculous limitations of
NetMD, a digital rights protection that
makes my still-functional player useless.
Perhaps they have a later version that
did away with it?
I bought one as a stable music player/
archive, not realising that copying music
tracks from PC to MiniDisc locks them in
to that specific setup. Change your PC
and – unbelievably – the player won’t let
you transfer back to a different PC!
Sony seemed unaware that we change
PCs to keep up with the demands of
evolving software. The result is that my
mint-condition MiniDisc player and a
pile of discs lie languishing in the junk
cupboard.
MiniDiscs are a brilliant invention, so
if any readers know of a way around this
security nonsense I would be thrilled to
give it a go!
Tom Borg
I put off Windows 11 upgrade
to wait for 12
Your analysis of why users are
sticking with
Windows 10 was spot on
(‘Question of the
Fortnight’, Issue 668,
pictured). I was all set to
upgrade to Windows 11
about three months ago,
but then I read rumours
What’s the Issue…?
When did you answer a
question from a reader
about whether they should install
Windows 11 on an incompatible PC?
Dave Matthews
CA SAYS That was in Issue 664,
page 66 - buy it from www.snipca.
com/47812.
I’m looking to buy a device to
boost my TV’s sound. Didn’t you
recommend some recently?
Richard Fairbrother
that Microsoft was already working on
Windows 12 ahead of a 2024 release. I
then decided to wait for 12 and stick with
Windows 10 for another year or so.
We see similar consumer behaviour
whenever companies or governments
ban the sale of certain products. Demand
for buying new versions of that product
plummets as people wait for the deadline
to arrive. Nobody wants to buy a dead
duck – or one that at best is on life
support.
Barry Freeman
Virgin customers
support group
I know exactly the frustration
Vince Higham faced when trying
to cancel his Virgin account (‘Leaving
Virgin was a catch-22 vision of
bureaucratic hell’, Issue 667).
We were driven to similar tears of
pain when we tried to cancel. It
sometimes took between days and even
weeks to summon up the mental energy
to talk to Virgin. We lost days of our
lives trying to get through security and
talking to someone who wouldn’t
deviate from their ‘script’.
Thankfully, after reading an article in
Computeractive, we took to
emailing Virgin’s CEO Lutz
Schüler (lutz.schueler@
virginmedia.co.uk). Things
started to move then. Virgin’s
help team started to call us, and
we even got compensation.
However, we still can’t access
?
CA SAYS Yes, you’ll
find it in one of our
features in Issue 656,
page 60. Buy it from www.snipca.
com/47813.
I want to switch to a virtual
phone network. When did you
suggest the best option?
Vicky Sumption
CA SAYS In Issue 632, page 60.
Read it on our 2022 Back Issue CD:
www.snipca.com/47814.

webmail on our phones and after four
weeks we’re still waiting for the promised
call back to sort it out.
Please pass on Mr Schüler’s email to
Vince. It might just help.
John Rew
My sympathy goes out to Vince
Higham. I’ve been a Virgin
customer for 12 years, but it took me 40
emails to get the right replacement for
my router box (three wrong ones were
sent to me over a couple of weeks). I
conceded defeat and cancelled my
contract after receiving an email saying
“You will not be able to reply to this email
as it will not be received or actioned”.
My advice is don’t waste time
cancelling through a phone call. After
using their web form to clearly state
you are terminating your contract and
when you want the 30 days’ notice to
commence, send a recorded delivery
letter to Virgin Media, Sunderland, SR43
4AA as confirmation. This method will
give you proof of delivery and save you
an afternoon of frustration being
transferred from pillar to post.
I replaced Virgin broadband and TV
with a new provider and a Humax PVR
and the only significant difference I’ve
found is that I’m now saving almost
£50 a month.
Paul Denyer
CA SAYS We’ve had many letters recently
from readers frustrated by their Virgin
Media service – particularly how hard it
is to cancel. For another example, read
Colin Parry’s case in Consumeractive
(page 15). One approach that does seem
to work is emailing Lutz Schüler, as John
advises above. So if speaking to Virgin’s
customer service leaves you exasperated,
go straight to the top instead.
Charged £4k to have
fibre installed
On the subject of fibre-to-the-
premises broadband, my telephone
company and my internet provider have
both told me my home is fibre ready. But
one slight hitch is that while all our
neighbours have had it installed for free,
we’ve been asked to pay nearly £4,000 to
have the fibre ducted to our property.
The distance is 125 metres.
The reason is that an 11,000-volt line
crosses the route to our home, preventing
the fibre cable from using the existing
poles. I’ve suggested installing two poles
Views expressed don’t necessarily reflect those of Computeractive
Facebook: www.facebook.com/computeractive
STAR LETTER
Passwords are dead, but be gentle
when explaining passkeys
I thought I would hate the
idea of passkeys. I’ve had
a reliable password strategy ever
since my first computer, and it’s
allowed me to keep updating
my logins over the past 30 years.
But I knew that I was just
delaying the inevitable and
eventually I’d need to switch to
passkeys. And I’m glad I did.
I made the leap about six
months ago. I use a combination of
Apple’s Touch ID (pictured) and several
authentication apps. I’ve not had to
remember a single password in that
time, nor delve into my password
manager. Signing in by tapping a
message on my phone is not the hassle
I imagined it would be.
I’m looking forward to your
forthcoming feature on passkeys, but I
urge you not to be too radical in your
advice. People understand the concept
of passwords because they predate
computers, but passkeys are still alien
to many people.
The Star Letter writer wins a Computeractive mug!
either side of the safety zone
beneath the high-voltage line
with a short length of ducting
between them, but the phone
company seems reluctant to
do that. I’ve read that using
poles is much cheaper than ducting, so
why can’t it be done? Has anyone else
had this problem?
Alwyn Davies
Once, twice, three times
a fibre rollout
We live in a private development of
14 houses, developed less than 30
years ago. A few years back Gigaclear put
in fibre broadband to just outside the
main gate, then to individual plots for
each house within the enclosed grounds,
and then to some individual houses who
signed up to a contract.
The fibres ran into and then through an
old junction box under the lawn outside
Email: letters@computeractive.co.uk
(formerly Twitter): @ComputerActive
www.twitter.com/computeractive
Part of the problem is the
word itself – an unsatisfactory
combination of ‘password’ and
‘key’. Another obstacle is that
passkeys come in so many
varieties. It’s hard to explain
that methods as different as
fingerprints and receiving a
two-factor code can both
be classified as passkeys.
I have no doubt that in five
years’ time most users will prefer
passkeys to passwords. But you need
to be gentle with people who regard it
as one change too many.
Gareth Widdicombe
CA SAYS Gareth’s right that passkeys
will replace passwords as the main
method of signing into accounts, but
such a change needs to be explained
carefully to people so it doesn’t scare
them off. We’ll do exactly that in our
‘Stop using passwords’ Cover
Feature – out Wednesday
8 November.
my house. This week Openreach
came to install separate new
fibre to the site, and explained
they were obliged to find a fresh
old junction box because
although their new fibre will
pass through the original box, they can’t
use it as it’s already full of cables from
Gigaclear and another previous provider.
This means that three companies have
installed separate sets of fibre cables for a
site of 14 houses, and probably for large
chunks of the town.
Apparently, anyone is allowed to use
Openreach fibres, but other fibres are
limited to use by particular associated
companies on contracts. So if Openreach
had come first, or had subcontracted the
other fibre installers, there would be
only one set of fibres. How bad was the
planning of this rollout, to triplicate the
efforts and costs?
Carol Minter
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 13
 Consumeractive
We stand up for your legal rights
Can I get a refund for
faulty ‘missold’ laptop?
In April, I bought a Lenovo
Q IdeaPad gaming laptop (pictured)
for my son from Argos for £600
(now £700, see www.snipca.com/47815),
but we’ve had problems with it from the
start. The battery is faulty and there’s
insufficient memory to download
multiple games, so it shouldn’t have been
advertised as a gaming computer. I
returned it in September, but Argos has
refused to refund me because the
laptop’s specifications were clearly stated
on its website. Can I insist on a refund?
Julie Orton
No, Julie can’t demand a refund
A because more than 30 days have
passed since purchase. Argos is
allowed to attempt a repair or replace the
laptop, though it can only do this once. If
either a repair or replacement fails, and
Argos agrees that the fault is inherent,
then it must refund Julie.
However, we’re not sure Julie has a case
that the laptop shouldn’t have been
marketed as a gaming device. It’s true
that higher-end gaming laptops, which
start at around £1,500, are faster and
have more memory. But in our view the
laptop’s specifications – which include an
CASE UPDATE
Virgin Media cuts reader’s bill in half after 40% rise
We’re delighted that reader
Peter Roberts has renegotiated
his broadband contract with
Virgin Media so that he now
pays £28 a month – half of what the
company was charging him.
As we explained in Issue 668, Peter
signed a contract with Virgin that included
a 13.8-per-cent increase in April, taking
his bill to £33.60 a month. Virgin then
unexpectedly increased his bill by a further
40 per cent to £56.
14 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
LEAD
CASE
Nvidia GeForce GTX 16 Series graphics
card, 4GB of RAM and a 3.2GHz
processor – are advanced enough to
justify Argos labelling it as a gaming
device, albeit at the lower end of the scale.
That said, Argos has kept Julie waiting
too long for a resolution. Three weeks after
she sent the laptop for inspection, Argos
still hadn’t examined the battery. And
over four weeks later, she’s still waiting
for an answer. The Consumer Rights Act
says any inspection and repair must be
carried out within a reasonable time –
typically around 30 days. We’ll ask Argos
why it’s taking so long.
CASE ONGOING
Peter said this increase
wasn’t in his contract, so
asked us whether he could
cancel without paying an
early-termination fee. We
told him he could because
the rise was above the
rate of inflation. To qualify,
he had to cancel within 30 days of being
informed about the rise.
We advised Peter that if this deadline had
passed and Virgin refused to negotiate, he
Can Samsung
refuse to honour
its warranty?
In November 2022, I bought
Q a Samsung watch for my
daughter, who’s a swimming
instructor. It’s advertised as being suitable
for swimming and water-resistant up to
50 metres depth. It’s now faulty, but
Samsung said water damage isn’t covered
by its guarantee. The watch cost me £190,
but Samsung wants to charge £250 to
repair it. What are my legal rights?
Alan Bewlex
Since first contacting us
A Amazon has agreed to refund
Alan in full, so he doesn’t need
to worry about paying for Samsung’s
repair. This is a bigger refund than we
were expecting because after six months
retailers are allowed to deduct money
from refunds to reflect how long a
product has already been used.
But we want to ask Samsung why a
watch described as water-resistant to 50
metres couldn’t survive a few months
being used in the shallow waters of a
swimming pool. The company may claim
that Alan’s daughter damaged it, but if
there’s an inherent fault then the watch is
clearly not fit for purpose and needs to be
examined thoroughly.
CASE ONGOING
could have asked the
company for a deadlock
letter laying out his
complaint and what it
has done to try to resolve
it (see also Colin Parry’s
case opposite).
Happily, he didn’t need
to do this because Virgin was keen to keep
him as a customer. He’s now paying even
less than he was when he signed up initially,
before April’s price rise.

Can Amazon make me wait for refunds?
I’ve been waiting 10 days for
Q Royal Mail to deliver two parcels.
Both are from different Amazon
sellers. Amazon says one has been
delivered, but Royal Mail tells me I must
pick it up. The other remains ‘out for
delivery’. Amazon won’t deal with the
problem until the parcels have been
missing for longer. Can it do this?
Fiona Markum
Yes it can, based on three legal
A points. First, unless you’ve paid
extra for faster delivery or agreed
a certain date with the seller, retailers
Should I stop
paying my ISP
if I can’t cancel?
I want to cancel my Virgin
Q Media contract because it’s
ending, but I’m finding it
impossible to let Virgin know. I’ve
tried by chatbot, email and phone, but I
can never get through to the right
department. Can I stop the payments
when my contract ends because I’ve not
been able to give them a month’s notice?
Colin Parry
CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE
HP technician fixed my printer-software problem
I’ve long been a fan
of HP printers. What I
really like about them
is that installing the
software and drivers has been easy.
However, I had serious problems
with the HP Officejet Pro 9010e (pictured)
when I bought it in the summer. I spent a
maddening three hours trying to get the
printer to connect with my PC. I didn’t know
what was to blame, so more in hope than
expectation I phoned HP.
Contact us so we can investigate your case
Email: consumeractive@computeractive.co.uk
Please include your name, phone number and address.
have up to 30 days to deliver goods bought
online. Also, Amazon Prime’s next-day
‘promise’ does have legal caveats that
create loopholes allowing for late deliveries.
Second, only the seller has a contract
with the courier. Fiona doesn’t have to
A
That’s an interesting
question. We
wouldn’t usually
recommend cancelling your
payments because internet
service providers are quick to
call in debt collectors. But because Colin
has been unable to contact Virgin to give
it 30 days’ notice – and has evidence to
show this – then the company may not
get too far if it tried arguing he had
breached his contract.
Given that Colin has failed to get hold
of Virgin, his best bet is to contact the
company’s ombudsman: www.snipca.
com/47811 (pictured). If Colin had only
To my surprise I was put through
to a technician straight away. He
was friendly and sympathetic,
especially after he also failed to
connect the printer to my PC (I gave
him remote access).
He then had a brainwave and asked me
whether I used a VPN. I said yes. He asked
me to temporarily disable this, and also turn
Has a company impressed you with its
customer service? Please let us know:
editor@computeractive.co.uk
collect the delivery from Royal Mail –
it’s up to the seller to deal with it. She
can, therefore, cancel her order and
claim a refund.
Third, unless Amazon is itself the
seller or has a fulfilment agreement with
the seller, it’s not directly responsible
for processing refunds. However, it will
offer redress if your claim meets the
criteria set out by its A-z Guarantee
(www.snipca.com/47816). This is
probably why Fiona is being asked to wait
to claim under this protection. If Amazon
denies her claim she can take it to the
small claims court.
CASE CLOSED
just started having problems
with Virgin, we would have
suggested asking the company
for a deadlock letter to explain
what it’s doing to address his
complaint. However, it can take
up to eight weeks for companies to respond,
and Colin deserves a resolution sooner.
Another option is to contact Virgin
Media’s CEO Lutz Schüler: lutz.schueler@
virginmedia.co.uk. Going straight to the
top often kickstarts a company into
action. Search for contact details for other
CEOs at www.ceoemail.com. In the
meantime, we’ll put pressure on Virgin to
deal with his case.
CASE CLOSED
off my antivirus. Once I did this the software
installed without a hitch. He even arranged
for a colleague to ring me a week later to
check everything was still working.
Neal McPherson
Contact
HP
• Online www.snipca.com/47817
• Phone 0207 660 3858
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 15
 Grow Your
Family Tree
If you think your married ancestors separated,
follow Judith Batchelor’s advice to…
Find divorce records for England & Wales
B
etween the 1660s and 1857 only
around 300 legal divorces were
granted in the UK. For most people
it was too difficult and too expensive –
indeed, it required an Act of Parliament.
In 1857, the Matrimonial Causes Act
opened up divorce to many more couples.
A husband only needed to prove that his
wife had committed adultery, but a wife
had to prove that her husband’s adultery
had been compounded by an aggravating
offence, such as cruelty, or desertion for
two years.
It wasn’t until 1923 that the law was
amended to allow wives to divorce their
husbands on the grounds of adultery
alone. With the extension of legal aid
and the provision of local
court facilities, the number
of divorce cases rose
substantially after this date.
Search Ancestry
You’ll find many divorce
records from 1858 to 1918 on
Your Genealogy Problems Solved
Can you help me trace Leslie Wilson,
one of my second cousins once removed?
He was born in February 1912 in
Monmouthshire and moved to Canada
aged 16. He married, but returned to
Wales in 1933. He might have returned to
Canada in 1939 to serve in the military,
possibly the British Army.
Helen Hare
Leslie may have stayed in Monmouthshire,
as the Gwent Electoral Registers (www.
snipca.com/47780) show him living there
in 1945.
16 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
Judith found that her ancestor
Fanny Basing petitioned for divorce
from her husband in 1883
Ancestry at www.snipca.
com/47818, though they
cover England and Wales only.
Neither Irish or Scottish records
are available online.
When you search Ancestry,
choose the names of either
party, and add the year of
the divorce if you know it. Alternatively,
you can browse the records by year. The
search-results page will reveal which
spouse petitioned for divorce.
Information contained in the file varies,
but it will usually include a short history
of the marriage, copies of
relevant marriage and birth
certificates, and the grounds
for the divorce, with associated
names, places and events
mentioned.
The divorce records alleged
that William had been seen
“with some woman whose
name is unknown” in London’s
Tottenham Court Road
There’s also the death of a Leslie
Wilson, aged 50, registered in the
September Quarter of 1963 in Conway.
You could order a copy of the death
certificate from the General Register
Office (GRO): www.snipca.com/47781.
Helpfully, from 1966 the date of birth of
the deceased is given in the GRO death
indexes. Leslie’s birth certificate will
record this information, so this could also
be worth buying.
Have a genealogy question for Judith?
Email letters@computeractive.co.uk with
‘Grow Your Family Tree’ in the subject line.
Next issue: Find secret and irregular marriages
I searched for an ancestor called Fanny
Basing, and found that she petitioned for
divorce from William Basing in 1883 (see
screenshot above). She accused William
of adultery and desertion without
reasonable excuse for two years and
more. Although William had denied all
the charges, the evidence was apparently
convincing and Fanny was granted a
decree absolute the following year.
Clicking ‘View Record’ brought up
several documents, including one alleging
that William had been seen “with some
woman whose name is unknown” in
London’s Tottenham Court Road (see
screenshot left).
Visit Kew and search
newspapers
Unfortunately, there are no online records
for divorces that took place after 1918.
Instead, you have to search the case files
in series J77 (indexes in J78) at the
National Archives in Kew. For the period
1928 to 1937, only around 80 per cent of
divorce files have survived. Since 1937,
divorce records have been destroyed 20
years after the divorce, though you can
apply to see them before this deadline
(see www.snipca.com/47827).
However, newspapers can often be an
alternative source of information,
containing salacious accounts of marital
break-up. Search newspaper archives
(www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk,
www.newspapers.com) and Findmypast:
www.snipca.com/47825.
 Best Free Software
Robert Irvine recommends new programs that won’t cost you a thing
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FastStone Image Viewer 7.8

www.snipca.com/47880
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11

FastStone Image Viewer is one of our favourite free tools for
browsing photos on your PC, with lots of useful features and
support for a wide range of image formats. This latest version
expands that list to include the AVIF format (which offers
higher compression rates than JPEG) and adds new options
that make the program even easier to use.
One of the most notable changes is the addition of a ‘Search
by Name’ box to the toolbar that appears above FastStone Image
Viewer’s thumbnail browser (which shows all the images
stored in the selected folder). This helps you quickly find a
picture or video by typing a few letters of the file name, rather
than sorting items by name to locate it alphabetically.
Equally useful is the introduction of drag-and-drop
functionality to the program’s viewing panel. Instead of
clicking File then Open to display a photo in the viewing
area, you can now simply drag and drop it from a folder
in File Explorer, or an external drive such as a USB stick.
The file will then open in the viewer,
where you can zoom in, make adjustments
and apply effects.
Two new options – Shadows and Highlights – have
been added to the batch-conversion tool that lets you
edit multiple images in one go. Tick the Use Advanced
Options box in the Batch Image Convert window, then
click the Advanced Options button that appears. Select
‘Adjust Brightness…’ on the Adjustments tab then click the
‘Design and Preview’ button and use the new Shadows and
Highlights sliders to specify the intensity of those filters.
FastStone Image Viewer has also improved its Draw Board
feature for annotating pictures. You can now apply shadows
and outlines to text, flip and rotate image objects, and even
insert emojis where appropriate. With so many handy
features beyond mere image viewing, the program may soon
have to change its name.

2
4

1 FastStone Image Viewer’s
new ‘Search by Name’
box makes it easier to find
images and videos in the
currently selected folder by
typing a few letters of their
file name. You can also filter
pictures by date, size, type
and other criteria.
2 The program’s Effects menu
lets you add a watermark
to your pictures before
you share them, surround
images with a border or
frame, and apply creative
effects such as Oil Painting.
You can also blur sensitive
details.
3 To convert or edit multiple
images in one go, hold
down Ctrl and left-click
them in the thumbnail
browser. Right-click and
choose Batch Convert in the
Tools menu, then tick Use
Advanced Options to select
your preferences.
4 Switch between FastStone
Image Viewer’s thumbnail
browser and different
viewing-panel layouts using
the options in the top-right
corner. As we explain above,
you can now drag and drop
images directly into the
viewer.

18 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669

HARDWARE MONITOR
SHOULD I PAY FOR…?
HWiNFO 7.64 Choose the right version of software
www.snipca.com/47884
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11
Snagit 2024
This powerful free tool for www.snipca.com/47887
monitoring the hardware Price: £60.92 Free trial period: 15 days
inside your computer has What you need: Windows 10 or 11, or macOS
been updated to provide
even more information. Snagit was one of the first tools for taking screenshots,
HWiNFO now includes dating all the way back to 1990. Over the years, it’s added
Intel’s PresentMon plenty of features, but has also significantly increased in
technology (see price and no longer offers a free version.
screenshot), which With a download size of over 510MB and a slow
measures the frame rate installation process, Snagit 2024 feels bloated from the
and power usage of your off, and you need to register with developer TechSmith
graphics card, and is particularly useful for gamers who just for the 15-day free trial. The screen-capture element
require optimum performance from their machines. It also of the program is quite simple, with one-click options
offers improved monitoring of the fan speed in Asus laptops for capturing images and videos, but we found the Snagit
and the sensors in MSI motherboards. The Sensor column Editor annoying.
has been expanded so you can view the full name of each This keeps displaying pop-up messages asking how
component. Additionally, the developer has fixed a bug that you intend to
could cause the program to crash on CPUs with more than 64 use Snagit,
cores. HWiNFO’s long list of technical data can seem which are
intimidating at first, but hovering your cursor over a section supposed
title or entry displays a pop-up explanation of what it means. to help you
get started
STORAGE CHECKER but actually
prevent you
ValiDrive 1.1 from doing so.
www.snipca.com/47886 The new Quick
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11 Styles sidebar
which invites
‘Fake’ USB sticks, you to choose
which don’t offer a theme for recording instructional videos – complete
anywhere near as with colourful arrows, shapes and speech bubbles – is
much storage as they irrelevant for other tasks, though you can hide it if it proves
claim, have flooded distracting.
online marketplaces Snagit’s many tools are organised into logical menus,
such as Amazon and including Share (see screenshot), which lets you export
eBay. These devices your screen captures to various online services. We also
typically have like that it displays your recent screen grabs along the
capacities of 64GB bottom of the main window and gives you the option to
rather than the one combine captured images into one video.
or two terabytes they promise, which means any files you save However, Snagit offers few tools you won’t find in the free
above that amount will not be stored. ValiDrive exposes open-source program ShareX (www.snipca.com/47888),
fraudulent USB drives by performing a quick check of the which – like Snagit – also now lets you record audio.
device’s declared storage space, and verifying whether it can
successfully store data in every sector. Validated sectors are OUR VERDICT: Don’t pay for it
shown as green blocks (see screenshot), while those with no Snagit seems unsure whether it’s aimed at screen-capture
storage are indicated in red. The tool can also detect read and beginners (as its excessive hand-holding implies) or
write access errors, in case your memory stick has become business professionals (as suggested by its steep price).
corrupted – or already was when you bought it. The developer Save your money by installing ShareX or PicPick (www.
tested ValiDrive on 12 USB drives from Amazon, and found snipca.com/47889) instead.
they were all well under the stated capacity.

Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 19

 Best Free Software

What should I download?

We advise you which software and apps to use
What’s the best Bookari
How can I convert alternative?
and send large PDFs? Q
For years I’ve used
the reading app
I need to find a way to convert four PDF files Bookari (www.
Q containing 3,500 pages into Word documents.
Can you help? Also, I have to send them to a
bookari.com) on my
Android tablet. But it’s
charity, but they’re too large to email. What should I do? been removed from the
CC Callaghan Google Play Store, and
now I can’t find the APK
PDF Conversa (www.snipca.com/47680, pictured) from its website. How can
A was designed to fulfil the first half of your job,
converting PDFs to Word documents or RTF
I find the Bookari APK which works on Android 10 and later?
And what’s the best alternative?
files. We tested it with a complex PDF containing tables, Richard Senior
graphics, text and photos, and the conversion was close to
flawless. It preserved colours, images stayed in the correct The Dropbox link that Bookari advertises to download
position, and we were able to select, copy and edit text.
It costs $20 (£16.33), but you can download it for a free
A the APK goes to a ‘Page not found’ message, as you’ve
no doubt discovered. We wouldn’t recommend
14-day trial. downloading from unofficial sources, so instead try AiReader
There are also free PDF-to-Word converters online, which (www.snipca.com/47681), which opens both EPUB and
don’t require downloads or installers. Adobe, which invented Mobipocket files without DRM, as well as Word, HTML and RTF
the PDF format and makes Acrobat Reader, has its own formats. There are page-turn effects if you swipe (pictured),
converter at www.snipca.com/47799. The company also though you can also use your volume controls to move forwards
offers companion services converting PDF to Excel (www. and backwards through your book.
snipca.com/47800), and PowerPoint (www.snipca.com/47801).
For security reasons, your original file and the converted
document will be deleted once you’ve downloaded them, How can I back up from
unless you sign in to save it.
When it comes to sharing the files with your charity
Samsung to Windows?
contacts, the simplest solution would be to upload them to For some reason,
an online-storage service. Sign up for a free 10GB account
with Switzerland-based pCloud (www.pcloud.com), where
Q Samsung Smart
Switch (www.snipca.
your data will be protected by strict Swiss privacy laws. com/47326) no longer backs
up my devices (an S22 phone
and S6 tablet) to my two
Windows 11 laptops. Can you
suggest a quality alternative?
Vic Storey

A free solution is to
A back up your devices to your Google Account using
Samsung’s instructions (www.snipca.com/47683, see
screenshot). You could then download the archive from Google
Drive to your computer via your browser. If you prefer to use
software, try MobiKin Backup Manager for Android (www.
snipca.com/47684). You’ll need to enable USB debugging on
your devices, as MobiKin explains when you install it. At the
time of writing, Backup Manager costs $19.95 (£16.29) rather
than the usual $39.95, but it offers a free trial so you can make
sure it does what you need.

20 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669 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!
Recoverit’s bait-and-switch trickery
W
e warned about
Wondershare
Recoverit (https://
recoverit.wondershare.net)
back in Issue 596’s Cover Feature on
software you should never install. It may
find lost or corrupted photos and videos,
we said, but it also prompts you to pay
for an upgrade before you can actually
recover anything. This is the kind of
bait-and-switch trick that drives users
mad.
I knew about its reputation, but was
prepared to give it another chance
because I had lost some family photos
and needed a program to recover them.
I still expected it to ask for payment at
some point, but would I be able to
recover at least some pics before that
happened?
Things started badly when Chrome
blocked the Recoverit installer for being
potentially dangerous. I thought this was
Chrome being over-cautious, but then
Windows Firewall told me it had blocked
Recoverit from showing pop-up messages
while you aren’t using the program.
WHAT ARE THEY
TALKING ABOUT?
WHAT THEY SAY
Microsoft
www.snipca.com/47834
“We’re all about personalization, and the
Surface Laptop Go 3 totally gets us. Colours,
my friend, colours do the trick! Sandstone
(pictured) is our jam – it’s got that warm,
neutral tone with a slick finish, and a
favourite for so many customers. And if
you want to keep it cool and refreshing,
Ice Blue is a great choice or Sage and
Platinum if you’re feeling fancy!”
WHAT THEY MEAN
We called it sandstone because who’s
going to pay £800 for a ‘beige’ laptop?
1
2 1
Recoverit took Keumars straight to the ‘upgrade
now’ page then showed him an irrelevant advert
Then, before I’d even had a chance to
use it, Recoverit opened a new web page
in Chrome urging me to upgrade to one
of several premium plans ( 1 in our
screenshot above). And, right on cue, an
advert popped up offering to “fit your
products into saleable backgrounds with
AI” 2 . I had no idea what company it was,
but it’s going to need a snappier slogan.
Recoverit’s ‘deep scan’ of my laptop
lasted 80 minutes and found 550,903
files, amounting to an implausible
230.72GB ( 1 in our screenshot above
right). There’s no way I’ve got even a
KEUMARS’ VILLAIN OF THE FORTNIGHT
Kye Hughes
Romance scammers love
their delusional get-rich-
quick schemes. Khalid
Mahmood, last issue’s villain,
conned women into joining a
gold trading club. This time
we have Kye Hughes, who
told a woman he met online
that he made fortunes
buying luxury watches at trade
prices, then selling them at higher
retail prices, pocketing the profit.
Over three years she gave him
£175,000 to invest. Hughes, 34, from
2
Recoverit somehow found over 550,000 files
on Keumars’ laptop
fiftieth of that many files, so something
smelled fishier than Captain Birdseye’s
daily catch. I clicked the Recover button
and was told to act “ASAP to prevent the
files from being overwritten” 2 . Clicking
OK triggered a pop-up showing three
paid-for options, but no free one.
I took Recoverit’s advice and acted
“ASAP”. I uninstalled it and instead tried
PhotoRec (www.snipca.com/47017).
It’s free and despite its name also finds
videos and documents. It located my pics
in the first attempt – without payment,
fuss or pop-ups.
Rochester, Kent,
vowed to double her money.
She saw none of it again,
and reported Hughes to the
police when he threatened to
send heavies to her house for
more cash.
In October, he pleaded
guilty to fraud by false
representation and money
laundering, and was jailed for three
Credit: Kent Police
years and four months. Hopefully, his
knowledge of luxury watches will
help him do the time.
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 21
 Reviews
New products tested by our experts New products tested by our experts
LAPTOP | £1,100 from Huawei www.snipca.com/47772
Huawei MateBook 16s 2023
Smashes Windows
We’ve reviewed models in Huawei’s
MateBook range before and we’ve usually
been pretty impressed by the level of
performance and features at an affordable
price. This latest model is no different.
It has a 16in IPS screen, where we
might prefer to see an OLED model. That
was the case in the Acer Swift Edge 16
(£1,299 from www.snipca.com/47480,
reviewed in Issue 667), which was our
favourite laptop until this model showed
up. It slices nearly £200 off the Edge’s
price and we think it’s made all the right
compromises to get there.
Our new favourite
laptop runs Windows
faster than any model
we’ve ever reviewed
Typically, Huawei has struck a sensible
balance with the IPS screen, which is
actually at the top end of what we’d expect
from this technology and is capable of
reproducing 95 per cent of the sRGB
colour standard. It has a 2520x1680-pixel
resolution, so looks sharp despite its
16in expanse, and its peak brightness
level of 500cd/m2 means you can see
everything on screen in a brightly lit
environment.
The screen is glossy, but its anti-glare
coating meant we didn’t find our
overhead lights to be a problem during
testing. It’s a touchscreen, which is
always a handy option.
Having such a large screen has obvious
benefits for those who use their laptops
22 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
to watch TV, so it was a relief to hear the
high-quality audio from the built-in
speakers. Don’t expect high fidelity, but
there’s enough bass to make film effects
sound suitably immersive.
However, the real reason this laptop
has taken the Swift Edge 16’s crown is the
boost in Windows performance it gets
from its components. It’s powered by
Intel’s Core i9-13900H chip, whose 14
cores keep even complex software
running at a decent pace. In multi-core
benchmark tests it provides an extra 10
per cent of power over the Edge, which is
a noticeable upgrade.
It didn’t perform quite as well in our
gaming tests. Here the MateBook is
around 30 per cent slower, showing that
the Acer’s AMD processor is a better
option for running more demanding
games than the Intel on the Huawei.
If gaming is more important than
Windows performance, we’d recommend
sticking with the Edge, particularly as it
also offers an OLED screen.
The MateBook has a better battery life,
however, no doubt thanks to its less
demanding screen and less resource-
SPECIFICATIONS
14-core Intel Core i9-13900H processor • 16GB of
memory • Intel Iris Xe graphics • 16in 2520x1680-
pixel IPS screen • 1TB SSD • 1080p webcam •
Wi-Fi 6E • Bluetooth 5.2 • 2x USB-C ports • 2x
USB 3.0 ports • 1x HDMI port • Windows 11 Home
• 17.8x351x255mm (HxWxD) • 2kg • One-year
warranty www.snipca.com/47772
hungry graphics components. In our
tests this ran office software for nearly
12 hours, compared with the Edge’s seven
hours.
That said, Huawei could have been
more generous with its port selection. It’s
good to see two USB-C, an HDMI and two
USB 3.0 ports. However, a microSD card
slot would have been helpful, and only
one of the USB-C ports supports the
Thunderbolt 4 standard, with its 40Gbps
data-transfer speeds. The other peaks at
5Gbps so is no faster than the USB 3.0
ports. There’s no Ethernet socket, but
Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 are both
present and correct.
VERDICT The first Intel Core i9 laptop
we’ve tested runs Windows faster than
any model we’ve seen before
★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE Acer Swift Edge 16
£1,299 It’s more expensive, but is better
at running games and has a glorious
16in OLED screen

MINI PC | £699 from Geekom www.snipca.com/47789
Geekom Mini IT13
By small means
Although people tend to use
mini PCs, such as this new
model from Geekom, as
alternatives to desktop PCs,
they often have laptop
components, which is how
their manufacturers manage to cram
everything into such small cases. This is
certainly true of the Mini IT13, which
uses the same Intel Core i9-13900H
processor as the brilliant Huawei
MateBook 16s, reviewed left.
With its phenomenal
specs it runs Windows
like a dream, which
makes it our new
favourite mini PC
Its quite phenomenal specifications
don’t end there. It also comes with 32GB
of RAM and a generous 2TB SSD. It has
Wi-Fi 6E, a plethora of ports and
Windows 11 Pro installed – to buy the
model click the ‘i9-13900H’ button under
‘Size’ at the link above. All of which
makes it our new mini PC of choice.
Our benchmark tests also confirmed
that it has power to burn. Compared
with our previous favourite mini PC,
the Beelink SER6 Pro 7753HS (£699 from
www.snipca.com/46416, reviewed in
Issue 661), its raw processing power is
over 50 per cent faster in single-core
activities (for example, office tasks,
email, web browsing) and 20 per cent
faster in multi-core activities (image and
video editing). That makes everyday
Windows work simply fly by.
Where the Mini IT13’s i9 chip can’t
keep up is in gaming. In tests, the SER6
Pro ran its graphics around 40 per cent
faster than the Iris Xe graphics hardware
in the Mini IT13.
In general Windows work you’re unlikely
to notice this difference, and for the
average non-gamer, the Geekom Mini
IT13 works like a dream. However, if you’re
looking for something to run, say,
Microsoft Flight Simulator at high graphical
settings, the SER6 Pro is a better bet.
It’s worth pointing out here that a
desktop PC with a separate graphics card
to take most of the strain away from the
main processor will always be a better
(albeit more expensive) option for gamers
who don’t want to compromise.
As we mentioned earlier, the Mini IT13
isn’t short of connections. There are two
USB-C ports at the rear, along with a pair
of HDMI ports (pictured below left),
giving you plenty of ways to connect
external screens. There are a further
three USB 3.0 ports, and one USB 2.0. An
SD card reader sits on one side, with a
2.5Gigabit Ethernet socket on the back if
you don’t want to rely on Wi-Fi.
As far as ease of access goes, removing
four screws on the bottom panel lets
you get inside, where the memory slots,
SSD and Wi-Fi card are easy to reach if
you ever need to upgrade components.
However, this shouldn’t be necessary for
some time yet.
SPECIFICATIONS
14-core Intel Core i9-13900H processor • 32GB RAM
• Intel Iris Xe graphics • 2TB SSD • Wi-Fi 6E • Bluetooth
5.2 • 1x 2.5Gigabit Ethernet port • 2x USB-C ports •
3x USB 3.0 ports • 1x USB 2.0 port • 2x HDMI ports •
Windows 11 Pro • 49.2x117x112mm (HxWxD) • 652g •
Three-year warranty www.snipca.com/47789
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 powerful mini PC
that offers phenomenal Windows
performance for the price, but gamers
should look elsewhere
★★★★★
ALTERNATIVE Beelink SER6 Pro
7753HS £699 Not as fast in Windows,
but handles graphics better should you
want to run games
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 23
 Reviews
The best VPNs – free & paid-for
Whether you want to avoid regional streaming restrictions or simply keep your browsing
private, we’ve tested the top VPNs to see which one is best for you

C
hoosing the right VPN can be a
tricky business. There are free and
paid-for options, but the quality of
the service won’t always equate to how
much you spend on it. To help you make
an informed choice we’ve put a bunch of
VPN services through their paces to find
out which one will best serve your needs,
and whether free versions are as reliable
as their paid-for counterparts.
We whittled a long list of popular
services (free and paid-for) down to five.
These were all tested for average speeds
recorded when used via locations around
the world, including in the UK and US.
We also checked how well the services
worked with a number of streaming
services, including BBC iPlayer in the
UK (to simulate how easily you might
connect to it to watch BBC content while
on holiday abroad, for example). We also
test-streamed Netflix and Amazon Prime
Video in the US (to watch content
unavailable in the UK). Of the three
services, Amazon let us watch the most
content. If you fail to connect to the
iPlayer, it may have placed a content-
blocking cookie on your system. Delete
your cookies then try again.
One surprising omission from the final
five was TunnelBear. This popular service
just proved too slow, with speeds of 20Mbps
when connected via the US and 66Mbps
in the UK (which is significantly slower
than the VPNs included here). It also failed
to let us watch any streaming services.

From Free from https://protonvpn.com £95 a year from https://nordvpn.com

ProtonVPN NordVPN

Whether you’re looking for a
basic free service or willing to
spend money on advanced
options, Swiss-based ProtonVPN
is an excellent choice.
The free version can
relocate you in the US, the
Netherlands or Japan, but –
crucially – can’t be used for
TV streaming.
The paid-for version (£62 a
year) offers 67 locations and
more usage options, including
streaming.
Either option can connect up
to 10 devices simultaneously
and has a stealth mode to hide
the fact you’re using a VPN.
In our tests, it was by far the
fastest free VPN, coming in at
220Mbps in the UK and
180Mbps in the US. Paying
users get even faster speeds
(315Mbps, UK and 247Mbps,
US). That’s blisteringly fast –
only Surfshark achieved faster
average speeds.
VERDICT
★★★★★
NordVPN isn’t free, but its
paid-for service is one of the
best around. In our tests, it
reached 306Mbps in the UK
and 200Mbps to the US.
There were no problems when
we changed regions while
streaming on all three TV
services.
NordVPN has options for
60 countries and up to six
simultaneous connections.
It works with Windows and
macOS, and has apps for
Android and iOS.
It also offers browser plug-ins
for Chrome and Firefox that
make it easy to turn it on
quickly while browsing.
NordVPN is based in
Panama, which imposes no
legal requirements to keep
logs and is beyond the reach
of most other countries.
Signing up costs £5 a month
for the first year, but jumps to
£95 a year thereafter.
VERDICT
★★★★★

24 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669

£4.34 a month from https://mullvad.net

Mullvad
Mullvad, based in Sweden, is
one of those rare VPNs that
puts privacy ahead of all other
concerns. As a consequence it
isn’t great for watching the US
Netflix, but it believes you
have the right to browse in
private. It is a strong advocate
of user privacy, and has fought
and won legal battles on this
issue against Swedish authorities.
It runs on Windows, macOS,
Linux, Android and iOS, and is
priced at just €5 (£4.34) a
month with no contracts and
no requirement to divulge any
personal details.
Somewhat bizarrely, you
can even take up the option
to pay in cash by sending it
in an envelope. It isn’t the
fastest option, however, with VERDICT
199Mbps in the UK and ★★★★★
54Mbps in the US.

From free from www.snipca.com/47836

Surfshark
Dutch company Surfshark’s VPN
was the clear winner in our
speed tests, with eye-watering
rates of up to 507Mbps in the
UK and 402Mbps in the US. It
didn’t do as well when
changing from one region to
another, however. When
streaming iPlayer we had to
reconnect and clear out some
cookies before we could watch
the service.
Unlike most rivals, Surfshark
lets you simultaneously
connect an unlimited number
of devices and it connects to
100 countries. It’s available
for Windows, macOS, Linux,
Android and iOS.
Note, pricing isn’t listed
with VAT, and the basic
service costs £2.29 a month VERDICT
for the first year, shooting up ★★★★★
up to £56 a year thereafter.

£54 a year from www.snipca.com/47893

Windscribe
Located in Canada, Windscribe
is free for 10GB of data
per month, but its paid-for
Pro service is also great
value, at just £7 a month or
£54 for the year. There are
no hidden fees, and it’s
fiercely independent.
It can be used for both
privacy enhancement and TV
streaming and even has an
in-app proxy gateway feature
to connect devices such as
smart TVs, along with the
usual operating systems.
Paying users get access to
locations in 68 countries,
while the free version is
limited to 11. Both tiers
produced similar speeds in
our tests, but were slow, with
connections in the UK at VERDICT
around 90Mbps and the US ★★★★★
averaging just 20Mbps.

WHAT SHOULD I BUY? We solve your buying dilemmas

Can you suggest a rechargeable radio with a mains option?

I wonder if you can
Q recommend a portable
radio that can be powered
both from the mains and from its
own built-in rechargeable battery, for
those occasions when I’m away from
a wall socket?
I’m looking to spend between £100
and £150. Every model I’ve seen so far
is either mains-only or powered by
standard batteries, not rechargeable
ones.
John Johnston
Roberts (www.robertsradio.com) (pictured), and it’s surprisingly small
A makes a wide range of portable
radios, but most require you to
with a sound quality that defies its size.
It can run from the mains via its
supply your own batteries. These can of mini USB port, or has a 20-hour
course be rechargeable, but you’d have to battery life from its built-in
take them out to charge them in a rechargeable battery.
battery-charger, which isn’t what you It’s available in seven colours and
want. There’s one model costs £100, but is often
that does come with a slightly discounted on
rechargeable battery, Amazon (the black
which might be right up model was £93.98 when
your street. It’s called the we checked: www.
Roberts Revival Petite snipca.com/47820).

Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 25

 Reviews
PC MONITOR | £253 from AV Parts Master www.snipca.com/47837
NEC MultiSync E274FL
Screen gem
This 27in monitor is aimed at
general Windows users looking
for a large, good-quality monitor
with plenty of features for a
reasonable price.
In our tests, we measured
95-per-cent coverage of the
sRGB colour standard, which is
perfectly sufficient for everyday Windows
tasks. This may not be good enough
for those wanting absolute colour
accuracy in video and photos, but for
the price it should please all but the
most demanding.
It has plenty of
connection options and
is good for everyday
Windows tasks
The Ethernet port can provide access
to a wired network, and there are four
USB 3.0 ports – three let you connect
to USB devices and a fourth is for
connecting to your PC. For standard
monitor connections, there’s an HDMI
port and a DisplayPort.
If there’s one disappointment, it’s that
it only has a resolution of 1920x1080
pixels. Stretched across the 27in diagonal,
text doesn’t look crisp, with a fuzziness to
characters’ edges when using browsers
CHOOSE THE RIGHT SPECS
RAM speed
What does it do?
RAM is the temporary storage that all
PCs use to hold the information they
require to function at any given time.
When discussing RAM speed we’re
typically referring to the number of
instructions it can process per second.
As with processor speed, this is
measured in MHz.
How does it work?
Buying RAM isn’t just a case of picking
the fastest you can find and installing it
in your PC. You also need to make sure
you buy the right type of RAM for your
motherboard (usually expressed as a
DDR number, such as DDR4 or DDR5)
and check the fastest speed your
motherboard can cope with. Speed can
also be increased by using two or more
memory modules of the same type and
speed, as your processor will be able
to access all the memory they provide
simultaneously.

and office tools. What are the specs?

The screen is an MVA (multidomain
vertical alignment) panel, which is
unusual because we’d normally expect
to see IPS technology at this price.
We used to see a faint yellow bias in
screens that use MVA technology, but
NEC seems to have eliminated this
problem. However, it has a modest
60Hz refresh rate and a six-millisecond
response time, which is fine for office
work but not enough for fast-moving
entertainment software.
It’s certainly generously
equipped with features. It
offers 120mm of
height adjustment,
170-degree of swivel
in both directions,
and a pivot mode that
lets you rotate it into
portrait mode.
It can also function
as a dock for laptops,
and supplies 60W
of power over USB-C,
which is enough to
charge all but the most
power-hungry models.
This underwhelming resolution is Once you know the type and maximum
reflected in its affordable price. Overall, speed that your PC can handle, then
we still prefer the smaller Iiyama ProLite you can opt for the
XU2492HSU-B1 monitor, with its brilliant highest-frequency RAM
24in screen for just £109 (www.snipca. within that range. RAM
com/39701 – see page 32). modules usually contain
its type and speed in
SPECIFICATIONS the name or description,
27in MVA screen • 1920x1080-pixel resolution • such as the Crucial
60Hz refresh rate • 6ms response time • 1x HDMI port
• 1x DisplayPort • 1x USB-C port • 4x USB 3.0 ports
32GB DDR5-5600
(3x in; 1x out) • 377x610x282mm (HxWxD) • 6.6kg • UDIMM (pictured),
Three-year warranty www.snipca.com/47837 which is DDR5 and
runs at 5,600MHz.
Frequencies of RAM
VERDICT This affordable 27in monitor typically range from
is packed with features and great 800MHz in older
for Windows work, but isn’t ideal for DDR2 modules up to
streaming and gaming 6,800MHz in DDR5.
★★★★★ Can I change
ALTERNATIVE Iiyama ProLite it later?
XU2492HSU-B1 £109 An excellent, albeit Yes. However, if you
smaller screen already have the
with fewer fastest RAM your
features, but computer can handle,
it’s an absolute you can only upgrade
bargain its capacity.

26 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669

 Reviews
KEYBOARD ❘ £80 from Amazon www.snipca.com/47805
MSI Vigor GK50 Elite
Light touch
Mechanical keyboards use a switch
below each key that registers what
you’re pressing and communicates that
information to your PC. Because each
switch is an individual component,
mechanical keyboards tend to be
significantly more expensive than, say,
membrane keyboards, which have a
single rubber layer across the entire
keyboard.
With the Vigor GK50 Elite, Taiwanese
company MSI bucks this trend by offering
a mechanical keyboard for a reasonable
price. It retains the distinctive chunky
look and feel, but has trimmed a few
features to keep the price down.
The first of these are the switches
SPECIFICATIONS
104-key keyboard • 1.8m USB cable included • Kailh
Box White switches • 34x435x141mm (HxWxD) •
One-year warranty www.snipca.com/47805
HEADPHONES ❘ £90 from Amazon www.snipca.com/47806
Anker Soundcore Space One
Cheap and earful
Anker has established a reputation for
good-quality electronic products that are
cheaper than many of its big-name rivals.
The Soundcore Space One headphones
are another case in point. They might
not be up to the audio quality of more
expensive headphones, but they’re better
than you might expect for the relatively
low price.
First off, the battery life is outstanding,
offering 55 hours of listening with the
noise cancellation switched off or 40
hours with it on. When they’re running
low, a quick five-minute charge will
SPECIFICATIONS
40mm drivers • Three microphones • 40 hours
listening time with noise cancelling/55 hours without
noise cancelling • Bluetooth 5.3 • 186x162x92mm
(HxWxD) • 18-month warranty www.snipca.
com/47806
28 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
themselves. It
uses Box White
switches from
a manufacturer
called Kailh (www.kailh.net), which with the supplied software, including the
produce an excellent feel, but aren’t as option to switch them off if you’d prefer
expensive as the very best switches from not to be illuminated.
the likes of Cherry.
The second major trade-off is that
it’s a wired keyboard, so you will need VERDICT A solid and affordable
to plug it into a USB port. That shouldn’t mechanical keyboard, if you can live
be a deal-breaker, and if you’re looking with a wired connection
for a responsive device that’s always ready
to work on, it might be better than a
★★★★★
wireless alternative. However, it will ALTERNATIVE
mean it’s likely to be a permanent space Cooler Master CK720 £80 A smaller
hog on your desk. keyboard that has more configuration
The aluminium plate upon which the options and the same
switches and keys are mounted looks Kailh Box White
sleek and modern. There are LED lights mechanical switches
under each key, which you can configure
provide another four hours of listening
time, which is handy if you’ve
inadvertently let the charge run down.
While not not exceptional, the sound
quality is still impressive. We enjoyed the
bass and mid-range when listening to
music, while spoken-word content
sounds crisp and clear. They required a
little tweaking of their factory defaults to VERDICT Comfortable, good-quality
get the sound just right, but this is easy headphones with effective noise-
using the Soundcore app on your phone cancelling
or tablet. The app will play sounds to you,
and you then choose from a range of
★★★★★
pre-set options. ALTERNATIVE
On noisy buses and trains the noise- Sony WH-CH520 £40
cancellation feature makes a decent fist of If you can live without
removing background noise. It also adjusts noise cancellation, these
well to your changing surroundings and headphones are even
there’s an option for the times you need more affordable
to crank up the volume further.

PHONE | £619 from Laptops Direct www.snipca.com/47847
Fairphone 5
Green screen
Fairphone doesn’t release new
phones as often as its rivals – we
reviewed its predeccesor the
Fairphone 4 back in Issue
621. This is a deliberate
policy, because the Dutch
company that specialises in
sustainable tech wants its phones
to last for years. Buy the Fairphone 5 and
you’re guaranteed five Android updates
and at least eight years of security updates.
A phone that saves
the planet but costs
the Earth
To ensure product longevity the
Fairphone 4 had eight distinct components
that could easily be replaced or updated
if needed. This model ups that to 10
exchangeable parts, including the screen,
battery, camera and USB-C port.
It’s powered by the modest Qualcomm
QCM6490 chip, and has 8GB of RAM
and 256GB of storage. The processor
has been chosen for its stability and
guaranteed long-term updates,
rather than its speed.
In our benchmark tests, its
performance level is on a par with
our current favourite Android
phone, the Google Pixel 7a (www.
snipca.com/46332, reviewed in Issue
660). That sounds like a plus point
until you realise the Fairphone 5
costs £170 more. It’s also very likely
to feel pretty sluggish by 2028, as
updates and app improvements take
their toll.
It’s chunkier than most rivals
because of its modular design.
Fairphone has shaved off a couple of
millimetres in thickness compared
with the 4, but it still feels hefty to
hold. Still, it sits well in the hand and
the plastic rear means it doesn’t slip
across smooth surfaces.
The right-hand edge accommodates
the power button with a built-in
Reviews
DO I REALLY NEED...
A portable
desktop PC?
What is it?
The HP Envy Move PC
(pictured) is an all-in-one
desktop PC with a built-in
battery and a fold-
away carrying handle,
for easy transportation. The supplied
wireless keyboard has a trackpad and
fingerprint scanner, but this works can be tucked into a pocket on the back
much better than on the 4. An improved of the screen when on the move.
IP55 rating means it’ll be protected
against a heavy downpours, but you What does it do?
shouldn’t risk submerging it in water. It’s a regular Windows PC that runs
As you’d expect, it’s made, from 100-per- Windows 11 Home and has a 23.8in
cent recycled plastic. touchscreen. It’s built around an Intel
The screen probably represents the Core i5-1335U processor, with 16GB
biggest upgrade. Where the Fairphone 4 of RAM and a 1TB SSD. Unlike most
had a modest 60Hz IPS display, this offers desktop PCs, it has a battery that can
a 90Hz OLED panel, which is noticeably last for up to four hours.
superior. In addition, the bezels around
its edges are narrower (though still wider What’s the catch?
than most rivals) and the screen itself is Battery life is relatively short compared
now 6.4in rather than 6.3in. with a typical laptop, and it weighs over
Overall this is a big improvement 4kg – so you won’t want to lug it far.
over the previous model and by far the
best phone for those looking for more So can I do without it?
sustainable products that you can Yes. Occasional PC users living in
repair rather than replace. You pay a smaller homes may benefit from a PC
premium for it, however. The cheaper that can be stashed away, but most of
Pixel 7a is better overall if you’re happy us won’t want or need to move such a
to accept it may not last as long. large device around the house.
SPECIFICATIONS
Eight-core Qualcomm QCM6490 processor • 8GB
RAM • 6.46in 90Hz 2700x1224-pixel resolution
NEXT ISSUE
OLED screen • 256GB storage • IP55 rating •
50-megapixel rear camera • 50-megapixel wide
camera • 50-megapixel front camera • Wi-Fi 6 •
On Sale Weds 8 Nov
Bluetooth 5.2 • USB-C port • Android 13 •
162x76x9.6mm (HxWxD) • 212g • Five-year warranty
Beelink GTR7
www.snipca.com/47847
7840HS
A powerful mini
PC that’s good
VERDICT A sustainable phone that for gaming and
should last longer than most, but you video editing Acer Aspire
have to pay for the privilege Spin 5
A bendy laptop
★★★★★ you can twist
ALTERNATIVE round and use
as a tablet
Google Pixel 7a £449
A better buy overall, if
you don’t want to spend These and much more...
a premium on a more Subscribe to Computeractive at
repairable product www.getcomputeractive.co.uk
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 29
 Buy It
Our pick of products that have won the Buy It award
LAPTOP ENNEW
TR
Y
Huawei MateBook 16s 2023
£1,100 from www.snipca.com/47772
Tested Issue 669
In all our years of testing no laptop
has ever performed Windows tasks
as quickly as this. This breathtaking
speed is down to the powerful Intel
Core i9 processor. It also has a sharp
16in screen, 16GB RAM and long
battery life.
ALTERNATIVE Honor MagicBook X 16
2023 Also has a 16in screen and is great
value, though it’s not especially fast.
£450 from www.snipca.com/47868.
ANDROID TABLET
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9
£768 from www.snipca.com/47493
Tested Issue 667
With a much brighter screen than our
previous favourite – the Galaxy Tab S8
– this is perfect for watching TV. It also
has a faster processor, so tasks feel
smoother, even with several windows
open. It’s a great buy at its full price of
£799, but look for discounts that make
it even better value
ALTERNATIVE Lenovo Tab P11 Pro It’s
slower than the Tab S9 and the screen is
duller, but has a detachable keyboard so
you can use it as a laptop. £350 from
www.snipca.com/45244
30 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
Find out which other products we liked.
Buy our 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.
£644 from www.snipca.com/41500
APPLE iPHONE
Apple iPhone 13
£599 from www.snipca.com/43498
Tested Issue 627
Now £200 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 £799 for the newer
iPhone 15, 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 A15 processor and 64GB
storage as the iPhone 14, it’s great value.
£429 from www.snipca.com/34773
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 P
DRRIC
OP E
Google Pixel 7a
£399 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
MINI PC ENNEW
TR
Y
Geekom Mini IT13
£699 from www.snipca.com/47789
Tested Issue 669
Crams incredible specs into a small
box: 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD, Wi-Fi 6E
and the same Intel Core i9 processor
as our favourite laptop – the MateBook
16 on page 30. Comes with Windows 11
Pro, and is 50-per-cent faster than our
previous favourite below.
ALTERNATIVE Beelink SER6 Pro
7753HS With 32GB RAM and a 500GB
SSD, this is a speedy device. Has plenty
of ports too. £699 from www.snipca.
com/46416
WEBCAM
Logitech C925e Business
Webcam
£73 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. £64 from www.snipca.
com/41105
32 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
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. £75 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.
£191 from www.snipca.com/41609
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. Use 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
SOLID-STATE DRIVE
Corsair MP600 Pro LPX
500GB
£52 from www.snipca.com/41547
Tested Issue 630
In our tests, this M.2 SSD hit speeds of
7,364MB/s and 6,870MB/s when
reading and writing data – astonishingly
fast scores. It’s compatible with the
new PCIe 4.0 standard, which is twice
as fast as PCIe 3.0. The 1TB model
costs £64; 2TB costs £130.
ALTERNATIVE Crucial MX500 500GB
As fast as an SSD can get in the
traditional 2.5in SATA format, this
is a great-value upgrade. £52 from
www.snipca.com/37304

COMPETITION
Win 1 of 2
Toshiba 4TB
Canvio Basics
external hard drives
You can quickly transfer files with
SuperSpeed USB 3.2 and store up
to 4TB of data on Canvio Basics
external hard drives. These devices
are ready to use with Windows and
require no software installation, so it
couldn’t be easier to start storing all of
your favourite files. You just need to
drag and drop your files from your
computer.
It has a USB 3.2 Gen 1 cable (Type A
to Micro-B) – so there’s no need to
buy an adapter. What’s more, it’s
PRINTER
Epson EcoTank ET-1810
£150 from www.snipca.com/41232
Tested Issue 628
An inkjet printer that comes with
enough ink to print 4,500 mono
and 7,500 colour pages, making it
exceptionally cheap to run. It’s not
the fastest printer, but quality is good,
especially on photo paper – we’ve
never seen better on an inkjet.
ALTERNATIVE Brother DCP-J1140DW
Compact multifunction model with rare
features at this price, including
double-sided printing. £152 from
www.snipca.com/43670
compatible with USB 2.0, so you can
use it with older devices.
Whether at your desk, or on the go,
its timeless design with the matt finish
means it’ll always look good. Its slim
and compact, making it easy to carry
and store in any pocket or bag.
With over 50 years of experience
in hard-drive technology and
unrivalled quality standards, Toshiba
portable hard drives provide a reliable
and secure place for your files,
wherever you go.
SMART TV
Samsung Q60B
£437 from www.snipca.com/45083
Tested Issue 652
With our former favourite – the TCL
55RP620K out of stock – Samsung’s
43in set is our new pick. It has excellent
colour reproduction in well-lit scenes,
and the picture is wonderfully sharp –
especially in 4K.
ALTERNATIVE LG OLED42C3
LG’s 42in TV is three times the price,
but unlike TCL’s model it has an
OLED screen, boosting picture quality
considerably. £950 from www.snipca.
com/47271
Buy It
To enter this competition, answer
the question at www.snipca.
com/47711 and submit your details.
It runs until midnight Tuesday 7
November. Good luck!
You can buy Canvio Basics hard
drives from a range of retailers
(www.toshiba-storage.com/
retailers), priced around £40 (1TB),
£50 (2TB) and £103 (4TB). For more
information on Toshiba products
visit www.toshiba-storage.com.
ROUTER
Asus RT-AXE7800
£250 from www.snipca.com/47586
Tested Issue 665
This router has Wi-Fi 6E, so will be
capable of the fastest possible speeds
on the 6GHz network over the next few
years. It has five Ethernet ports and also
a USB 3.0 port to connect a hard drive or
NAS drive.
ALTERNATIVE Synology WRX560
Our previous favourite remains an
excellent choice, delivering speeds of
up to 791.5Mbps. Add more units to set
up mesh Wi-Fi. £215 from www.snipca.
com/44696
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 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 669

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

35 B
 eat OneDrive’s photo 40 Readers’ Tips PLUS
storage restrictions 44 Phone & Tablet Tips 47 M
 ake Office Better
42 Browser Tips: Import
38 W
 ipe junk by targeting all your browsing data 46 M
 ake Windows 48 In the Club: Take notes
the Recycle Bin from Chrome Better using Google Docs

HOW TO...
Beat OneDrive’s new by Nik Rawlinson

photo storage restrictions

What you need: OneDrive account Time required: Minimum of one hour

O
nline storage providers want you
to synchronise as much as you
can. The more you upload to their
servers, the more they can charge you
for storage. Because you’re likely to
upload your files and not touch them for
years, the charges can roll over month to
month, perhaps forever. No wonder they
make it so easy to sync automatically.
Take Microsoft’s OneDrive as an
example. Its software is built into
Windows, and OneDrive is the default
location for saving Microsoft Office files.
The program also lets you sync your
Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders
( 1 in our screenshot), save photos and
videos from other devices 2 and
automatically upload screenshots 3 . All
of this is useful, but syncing a lot of files
can push you towards the limits of your
account, at which point you may need to
upgrade to a more expensive plan.
But that’s not the only way you might
end up using more space than you
expect. Microsoft recently told some
OneDrive users that from mid-October
adding a photo to an album would mean
it counts twice against their allocated
storage, even though it exists only once.
This won’t be such an issue for Microsoft
365 subscribers, who each get 1TB of
storage, but it’s something to watch out
OneDrive
makes it easy
to sync your
important
folders,
photos and
screenshots
to the cloud
2
for if you’re using the free 5GB tier.
OneDrive’s albums work a little like
folders, in that they let you organise
groups of pictures that share a theme
– such as photos of your dog taken at
different times, the best pictures of a
particular trip through several countries,
or your favourite shots of a place you’ve
visited several times, which would
otherwise be scattered chronologically
throughout your library.
When you add a photo to an album,
you don’t remove it from its original
location, and neither do you create a
1
3
duplicate: you just make it visible within
a certain context. So, you can think of an
album like a perforated grille, which
blocks out all but the images that you’ve
associated with it. Opening an album is
like taking a bird’s-eye view at your
entire library through that grille, so that
only a subset of the pictures it contains
remains visible.
It seems rather unfair, then, that an
image you place in an album should
count twice against your storage quota.
Here, we explain how to avoid falling foul
of OneDrive’s storage limits.

Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 35

 Add your own photo tags
1 When you upload an image,
OneDrive applies tags based
on what it thinks it depicts. You can use
these to search your library later.
You can also add tags of your own and,
by doing so, more or less work around
Microsoft’s double counting. Let’s say
you’ve visited Greece every year since
2015. If you took every photo on your
smartphone, they will already be tagged
with both Greece and the date, plus
whatever else OneDrive thinks each
image shows.
But if you wanted to create a collection
of only your best shots from the last eight
years of visits, then rather than creating
an album called ‘Best of Greece’ and
having their size counted twice, you could
instead add the tag bestofgreece to your
favourite shots from each of your visits.
To do this, log into your account at
https://photos.onedrive.com, then hover
over the photo you want to tag and click
the ‘i’ that appears in the bottom-right
corner. Click ‘+ Add tag’ below the
thumbnail in the sidebar this brings up,
type your tag then press Enter. It will
then appear under the Tags heading
(see screenshot below).
Now, searching for Greece turns up
everything from each of your trips;
searching on 2022 brings up only
photos taken last year (whether in
Greece or elsewhere); and searching for
‘bestofgreece’ filters out everything other
than your very favourite shots from those
trips, regardless of when they were taken.
That’s exactly what an album would do,
but in this instance OneDrive shouldn’t
count each image in the collection twice,
because they’ve never been added to
an album.
Add tags to your favourite photos to help beat
OneDrive’s latest restriction
36 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
How I manage my photos
I have a very manual workflow for managing my photos. Rather
than use albums, I organise them into carefully named folders
and subfolders on a local drive, which is synchronised to pCloud
(www.pcloud.com). From here, they are distributed to each of my
other logged-in devices, and I can also access them on my phone
and tablet. I do, however, use OneDrive for saving screenshots. I
take several shots in sequence while writing, then transfer them to
individual folders for each project, again on pCloud, when I’ve finished writing.
Nik Rawlinson
How do you manage your photos?
Please let us know: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Move your photos surprised if this were to affect anyone
2 to another service
If this doesn’t suit your way of
just browsing their pictures online now
and then, which is exactly how we’d
working, and you don’t want to upgrade recommend using any online service for
to a paid-for OneDrive account, you photo storage.
could instead transfer to a different Transferring all of your photos to the
online-storage provider. We reviewed cloud and not keeping a local copy or
several in Issue 663 (pages 62-63), and backup is risky, because you only need
recommended Mega (www.mega.io) as to get locked out of your account to
one of the most generous. Based in New lose several years’ worth of precious
Zealand, it gives you 20GB of storage for memories. Rather, we’d advise keeping
free, and it’s also strong on privacy. Your your photos on a local hard drive – either
files are encrypted, and only you have the internal or external – for everyday use
keys to unlock them; not even Mega itself and uploading a copy to the cloud for
can see what you’re uploading. safekeeping.
There is a catch, but we think it’s a Alternatively, if you’re an Amazon
small one: Mega limits the rate at which Prime member, you could take advantage
you can download your data once it’s on of the free unlimited storage for high-
its servers. We can’t say for sure what the resolution photos for as long as you keep
rate limit is, as it varies over time. Mega your account (for non-Prime members,
says the limit depends on your location storage is capped at 5GB, as it is with the
and how many people are using the free version of OneDrive). You can sign
network at any one time. It also takes into Amazon Photos at www.snipca.
into account how much data you’ve com/47604.
downloaded in the past six hours (visit
Mega’s site for more details: www.snipca. Export your photos
com/47747).
So, there may be times when, if you
3 from OneDrive
Wherever you want to move
want to download a large number of your photos to, your first step is to export
photos from your online library, you bust them from OneDrive. The easiest way to
the limit and have to wait six hours for do this is to sync your online folders to
the download to complete. At that point, your local PC. That way, your photos will
the transfer will resume automatically. be copied to your local Pictures library,
We can’t say for sure, but we’d be from which you can upload them directly
1 The ‘Nik –
Personal’
entry in the
sidebar is our
synchronised
OneDrive
2 account

to your new online-storage service.
Open File Explorer and look for your
OneDrive account in the sidebar, where
it should appear just below the Home
folder – ours is called ‘Nik – Personal’
( 1 in our screenshot below left). Expand
yours by clicking the small arrow to
the left of its name and check that the
Pictures folder appears 2 . If it doesn’t,
you’re not synchronising your online
folder to your local computer.
To sync your PC and OneDrive Pictures
folders, click the OneDrive icon on the
Windows taskbar, then click the cog at
the top of the pop-up window, followed
by Settings. Click ‘Account’ on the left
( 1 in our screenshot below), followed
by ‘Choose folders’ in the main part of
the window 2 . Now tick the box beside
Pictures 3 and any other OneDrive
folder that you want to synchronise to
your PC. Click OK and Windows will
start downloading their contents from
the cloud.
If you’re not logged into OneDrive on
your PC, you can also download your
photos through your browser. Log in at
www.onedrive.com and click Photos in
the sidebar. Next, hover over your most
recent photo (which will be on the left
of the top row of photos in the main part
of the window) and a small circle will
appear in the top-right corner. Click this
to select the photo without opening it.
Scroll down to the end of the library
and hold down the Shift key while
hovering over the last photo in the
collection. All of the other photos that
fit into the window will be shaded and a
circle will appear on the last one. Click
3 Return to the Mega setup
1 screen, click Change on the
2 window that appears.
Choose which of your OneDrive folders are synchronised
to your PC
Next issue: Edit your videos like an expert – for free!
Beat OneDrive’s new photo storage restrictions
in the circle. Now click the
Download link that appears in
the floating bar at the top of the
screen. Your image library will be
compressed and downloaded in
ZIP format.
Upload your
4 photos to Mega
Like OneDrive and
Dropbox, Mega has its own
app, which synchronises files
Download Mega’s recovery key so you can unlock your
between your computer and
account if you lose your password
the cloud. Download it by
clicking ‘Download MEGA Desktop
App’ from www.snipca.com/47611.
Once it’s downloaded, launch the
‘MEGAsyncSetup64’ file from your
Downloads folder, and leave the options
in their default settings. Leave the option
to ‘Run MEGAsync 4.9.6’ (or later)
selected and click Finish.
If you’ve already created a Mega
account through the website, click ‘Log
in’ and provide your credentials. If not,
click ‘Create account’ and enter the
required information. It will send an
email to your inbox – click the ‘Activate
account’ link it contains.
Log in using the credentials you
provided during installation and Mega
will create the encryption keys for your
account before showing you the different
membership options. Scroll down and
click ‘Get Started for Free’. Mega will take the folder this contains. If you’re syncing
a moment to build a file list (which will
so far consist only of a ‘getting started’
PDF), then will show your account-
recovery key, which you’ll need to use if
you ever forget your password. Click the
green Download button (see
screenshot above right) and
save it somewhere safe.
assistant and log in using the
credentials you just confirmed
through the browser. It will
ask which folders you want to
synchronise. For the moment,
click ‘Selective sync’, followed
by Next. On the following
line next to ‘Local folder’,
and navigate to your Pictures
folder in the File Explorer
Be careful if you have set
OneDrive to synchronise your
Pictures folder, as you may
have two of these: one in your
user folder, and one inside
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 37
your OneDrive folder. You want to use
the former of these to avoid uploading
another copy of your photos to your
OneDrive account.
To make sure you get the right one,
click Local Disk in the sidebar, followed
by Users in the main part of the window.
Now click your name, followed by
Pictures. Click ‘New folder’, above the
sidebar, and call the new folder ‘mega’.
Double-click the new folder to open it,
then click Select Folder. Click ‘Next’ in
the Setup assistant window, followed by
Finish. You’re now ready to upload your
photos to Mega.
Now open File Explorer. If you
downloaded your photos from OneDrive
through the browser, navigate to your
Downloads folder, then unzip the OneDrive
archive containing your photos. Open
your photos to your PC, instead navigate
to the Pictures folder in the OneDrive
section in the File Explorer sidebar.
Whichever folder you’re in, select all of
the files (press Ctrl+A), then copy them
(Ctrl+C). Scroll down the sidebar until
you find ‘mega’, then click it and press
Ctrl+V to paste a copy of your photos into
it. They will be automatically uploaded to
the Mega servers in the background.
While you can obviously open your
synced photos via File Explorer, you
can also access them remotely through
the browser the same way you can on
OneDrive. Switch back to www.mega.
io in your browser and click Photos in
the sidebar to find the photos you’ve just
uploaded. Note, if you do this too quickly,
you may find they’re still uploading, so
don’t worry if they don’t all show yet.
To create an album for related photos,
click Albums, followed by ‘New album’.
Give the album a name and Mega will ask
which photos you want to add. Click the
appropriate images, then click the green
button marked Add.
 Workshop
Wipe more junk by
targeting the Recycle Bin
What you need: System Ninja
Time required: 30 minutes

S ystem Ninja is a Windows-

optimisation tool that can manage
your startup programs, clear out
browser clutter, and identify junk files
for removal. Its latest update (version 4)
adds bug fixes, is easier to use, and – for
the first time – has the option to clean up
the Recycle Bin. The Pro edition costs
$14.95 (£12.33) a year and offers
one-click optimisation. However, the
free edition (www.snipca.com/47810)
is still quick and easy to use. Here, we
explain how to use it to remove junk
that’s harder to reach.

STEP Close all open browsers running on your system,

1 then launch System Ninja. It will open with the Junk

Scanner tab 1 selected. By default, System Ninja will
scan your entire hard drive for the kinds of junk selected in
the right-hand sidebar 2 . If you want to target only the
Recycle Bin, leave this selected and untick everything else. 1
Click ‘Scan For Junk’ 3 , then select the drive you want to
clean and click Continue.
2
3

STEP When System Ninja has finished scanning, scroll

1
2 through the list of results to make sure there's
nothing you need to keep. If there isn’t, click Delete
All Files. If you spot something you want to retain, right-
click it in the file list 1 and select ‘Ignore this file’ 2 on the
menu. Alternatively, select ‘Ignore files of this type’ if you
want to keep all similar files. When you’ve secured the files
2 you want to retain, click Delete Files 3 .
3

STEP You can set System Ninja to

1
3 automatically skip over
files saved in a specific 5
folder or created by a particular
program. Click Options 1 , followed 4
by Scan Exclusions 2 . To exclude all
files created by a program, click
Specific Program 3 then select the 3
program in the pop-up box 4 . To
exclude a specific folder, click
2
Folder/Drive 5 , use the Browse For
Folder window to select the folder,
then click OK.

38 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669

 1

STEP Now that you’re familiar with the process, you can STEP Some space hogs aren’t junk, but second and third

4 speed it up. In Step 1, we explained how to select the

drive to scan, but you can set System Ninja to
automatically only scan the drive hosting Windows – from
which your computer starts up. Click Settings 1 , then select
‘Only scan the system drive’ 2 in the ‘Drive selection mode’
dropdown menu. If you always want to select every attached
drive, instead set it to ‘Scan all available drives’.
5 duplicates of legitimate data. Rather than hunting for
these manually, switch to the System Tools tab 1 and
click Duplicate Finder 2 in the sidebar. Leave ‘Find matching
files globally’ 3 selected then click Next. Select the drive you
want to analyse, then choose between ‘all files’, ‘music files’ or
‘image files’, and click 'Scan for duplicates'.

STEP It’s not only space that can run low:

6 your PC’s memory can quickly be

gobbled up by programs that launch
when Windows starts. Click ‘Startup
Manager’ 1 , then scroll through the list of
software. If you spot any that you don’t need
1 at startup, click them, then click Remove 2 .

STEP Even if you’re using

7 Windows’ built-in Storage

Sense tool to regularly empty
your Recycle Bin and get rid of
temporary files, it’s probably worth
running System Ninja from time to
time. We used Storage Sense to
minimise our disk use 1 , but System 1
Ninja still found 1032GB of potential
junk files to remove 2 .
2

Next issue: Get a faster VPN without sacrificing privacy Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 39
 Readers’ Tips
TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT
Search within books in Internet Archive
I was grateful for your feature
highlighting the best content in
the Internet Archive (https://archive.
org), and pointing out what we’ll
lose if the organisation has to take
some of it down.
Readers may not appreciate just how
advanced its search tools are, but they
let you find content within books, TV
shows and more. You can do this easily
with books you borrow from Open
Library (https://openlibrary.org), which
is part of the Internet Archive.
James wins a copy of our 2022 Back Issue CD
SOFTWARE
Add extra fields to
Data Crow’s modules
Thanks for your ‘How To’ on using
Data Crow (https://datacrow.org) to
catalogue your collections (Issue 668,
page 35). I’d been looking for a
cataloguing tool to help me organise my
sprawling CD, DVD and book collection,
and Data Crow does the job nicely.
After playing around with the program,
I found a clever way to add new category
fields to your modules, giving greater
control over your cataloguing. First, select
the module you want to amend – do this
1 I enjoyed Issue 668’s Cover Feature
2 on free online TV – it gave me lots
3 arte.tv, pictured above right), which is a
Why I stopped using…
WeTransfer
Like reader John Greenaway, I
now find WeTransfer (www.
wetransfer.com) too complicated (Issue
666, page 20). I’ll certainly try your
recommended alternative, Send
Anywhere (www.snipca.com/47392),
but I have another service to suggest.
And what I use instead...
I now use Smash (https://fromsmash.
com) to send large files. It’s free to use
for files up to 2GB, and you don’t need
40 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
This feature is particularly helpful
when searching for references in a large 1
book, such as Roy Jenkins’ biography
of Winston Churchill, which is over a
2
thousand pages long. If I type a search
term into the box in the top left –
Gallipoli in this case ( 1 in screenshot
3
right) – and press Enter, I can see all
references to ‘Gallipoli’ in blue down the
left 2 and along the bottom 3 . It even
provides page numbers. one to go to that page. It
I can then scroll through the entries to couldn’t be easier!
find a passage I want to read, and click James Robertson
Buy it from us at www.snipca.com/44660
by clicking the relevant icon at the top.
Then click Modules, followed by After
Module Wizard. Now select a category,
such as Actors or Composer.
Change the module’s icon if you wish,
then click Next followed by Add Field
( 1 in our screenshot below left). Now
type the name of your new field 2 and
decide how to select it (I like checkboxes
because they’re easy to click 3 ). Finally,
click OK, and Data Crow will add your
field in the section at the bottom. European channel dedicated to showing
Paula Heston films, music, interviews, documentaries
and news. It doesn’t have adverts and is
ONLINE TV completely free.
Watch European channel Arte.tv It broadcasts programmes in the main
European languages, but anything that
isn’t in English is subtitled. The news
of new ideas. But I was surprised to see shows are particularly fascinating,
that you didn’t include Arte.tv (www. because they give a slant on current
events that you won’t always see in the
to register. Recipients can access the
files you share for up to seven days.
Paid-for versions let you store files for
longer (see www.snipca.com/47739),
but the free one is fine for my needs.
Uploading a file is as easy as
dragging it on to the website. Provide
your email address and that of your
recipient (see screenshot), then click have to download the file.
the red Send button. Once Smash has Jack Piper
sent the email, it gives you a link to the
file, which you can also share. The Tell us why you stopped using a website, app
email tells your recipient how long they or program: letters@computeractive.co.uk

British media. You can watch it online in
your browser, on your smart TV or using
iOS (www.snipca.com/47766) and
Android (www.snipca.com/47767) apps. I
couldn’t recommend it more highly.
Steve Cleave
WINDOWS
Play a ‘guess the number’
game in Notepad
Here’s something that’ll keep you
occupied as the long winter nights
draw in. It’s a number-guessing game
that you create in Notepad and play in
Command Prompt. Visit this Pastebin
link (www.snipca.com/47771), then copy
the code and paste it into Notepad ( 1 in
screenshot below). Now click File then
Save As, and type
1 .bat in the ‘File
name’ box. Next,
click Save and
choose where to
2 save the file.
Double-click the
file and the game
will open in
Command
Prompt.
It will ask you to guess a number, then
tell you whether you need to go higher or
lower. When you finally get the correct
answer, it will tell you how many guesses
it took 2 . While playing the game, I’ve
noticed that every number has been
between 20000 and 30000.
Michael Hudson
BROWSERS
Create shortcuts to open
specific sites
Brian Steer’s tip in Issue 664
about saving your online
bookmarks in a spreadsheet made me
think of another option, which is to
create shortcuts that open a specific web
page in a particular browser.
To do this, I first create a new web
desktop folder called ‘Web Links’, then
1 2
Handy hints and tips from your fellow readers
Email us your tips: letters@computeractive.co.uk
Reader recommends…
Doogee T20 tablet
£152 from www.snipca.com/47736
I like Samsung’s phones
and tablets, so when my
old devices stopped working, I
considered buying the Galaxy Tab
S9 tablet as a replacement. The
cost was prohibitive, however, so
instead I searched on Amazon for a
cheaper alternative and came across
the T20 tablet, made by the Chinese
firm Doogee.
It has a 10.4in, 2000x1200-pixel
screen, 15GB RAM (including 7GB
virtual memory) and 256GB storage
that I can expand to 1TB by adding an
SD card. It runs Android 12 and is
powered by an octa-core processor.
look for the location of my Brave
browser’s exe file. In my case, it’s
C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\
Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe.
I drag this into the Web Links folder, then
right-click it and select Properties. The
‘Target’ field should be "C:\Program
Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\
Application\brave.exe.
Next, I leave a space at the end of the
text in the Target field, then type the
URL of the site I want to open. So for
example: "C:\Program Files\
BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\
Application\brave.exe" Outlook.com
(see screenshot 1 below left). This opens
Outlook.com in Brave. For some sites you
have to include the ‘https://www’ at the
start, but not for others.
If you’re using Windows 10 or earlier,
you can add your links folder to your
taskbar 2 . Clicking this reveals all the
browser-website shortcuts I’ve created,
starting with Brave-Outlook at the top.
Chris Ellison
Doogee’s T30 tablet seems to be even
better value (£200 from www.snipca.
com/47738). It runs Android 13 and
has an 11in, 2560x1600-pixel screen.
If companies such as Doogee can
sell tablets at a quarter to a third of the
price of a Samsung device, I wish them
all the best.
Brian Steer
Want to recommend hardware or software
to fellow readers?
Email letters@computeractive.co.uk
EXTENSIONS
Use SimpleFill to add
email addresses
In response to Alan Pedder’s
question in Issue 665 (page 66,
‘Can I create an email shortcut?’), an easy
way is to use the Firefox SimpleFill
add-on (www.snipca.com/47715). Simply
right-click in a text box and select the
text you want to enter. I use it to input my
name, address and phone numbers. It
doesn’t work in documents like Word,
but it’s great for filling in forms online.
Keith Pearce
BROWSERS
Search Opera’s settings
In your feature on freeing up PC
memory (Issue 668, page 62) you
explained how to snooze tabs in Opera.
Your instructions involved scrolling deep
into Opera’s settings, but a quicker way is
to use Opera’s search bar – at the top
right – to go straight to what you need. I
typed ‘snooze’ ( 1 in our screenshot below)
and the result was highlighted in yellow
2 . It saves a lot of pointless scrolling.
Lee Evans
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 41
 Browser Tips
EDGE
Recover lost favourites
and fill forms faster
In the past year, we’ve frequently
complained about Microsoft
stuffing Edge with unnecessary features,
so we’re pleased that version 117 (released
in September) removes some of this junk.
The ‘deprecated’ tools include Maths
Solver, Picture Dictionary, Citations
and Kids Mode, and their removal
makes the browser less cluttered and
quicker to navigate.
The two new features in Edge 117 are
genuinely useful additions. One is
called Microsoft Edge Sync Favourites
Recovery, and lets you recover ‘favourites’
(Microsoft’s name for bookmarks) that
you’ve accidentally deleted.
Provided you have Sync enabled in the
browser, and are signed into your
Microsoft account, you can now restore
deleted favourites from the past 14 days.
To do so, click the Favourites button on
Edge’s toolbar (this looks like a star with
three lines on it) and click the new
‘Restore deleted favourites’ option, which
looks like a bin with a reverse arrow ( 1 in
1 Speedreader modifies the page
3 September, enhances the
2 to suit your visual needs. See
our screenshot below left). Alternatively,
type edge://favorites in the search bar and
open the ‘Deleted favourites’ folder 2 .
Right-click a deleted favourite or folder
and choose Restore 3 .
The other new feature is Autofill
Autocomplete, which saves you time
when filling in online forms. When you
start typing in a form field, Edge will
automatically detect whether matching
data – such as your address – is stored in
the browser, and complete it for you.
You can manage your saved autofill
information at edge://settings/personalinfo.
BRAVE
Make web pages easier to read
When we reviewed Brave in our
‘Stop using browsers that track you’
Cover Feature in Issue 668, one useful FIREFOX
tool we didn’t have space to mention Import all your browsing data
is its ‘Speedreader’ option. This works from Chrome
like the ‘reading mode’ in other browsers, In Issue 667 (page 43), we explained
by removing images, design elements how to import Chrome extensions
and other clutter from web pages to into Firefox by activating a hidden
make their content easier to read. It also experiment. Version 119 of Mozilla’s
allows you to print online articles browser, released 24 October, officially
without wasting ink and paper on introduces this option to make it much
superfluous items. easier to transfer your favourite add-ons
Unlike other reading modes, and other browsing data from Chrome.
Click Firefox’s three-line menu button
content before it loads, rather and choose Settings, followed by the
than after, which saves you General tab. Click the Import Data button
data and provides faster load in the Import Browser Data section and
times. Brave 1.58, released in select Chrome in the dropdown menu –
you can choose a specific profile. Click
feature by letting you adjust the plus button and either tick the ‘Select
the colour and font of pages all’ box (see screenshot above) or select
the data you want to import, including
our Workshop below to find Bookmarks, ‘Saved logins and passwords’,
out how. Extensions and ‘Form autofill data’.

WORKSHOP Fine-tune Brave’s Speedreader mode

1 1
1
2
2

1 To use Brave’s Speedreader mode,

open an online article and click the
Speedreader icon in the browser’s address
bar (this looks like a page of text 1 ). Brave
will instantly strip the clutter from the web
page to make it easier to read.
2 Click the new ‘Appearance settings’
button (which has an ‘Aa’ icon 1 ) to adjust
how the page looks. You can switch between
a light, sepia and dark theme 2 ; change the
font to Serif, Monospace or Dyslexic; and
increase the text size.
3 To always use Speedreader to view
articles on the current site, click the ‘Tune
speeder’ button (this looks like a set of sliders
1 ). Either select ‘Always use speedreader
for this site’ 2 or opt to automatically apply
the mode on all websites.

42 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669


BEST EXTENSION FOR… Blocking sponsored segments on YouTube
SponsorBlock
Chromium
www.snipca.com/47768
Firefox
www.snipca.com/47769
Ads aren’t the only annoyance on YouTube
– many videos are now preceded by
sponsored messages that advertise
products and services, or encourage you
to subscribe to a channel. You can avoid
most of these promotions by installing
SponsorBlock, which automatically skips
sponsored intros and outros, subscription
reminders and “other annoying parts of
YouTube videos”, including the non-music
parts of music videos. Just make sure
‘Skipping is enabled’ is switched on (see
Click ‘Import’ and the selected data
will be transferred to Firefox. It’s a simple
way to switch from Chrome if our Cover
Feature in Issue 667 has inspired you to
ditch Google’s browser for good.
OPERA
Play chess directly
in your browser
Opera already has a browser for
gamers, called Opera GX (www.
opera.com/gx), and it’s now launched
one aimed at chess players. This
chess-themed build of the browser is the
result of a partnership between Opera
and Chess.com, and can be downloaded
from www.snipca.com/47755.
It’s essentially an upgrade to the current
Opera One browser, which applies
chess-piece wallpaper to your Speed
Dial page and adds a Chess.com button
to the left-hand sidebar. Click this
button (see screenshot below) to open a
Chess.com panel that lets you play chess
Secret settings and the best extensions
online against “someone
at your level” – choose
between ‘New to Chess’,
Beginner, Intermediate
and Advanced.
You can either sign up
for or into a Chess.com
account, or play as a
guest. Registering lets
you challenge friends
to a game, and compete
in tournaments.
Alternatively, click
Play Computer to hone
your skills by playing
‘customisable training
bots’.
The side panel also includes chess
lessons, news and videos from Chess.
com, though you need to subscribe to
view some of this content. It’s a fun
feature for chess fans, and you can always
stick with the standard Opera browser if
it doesn’t appeal.
CHROMIUM
Adapt websites to your
accessibility needs
Garish colours, hard-to-read
text and autoplaying videos
are common online
annoyances, but for people
with accessibility issues, they
can make websites unusable
and even hazardous to visit.
A new extension called TD
screenshot).
Users are encouraged to submit details
of when sponsored messages start
and end, which are then added to the
extension’s massive database of nearly
15 million ‘skip segments’. The developer
claims SponsorBlock has saved its users
more than 1,760 years of their time.
If you don’t like that, try…
SkipSponsor
Chromium
www.snipca.com/47770
This extension uses AI to detect where
sponsored segments appear in YouTube
videos, then displays a button that lets
you skip them.
1
2
Accessibility Adapter (www.snipca.
com/47762) allows users to personalise
their web experience to meet their
accessibility needs.
It lets you enable ‘disability profiles’
( 1 in our screenshot above) for conditions
including colour blindness, dyslexia,
epilepsy and low vision, which include
specific settings for adjusting different
elements of websites. For example, the
Colour Blindness profile can apply dark
contrast or high saturation to pages, while
the Epilepsy profile blocks animations
and other autoplaying content, and Low
Vision uses a larger ‘readable’ font.
You can also create a custom profile
by choosing settings in sections such as
Enhance Browsing Experience and
Enhance Perception. To disable the
extension on the current site, click
Exclude Page in the bottom-left corner
of the settings panel 2 .
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 43
 Phone and Tablet Tips
iOS Apple Maps online, which means
Download Apple maps you can zoom right into areas
to explore offline to see roads and places, but be
One of the most useful new features aware that the download files
in iOS 17 is the ability to download can be quite large.
maps from Apple Maps to explore offline A map covering most of
– an option that Google Maps has offered England (which is about as big an
for several years. This enables you to find area as the feature allows you to
your way around an area even when you capture) works out at about 6GB.
can’t connect to the internet via 4G/5G This means the files will eat up
or Wi-Fi. your storage space very quickly,
Downloading maps is straightforward, so use the feature wisely and
and can be done with just a few taps. delete any maps you no longer use.
You’ll have all the functionality of using To download a map on your
iPhone or iPad, open Apple Maps
and tap your initials in the
bottom-right or top-left corner.
Select ‘Offline Maps’, followed by
Download New Map, and start typing the
name of a place or area you want to explore
offline. Choose the relevant result, then
drag the selection box over the section of
the map you want to download – pinch
your screen to zoom in for further details.
Tap the Download button (see screenshot
left) to save the map to your device –
Apple Maps will tell you the size of the
file. The map will now appear in the
Offline Maps list, where you can rename,
resize and delete it when you no longer
need it.
ANDROID
Select all Gmail messages
with one tap
When you want to delete, archive or
‘mark as read’ every message in a
BEST NEW APPS What you should install this fortnight
Routora Google Earth
Free* Free
Android www.snipca.com/47795 Android www.snipca.com/47798
iOS www.snipca.com/47796 The Google Earth app has been updated to
Routora uses AI to plan multi-stop routes give it a more modern
that save you as much time and money design and introduce
as possible. Simply specify all the places a feature called
you want to drive, Projects. Previously
cycle or walk through only available on the
and Routora will website, this lets you
calculate the best create custom maps
route, which you can that include text,
import into Google photos and videos,
Maps or Waze. The and save them to
free version limits Google Drive. You
you to 10 stops per can also now share
route (Pro costs from maps via a link or
£17.99). QR code.
44 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
1 2
Gmail folder, the ‘Select all’ option
saves you a lot of hassle. But, until now,
the feature was only available in the
web-based version of Gmail – not the
mobile app.
Thankfully, Google has finally realised
the inconvenience of this omission, and
added ‘Select all’ to the Gmail app for
Android (www.snipca.com/47797). The
option will appear at the top of the screen
when you select an individual email (see
screenshot 1 above), and tick the boxes
of the first 50 messages in the list. Tap
‘Unselect all’ 2 to remove these ticks.
It’s a much easier way to clean up your
inbox and other folders than selecting
emails individually, and we can only
wonder why it’s taken Google so long to
bring the feature to the Gmail app.
Vivaldi
Free
Android www.snipca.com/47794
iOS www.snipca.com/47792
Now available on iOS, Vivaldi’s mobile
browser offers most of the same tools as
its desktop program.
It lets you block
intrusive ads and
trackers, create a
custom start page of
your favourite sites
and manage multiple
open pages using
Vivaldi’s simple tabs
system. You can also
securely sync data
between devices.
*Contains in-app purchases
 Brilliant things to do on your device

list – this also integrates can filter by most active,

WhatsApp’s little used Status popularity and country.
feature, which no longer has Tap the plus button
its own tab. next to a channel or press
When you open Channels, Follow to subscribe to that
you’ll see some suggestions company or person’s feed.
for channels to follow, including The channel will be added
BBC News, Guinness World to your Updates tab,
Records and WhatsApp itself. where you can browse its
To find more channels, messages, photos and
either select ‘Explore more’ videos. To stop following a
or tap the plus button and channel, tap the three-dot
choose ‘Find channels’ (see menu in its top-right
screenshot right). Press corner, select Unfollow
‘Accept and Continue’ to then press Unfollow again
browse the full list, which you to confirm.

BEST APPS FOR... Podcasts

ANDROID & iOS
Collaborate on Spotify playlists
in real time
Spotify has introduced a new
collaborative feature called Jam,
which lets you enjoy ‘real-time listening
sessions’ with up to 32 friends and family
members. It builds on two existing
options in the Spotify app: Collaborative
Playlists, which allows people to add
songs to your playlists; and Blend, which
creates shared playlists between you and
up to 10 other users based on artists and
musical genres you all like.
With Jam, you invite people to contribute
to a playlist through a shared queue, with
each member of the group selecting a song
for real-time listening. Spotify recommends
tracks by finding overlaps in everyone’s
musical preferences, and you can see who
adds each tune to the playlist.
Jam is available to Free and Premium
users of Spotify, but you need to be a
subscriber to start a session and invite
people. Either tap the three-dot icon
below the name of a playlist and select
‘Start a Jam’ (see screenshot above), or tap
the speaker icon at the bottom of the screen
to choose the option there. You can share
a link to your Jam via a messaging app or
by displaying a QR code on screen for
friends and family to scan.
ANDROID & iOS
Follow people and companies
in WhatsApp
WhatsApp’s new Channels
feature lets you receive updates
from people and companies directly in
the messaging app. You’ll find the option
in the new Updates tab below your chat
Podbean
Free*
Android www.snipca.com/47831
iOS www.snipca.com/47832
Google is closing its Podcasts app in
favour of YouTube Music – which doesn’t
yet include podcasts in the UK. Podbean
is an excellent alternative that lets you
subscribe to millions of podcasts across
a wide range of categories, and adjusts
playback speed based on what you’re
listening to.
Best For Discovering new podcasts
Overcast
Free*
iOS www.snipca.com/47833
Although Apple has its own Podcasts app,
Overcast is a better choice for iOS users.
It’s easy to use, all its podcasts are free to
subscribe to, and its Voice Boost feature
ensures you can always hear spoken-
word content in noisy surroundings. It
also lets you create custom playlists for
different activities.
Best For Improved audio quality
Pocket Casts
Free*
Android www.snipca.com/47828
iOS www.snipca.com/47829
Pocket Casts is packed with useful
features, including filters to help you
quickly find interesting shows; an Up
Next queue of new episodes; and options
for trimming silence from podcasts and
adjusting their playback speed. You can
download content to listen to offline and
stream it to your smart speaker.
Best For Flexible ways to listen
*Contains in-app purchases

Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 45

 Make Windows Better
WINDOWS 11
Swap what your
function keys do
Pressing the F1 to F12 function
keys on laptops each perform
two tasks. Which one it carries
out depends on whether you hold down
the Fn key at the same time. For example,
pressing F5 mutes/unmutes audio, while
pressing Fn+F5 refreshes a web page. If
you want to reverse this, so pressing F5
refreshes web pages and documents, you’ll
need to change a setting in your BIOS.
You can access your BIOS when
booting your laptop, though how you do
so depends on your particular device – so
have a look in the manual. Often pressing
F10 or F12 repeatedly works. If not, try
Delete or Esc.
What you need to do in the BIOS also
varies, but in general click the Advanced
tab then System Options. Next, change
‘Launch Hotkeys without Fn Keypress’ to
Active. In other systems, you’ll need to
find the Action Keys option and change
the default setting. We then clicked ‘Save
Changes and Exit’ to reboot our system.
WINDOWS 10 & 11
Extract text from tables
The improved Text
Extractor tool – new
in version 0.74 of
Microsoft’s PowerToys – lets you extract
text from a table and paste it into a
tabular format, such as a spreadsheet.
Open PowerToys, click Text Extractor
on the left, then Open Settings and make
sure Enable Text Extractor is set to On
( 1 in our screenshot below). Next, press
the Win+Shift+T shortcut to activate the
tool – the screen will dim and a toolbar
will appear at the top 2 .
In our example, we wanted to copy
from Wikipedia list of films with the most
Oscar wins in 2023 3 . We clicked the
‘OCR text as table’ icon 4 on the toolbar,
then drew a box over the ‘Films with
multiple wins’ table. Next, we pasted this
2 new toolbar that appears
1 The app will detect your
5 and highlight it in a
3
46 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
Expert tips for every version
WINDOWS 11
Redact contact information
using Snipping Tool
Windows 11’s ‘Moment 4’
update – released in September
– improved Snipping Tool so
that it automatically detects and
redacts contact information in
screenshots.
Open Snipping Tool then click
‘New screenshot’ icon ( 1 in our
screenshot). In our example, we want
to blank out the email addresses and
phone numbers of party guests. Draw a
1
2 4
table into cell B2 in our spreadsheet (we
used OnlyOffice) 5 and adjusted the width
of column C so we could see the film titles.
WINDOWS 11 INSIDER
Blur image background
in Photos app
Windows Insiders can now
blur image backgrounds in
the Photos app. It’s available
in build 2023.11090.20015.0 or later on
the Beta channel.
Open your image in the Photos app,
then click ‘Edit image’
on the toolbar. On the
4 click the ‘Background
blur tab’ icon ( 1 in our
screenshot above right).
photo’s background
multi-coloured striped
selection 2 for a
second, before fading.
box around the information you’d like
to capture, then click the ‘Text actions’
icon 2 . Snipping Tool will then
highlight all the text it detects.
Next, select the ‘Quick redact’
dropdown menu and tick what you
want to redact – ‘Email addresses’ or
‘Phone numbers’, or both 3 . Finally,
click ‘Quick redact’ and Snipping Tool
will place blank bars over the contact
information you chose 4 .
3
1
3
4
2
5
This shows you what will be
blurred in your image. You
can adjust the ‘Blur
intensity’ slider 3 to your
liking between 0 and 100, where 0
changes nothing. If you want to blur or
unblur your background manually, turn
on the ‘Selection brush tool’. You’ll now
see the option to ‘Select area’ or ‘Deselect
area’, as well as ‘Brush size’ and ‘Brush
softness’ sliders 4 . In our example, we’ve
chosen deselect, before painting the
lower-right corner of our image with a
brush size of 100 5 . When we clicked
Apply the Paint app didn’t blur this area.
Make Office Better Top tips for the best office programs

MICROSOFT OUTLOOK

See calendar entries and to-do tasks in the same view

TNew in Microsoft’s redesigned
Outlook app is My Day, letting 1
you see your to-do list and
calendar entries in a single view. This 4
comes installed on Windows 11 PCs,
but Windows 10 users may have to 3
install it from the Microsoft Store:
www.snipca.com/47808.
Click the My Day icon at the top-right
( 1 in our screenshot) to open a pane on
2
the right side of your screen. By default,
it opens in the Calendar view which lists
all your entries for the day 2 . You can the tasks you’ve created using Microsoft’s open the To Do app click the blue-tick
also click the To Do tab 3 to view all To Do app (www.snipca.com/47809). To icon on the left 4 .

MICROSOFT WORD & the toolbar and select ‘Bullets and

LIBREOFFICE WRITER Numbering…’. Click the Position tab
Align numbers in lists by then change the ‘Number alignment:’
the full stop dropdown menu from Left to Right. 3
When you make numbered Click OK to confirm.
lists, Word aligns them to 1
the left. This means that LIBREOFFICE WRITER
the full stop gets pushed out when you Check your document’s styles 2
move from 9. to 10. in the list ( 1 in our LibreOffice 7.6, released in
screenshot below). If you don’t like this August, added the Spotlight tool
style, change the number so they’re aligned to the Style menu, which lets
by the position of the full stops instead. you see styles you’ve used across your
Create your list then select it by document and switch quickly between ONLYOFFICE
clicking any of the numbers. Next, click them. This helps you identify a style, Set your first page number
the Home tab at the top, and in the which isn’t always easy in LibreOffice in spreadsheets
Paragraph section click the dropdown Writer because many of them look In OnlyOffice 7.4, released in
arrow next to the Numbering icon 2 . almost identical. June, you can choose which
Click ‘Define New Number Format…’ to First, click the Styles icon on the right number you start counting from
open the settings menu. Change the ( 1 in our screenshot below) to open the when numbering your spreadsheets.
‘Alignment:’ dropdown menu from Left Styles menu. Now tick the Spotlight box Labelling your first page as page 5, for
to Right 3 . Click OK. Your numbered list at the bottom 2 . In this view, LibreOffice example, would be useful if you’re
will now be aligned by the full stop 4 . assigns each style you’ve used in your inserting your spreadsheet in the middle
To do this in LibreOffice Writer, first document a specific colour and number, of a larger printed document, with pages
highlight your list, then click Format on shown in the left margin. In our example, 1-4 written in word-processing software.
our main title uses the Title style, which First, click File then Print on the left
is assigned a lime-green label of 113 in and on the right you’ll see your print
both the margin of our document, and preview. Now click ‘Header/footer
the styles menu 3 . settings’ ( 1 in our screenshot above) and
select one of the six boxes to choose the
2 positioning of your page number – we
1 1 selected top left.
Click the ‘All pages’ tab, then the Insert
dropdown menu and select ‘Page
3 number’. Do the same for the ‘First page’
tab. Click OK. Next, in the ‘First page
number’ box 2 below ‘Header/footer
3 settings’, type the number you’d like to
4 start counting from on the first page. In
2 our example, we are counting from ‘5’ – it
appears at the top left of our document 3 .

Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 47

 In The Club
Run a club or society? Here's how your tech can make it easier

Take notes using Google Docs’ template

W riting up meeting notes can be a
real pain. You have to keep track
of attendees, action points and absences,
all while trying to pay attention to what
people are saying. Thankfully, Google
Docs has simplified this process by
introducing an automated template that
does much of the work for you. It
integrates the notes with Google Calendar 2
and makes it easy to share them with
attendees. Also, attendees will be able to
see your notes as you type.

Add your meeting and

create action points
The template is available for free, so you
don’t need to pay for a Google Workspace
account. But you will need a standard
Google account, which you can create by
visiting http://drive.google.com and clicking
the ‘Sign up’ button at the top right.
You’ll also have to use your computer
during the meeting and have an active
Wi-Fi connection. This won’t be a
problem if the meeting is online, but if
it’s in a pub or similar venue then you’ll
need a few minutes to set up. Remember
to add the meeting to your Google
Calendar beforehand.
Once the meeting has started, open a
new document by clicking the ‘+ New’
button at the top left, then selecting
Google Docs, followed by ‘Blank
document’. Type the @ symbol ( 1 in our
screenshot below) and scroll down the
pop-up list that appears until you see
‘Meeting notes’ under the ‘Building
Blocks’ heading 2 . Click this and a menu
showing all your upcoming Google
1
Assign people from your Contacts list to send them 'Action items' raised in the meeting
Calendar entries will appear. Select the
relevant meeting or event from the list.
The name and date of the meeting will
appear, along with the attendees. Click
this, and your cursor will hover over the
first of the bullet-pointed notes, ready for
you to start typing.
You can also create action points for
people. Click to the right of the box
under ‘Action items’ then type the task
you want to assign. A tick icon will
appear to the left of the box ( 1 in our
screenshot above). Click this, then choose
who to assign the item to 2 and set a
deadline. Now click ‘Assign as a task’
and they’ll be emailed the item as an
action point. When the task has been
completed, tick the box and it will be
crossed out.
Share your notes with others
Another advantage of using Google’s
template is that it makes it simple to
share notes with your attendees. Click
the blue ‘Share & attach’ button on the
right ( 1 in our screenshot below), then
choose who to share them with and
whether they can edit, view or comment
on them. The notes will be attached to
the document and the entry in your
Google calendar, so members will be
able to access them easily.
Alternatively, you can click the envelope
icon 2 which will open a draft email (in
Gmail) to all your meeting attendees,
letting you share the notes with them. At
any point you can click the three vertical
dots next to the envelope icon and attach
files saved in your Google Drive.

1 2

Type the @ symbol into Google Docs, then click ‘Meeting notes’ Share all your notes after the meeting with Google’s Meeting Notes

48 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669 Next issue: Use budget templates easier than Excel
What’s All the
Fuss About...
Spam Google has tough new rules to
crack down on unwanted email
What is it?
If you don’t know then we can only
assume that you’ve never used email.
Spam is all the emails that you never
asked for, whether from legitimate or
criminal sources. Experts estimate that
around 89 billion spam emails are sent
every day. Most of these are phishing
attempts to steal your money or
personal details.
Is the problem of spam
getting worse?
It has over the past few years. Data
analysts Statista say that the proportion
of emails detected as spam rose from
46 to 49 per cent between 2021 and 2022
(www.snipca.com/47853). That’s actually
a lot smaller than in 2011, when 80 per
cent of emails were spam, but it still
amounts to trillions of unwanted emails.
Google says that the threat is “more
complex and pressing than ever”, even
though Gmail stops “more than 99.9% of
spam” (see www.snipca.com/47844). It
does have a plan thankfully: stricter rules
for “bulk senders”.
What are they?
Email services used by companies to send
marketing messages. Google identifies
them as services that send an average of
5,000 emails a day. It says that many
don’t keep their systems secure enough to
prevent scammers from using them. To
fix that, Google is forcing bulk senders
to prove that the emails they send are
legitimate, and the companies are who
they claim to be.
2 3
Once you’ve selected a spam email, click
‘Create filter’…
Shouldn’t Gmail already
be doing this?
Well, yes, we think so. And to be fair to
Google, last year it did start forcing
senders to authenticate emails. This has
led to spam falling by 75 per cent, it
claims. But the new measures go further
by making bulk senders “strongly
authenticate their emails following
well-established best practices”,
including the use of DomainKeys
Identified Mail (DKIM).
What does that do?
It adds a digital signature to emails,
generated by a private key from their
email server. When you receive a
message, your own email server can
check the authenticity of the signature.
This makes it harder for scammers to
impersonate real senders.
Will that stop all spam?
No, but Google reckons it will “close
…then tick ‘Delete it’ and click ‘Create filter’
again
1
loopholes exploited by attackers”. These
tighter rules are needed, Google says,
because there are so many “antiquated
and inconsistent” email systems on the
internet that verifying the authenticity
of messages is sometimes impossible.
And it’s merely one of three rules
Google is implementing.
What are the other two?
First, unsubscribing from emails in one
click, so you don’t have to “jump through
hoops” to stop spam. Second, a “spam
rate threshold” that senders must stay
under. All three rules are coming to
Yahoo Mail too.
Does anyone still use
Yahoo Mail?
Oh yes – around 227 million, though
that’s a fraction of Gmail’s 1.8 billion
users.
When will the rules be
enforced?
Early next year. In the meantime, you
can block spam in Gmail by filtering it.
Tick the box on the left to select a spam
email, then click the three vertical dots
followed by ‘Filter messages like these’
(see screenshot 1 ). You’ll see the sender’s
email address in the box that appears,
below which you should click ‘Create
filter’ (see screenshot 2 ). Finally, tick
‘Delete it’, then click ‘Create filter’
again (see screenshot 3 ). Gmail will
now chuck any emails from the sender
straight in its Bin folder. Your inbox will
thank you later.
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 49
 COVER FEATURE
NEVER PAY FOR
PC REPAIRS
You don’t need to be a technical
expert to solve many common
Windows problems. Robert
Irvine explains how you can
easily fix your PC for free
using the repair tool FixWin
W
hen something goes wrong
with your PC, it’s natural to
panic and start frantically
scouring the web for advice.
But the information you find online is
often unhelpful and confusing, which
might lead you to consider paying for
professional technical support.
Thankfully, it’s possible to fix most
WHAT YOU CAN DO
• Fix corrupt system files that make
your PC crash
• Restore and repair missing and
broken features
• Mend a broken internet or
Wi-Fi connection
• Force Windows to recognise installed
50 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
Windows problems for free, using tools
built into the operating system. But
unless you have an encyclopaedic
knowledge of the Windows registry and
Command Prompt, that’s often easier said
than done, which is where FixWin (www.
snipca.com/47803) proves invaluable.
This brilliant free PC-repair program
provides dozens of solutions to common
devices, such as your CD drive
•S
 top Windows Update hanging when
updating
•S
 olve problems relating to your
antivirus software
•P
 erform complex registry tweaks with
one click
computer woes. Created by the
webmaster of PC-help site The Windows
Club (www.thewindowsclub.com), it
performs complex commands and
tweaks with one click and lets you run
Windows’ own troubleshooters – which
Microsoft plans to remove soon (see
www.snipca.com/47821).
In this feature, we explain how to use
FixWin to repair a wide range of PC
problems, without paying a penny. The
latest version (FixWin 11.1) works with
both Windows 10 and 11, and doesn’t
require installation – just click the
Download File button at www.snipca.
com/47803, then extract and run the
contents of the ZIP file.
Note that because it makes changes to
your PC, FixWin may trigger a SmartScreen
warning, but it’s completely safe to use so
click ‘More info’ then ‘Run anyway’.

WHAT TO FIX FIRST WITH FIXWIN
1 Fix damaged system files
that cause crashes
Before you try any other repairs in
FixWin, you should run the System File
Checker Utility on the Welcome screen
( 1 in our screenshot below). This scans
your PC to check whether protected
system files have been altered, and fixes
any that are damaged or missing by
replacing them with correct versions. It’s
particularly useful if you’re experiencing
frequent crashes, including the dreaded
Blue Screen of Death, or seeing error
messages about missing DLL files.
Running the System File Checker (SFC)
usually involves opening Command
Prompt in Windows, as an administrator,
and typing the command sfc /scannow.
FixWin makes things easier by doing the
same thing with the click of a button,
without you needing to type anything.
SFC takes a few minutes to complete its
scan, and will respond with one of three
results: that it didn’t detect any ‘integrity
violations’, that it found and successfully
repaired corrupt files, or that it “found
corrupt files but was unable to fix some
of them”. Don’t worry if you get the last
result, because FixWin provides a
possible solution through its DISM
option.
DISM (Deployment Image Servicing
and Management) detects and fixes
corrupt files in the Windows system
image to allow SFC to work properly.
Rather than type Dism /Online /Cleanup-
Image /RestoreHealth into Command
Prompt, FixWin lets you run the DISM
command by clicking the Repair
Windows System Image button 2 on its
Welcome screen. Once the scan and
1 Protection tab. Ensure that protection is
2 the Welcome screen again and choose
Pin FixWin to your Windows taskbar
Because FixWin is a tiny
portable tool that doesn’t
require installation, it doesn’t
add a shortcut to your Start
menu or desktop. This
prevents clutter but also
means you need to run the program’s EXE
file every time you want to use it to repair
a problem. It doesn’t even offer options
repairs are complete, click System File
Checker Utility again to replace your
corrupt or missing system files.
2 Solve problems with
Microsoft Store apps
Lots of great free Windows tools are now
available as apps from the Microsoft Store,
rather than – or as well as – traditional
desktop programs. These apps are
intended to be easier, faster and safer to
use, but they sometimes suffer corruption
problems that prevent them from
opening or cause them to freeze or crash.
To repair misbehaving Microsoft Store
apps, click the Re-Register Store Apps
button on FixWin’s Welcome screen.
This will launch Windows PowerShell
with administrator privileges and
re-register all the apps that came installed
with Windows and any that you’ve
downloaded yourself.
Don’t worry if you see red text warning
that ‘deployment failed’ because resources
are in use – this merely means a particular
app is already running and presumably,
therefore, doesn’t need fixing.
Use FixWin’s
SFC and
DISM tools
to detect and
fix corrupt
Windows
system files
NEVER PAY FOR
PC REPAIRS
to create a shortcut or run it
automatically on startup.
To save time, right-click
FixWin’s taskbar icon while
you have it open and select ‘Pin
to taskbar’ (see screenshot).
This will give you a one-click shortcut to
launch the program when you need to
perform a fix.
Create a system restore point using FixWin
before you make changes to your PC
3 Undo changes that
mess up your PC
Before you make significant changes to
your PC, it’s essential to create a system
restore point, so you can roll back your
system if anything goes wrong. Windows
no longer creates points automatically
and Microsoft has hidden this important
feature in Windows 10 and 11 – you either
need to type system restore in the search
box and click ‘Create a restore point’, or
open the Run box and type sysdm.cpl
– so FixWin places the option upfront.
Click the Create a Restore Point button
on the Welcome screen to open the
System Properties box on the System
enabled for your main hard drive, then
click the Create button (see screenshot
above), enter a name for the restore point
(the date and time are added automatically)
and click Create.
Should you need to roll back your
system, click ‘Create a Restore Point’ on
System Restore to start the restoration
process.
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 51
 FIX PROBLEMS WITH FILE EXPLORER
4 Fix an undetectable
CD/DVD drive
When you insert a disc in your CD/DVD
drive to copy content to or from it,
Windows – or the third-party burning/
ripping software you’re using – should
detect it automatically. But you may find
the drive isn’t recognised, especially if
you haven’t touched it for a while, and
wonder whether you need to replace or
repair the undetectable hardware.
FixWin provides a simple solution to
this problem to save you splashing out on
a new or serviced disc drive. Select the
File Explorer tab in the left-hand menu
and find the entry CD drive or DVD drive
isn’t recognised by Windows or other
programs (see screenshot right). Click the
Fix button and FixWin will delete two
values from a registry key that relates to
the disc drive, and reboot your PC.
Hopefully, Windows – or the dedicated
software – will now recognise your drive
and the CD or DVD it contains.
5 Repair a corrupted
Recycle Bin
It’s easy to take the Windows Recycle
Bin for granted until it stops working
properly, and you’re unable to delete
files – or access items you’ve previously
deleted.
FixWin’s File Explorer tab provides
several one-click solutions to common
Recycle Bin problems. The most powerful
is Reset Recycle Bin. Recycle Bin is
corrupted ( 1 in our screenshot below),
which fixes “all Recycle Bin problems”.
It works by running a command in
Command Prompt that resets the Recycle
Bin for all your hard drives. The downside
is that you’ll lose everything currently
stored in the bin – click Yes 2 if you’re
1 it and
2 SFC (see page 51) will fix the corrupt
52 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
Force Windows and
third-party tools to
recognise your
CD/DVD drive
happy to go ahead.
If you want to
recover deleted
files from the bin,
a less extreme fix
may suffice. Recycle
Bin is missing from
desktop restores
the bin icon if it’s
been removed by
a program or
malware; while Recycle Bin is greyed out
in Desktop Icon Settings unlocks the
ability to show or hide the bin.
6 Restore missing
desktop features
When you boot your PC and are greeted
with a blank screen that has no Start
menu, taskbar or desktop icons, it’s
natural to fear it may be broken or
infected with malware. But the usual
cause is that File Explorer has failed to
start alongside Windows, which means FixWin provides two fixes for error messages
none of the standard desktop items can about Windows memory
be displayed
FixWin provides a solution to this
problem through its setting Explorer
doesn’t start on startup in Windows.
7 Prevent memory errors
in Windows
One of the most common – and baffling
Click the Fix button to tweak the registry – error messages in Window warns you
value that sets File Explorer to start that: “The instruction at the referenced
automatically when Windows does. memory could not read. Click on OK to
To open File Explorer manually, so you terminate the program”. The error
can access FixWin to perform the fix, typically relates to the system files
press Windows key+R, type Explorer.exe ‘WerFault.exe’ and ‘WerMgr.exe’, which
in the Run box and press Enter. form part of the Windows error-reporting
system, and means either or both of these
Fix a
corrupted files has become corrupted.
recycle bin FixWin provides two solutions to the
by resetting problem via the setting WerFault.exe and
WerMgr.exe on its File Explorer tab.
deleting its
contents Click ‘Fix 1’ to open the Windows
Memory Diagnostic tool, then either
choose to restart now to check for and fix
memory problems (see screenshot above),
or do so when you next start your PC.
Click ‘Fix 2’ to apply a registry tweak
that disables the Windows error-reporting
system, so you no longer see such
messages. This won’t adversely affect the
performance of your PC, and running
file(s).

FIX INTERNET & CONNECTION PROBLEMS
8 Repair a broken
internet connection
There are plenty of reasons why you might
not be able to get online – both at your end
and your internet provider’s. FixWin’s
‘Internet & Connectivity’ tab offers
several potential solutions for the former,
which are worth trying before you
contact your ISP’s customer service team.
First, click the Fix button next to
Cannot connect to internet. There’s some
problem in Internet Protocol ( 1 in our
screenshot below). This resets your network
adapter’s TCP/IP settings by running the
command netsh int ip reset in Command
9 Get your Wi-Fi
Prompt. It’s often enough to fix your
connection, and won’t make things worse
if the internet protocol isn’t the cause.
If that doesn’t help, try the option
Difficulty connecting internet? Repair
Winsock (Reset Catalog) 2 . This resets
the file ‘winsock.dll’, which controls how
your PC and Windows programs connect
to the internet and can knock you offline
if it becomes corrupted. FixWin will run
a command to replace the damaged file
with a new copy of Winsock and restore
its default settings.
Finally, if you can connect to the
internet but can’t load any websites in
your browser, your DNS settings may be
misconfigured. FixWin’s Problem
regarding DNS cache resolution 3 uses
three commands to clear – or ‘flush’
– your DNS cache, so you’ll (hopefully)
be able to access sites again.
3 Network Adapter Troubleshooter, which
FixWin provides several ways to help repair a broken internet connection
Restore a lost Wi-Fi connection after upgrading
to Windows 11
working again
Some PC users have experienced a problem
with their Wi-Fi after upgrading from
Windows 10 to Windows 11. When you
click the Wi-Fi symbol in your system
tray, you may find that no wireless
networks are available, so you have to use
your Ethernet connection to get online.
FixWin says this is because the upgrade
may “mess with some Wi-Fi related
drivers and system files”, a problem
that may cause you to regret upgrading
and consider paying for technical
help. Before you do so, try clicking Fix
next to the Wi-fi doesn’t work after
upgrading to Windows 11 entry (see
screenshot above) on the program’s
System Fixes tab. This runs a couple of
commands in Command Prompt to get
your Wi-Fi up and running again.
The fix also works in Windows 10, if
you’ve lost your Wi-Fi connection after
installing a Windows update.
1 FixWin and select Internet Connections
NEVER PAY FOR
PC REPAIRS
Stop the Windows
Firewall blocking
programs
The built-in Windows Firewall protects
your PC against hackers and malware
by blocking unauthorised internet traffic
– both incoming and outgoing. But
sometimes it can prevent legitimate
software from connecting to the
internet, either because you’ve
changed a setting yourself or a
malicious program has done so without
your knowledge.
To solve this, click the Fix button next
to FixWin’s Problem with Windows
Firewall settings option. This runs a
command that resets the Firewall to its
default settings and undoes any changes
that are impeding your connection. It’s
much safer than disabling the firewall,
because all unidentified programs will
still be blocked, and saves you having to
delve into Windows Security to restore
the firewall’s default settings.
10 Identify and fix
network problems
FixWin also gives you one-click access
to Microsoft’s own troubleshooters for
solving internet and network problems.
These are otherwise buried in the
Windows Settings app, so you might not
know to try them when you lose your
connection.
Click the Troubleshooters tab in
Troubleshooter. When the tool opens,
click Advanced, tick ‘Apply repairs
automatically’ (see screenshot below)
then click Next. Select ‘Troubleshoot my
connection to the internet’ to identify
and fix connection problems.
If no issues are detected, try the
finds and fixes any problems with
wireless and other network adapters –
you can choose a specific adapter or
select ‘All network adapters’.
Run the internet and network troubleshooters
to fix connection problems
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 53
 READER OFFER! ADD A
DISC FOR
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FIX PROBLEMS WITH WINDOWS TOOLS
11 Solve Windows Update
problems
Windows Update is a frequent cause of
PC problems, so it’s unsurprising that
FixWin’s System Fixes tab includes
repairs for the troublesome feature.
One of these, Windows Updates stuck
downloading updates after upgrading,
relates to an issue many users have
experienced after upgrading to
Windows 11, but also affects Windows 10.
When you try to install the latest
available update, Windows Update gets
stuck while ‘Preparing to install updates’
when updates are ‘Pending’ or at the
‘Checking for updates’ stage (see
screenshot below). FixWin solves this
problem by running two commands
in Command Prompt, deleting the
Software Distribution folder, then
running the commands again. It’s
definitely worth a try if Windows Update
is driving you to despair.
Another useful fix is simply titled
Windows Update Error 0x80070057. This
is one of the most common Windows
Update errors, which has plagued the
operating system since Windows XP. It
means that Windows has experienced a
storage problem, either because there’s
not enough space to install an update
or due to a corrupt file system or
registry entries.
FixWin tweaks the registry and resets
the Software Distribution folder to let you
install Windows updates without getting
the error message – though you may need
to delete further files manually if lack of
FixWin offers several solutions for common problems with Windows Update
1
2
If you can’t open Windows Settings or Start
menu, FixWin can help
space is the issue.
The program’s Troubleshooters tab
includes a Windows Update Troubleshooter
for diagnosing and fixing other update
problems using Microsoft’s own methods.
12 Repair essential
Windows features
The Settings app in Windows 10 and 11
gives you access to all manner of
important options for controlling how
the operating system works and looks.
So when you suddenly find you can’t
open Settings, or it instantly closes
with an error message, it’s a very big
deal indeed.
Thankfully, FixWin provides a
one-click solution called Reset Settings
app ( 1 in our screenshot above). This
runs a complex PowerShell command
that resets the Settings app, so you’ll be
able to use it again without any problems
– you may need to restart your PC.
You can also fix an issue that prevents
the controversial Start menu in
NEVER PAY FOR
PC REPAIRS
Run the Hardware And Devices
Troubleshooter to update your device drivers
Windows 11 from opening when you
click its taskbar button. Click ‘Fix’ next
to Start Menu doesn’t open 2 to run a
PowerShell command that solves the
problem.
Sadly, FixWin can’t restore the
Start menu to its traditional appearance –
for that you need Open-Shell (www.
snipca.com/47657), as explained in
our Workshop in Issue 668 (page 38).
If the Window search box on the
taskbar isn’t working, you can use
FixWin to repair it. Select the System
Tools tab and apply the Reset Windows
Search to defaults fix. This performs a
fairly complex set of commands and
registry tweaks to restore the search
box to its default settings.
Device Manager is another vital
Windows component that can cause
major headaches when it stops
working properly. For example, it may
fail to recognise a new device you’ve
connected to your PC, or may be
completely empty rather than
showing a list of hardware.
These problems occur when the
Windows ‘Plug and Play’ service,
which identifies devices and loads the
latest available drivers, isn’t working.
FixWin’s setting Device Manager isn’t
working properly and not showing any
devices runs a command and applies a
registry tweak to force ‘Plug and Play’ to
start. Reboot your PC and Device
Manager will now detect all your
connected devices.
You can solve other device problems
by running the Hardware And Devices
Troubleshooter (see screenshot above)
on FixWin’s Troubleshooters tab. This
checks that all your device drivers are
up to date, and installs new ones where
necessary – you’ll need to restart your
PC. There are also troubleshooters for
fixing issues with your printer and
audio devices.
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 55
 FIX WINDOWS SECURITY PROBLEMS
13 Repair your
antivirus protection
Microsoft Defender Antivirus, which is
built into Windows 10 and 11 as part of
the Windows Security app, provides
reliable and comprehensive protection
against the latest malware threats.
However, this powerful antivirus tool
isn’t infallible, and you may experience
problems such as it turning itself off,
being disabled by a rogue application
or failing to perform a scan.
These issues are usually caused by
corrupt files and can be fixed by restoring
Microsoft Defender to its default settings.
Select the System Tools tab in FixWin
and click Fix next to the option Repair
Windows Defender. This re-registers
nine DLL files and resets related registry
keys to address every problem that could
be preventing Defender from working
properly. You’ll see confirmation
messages for each DLL file – click OK to
close these. Don’t worry if any show an
error message, because this merely
means the DLL file isn’t used by your
version of Windows.
FixWin also offers the option to Reset
Discover how FixWin fixes problems
Throughout this feature,
we’ve explained what
FixWin does when you
click the Fix button for
specific settings, but you
may want to know how it
performs other fixes. To find out, click the
question-mark icon next to an option. This
will give you a description of the cause of
the problem, and tell you the solution
FixWin will attempt. In the Manual section
(see screenshot), you’ll see details of the
56 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
FixWin can force Windows to
detect which security software
you have installed
Windows Security Settings
to defaults (see screenshot
below left) including firewall
and network protection, app
and browser control, and
device protection. This fixes
Windows Security if it keeps
crashing or not opening, and
also allows you to instantly
optimise your protection if
any important options have been Windows Security may warn you that no
changed. antivirus software or firewall can be
If you prefer to use third-party antivirus detected.
software in Windows, such as Norton 360 You can fix the issue using the option
(see our Reader Offer on page 70), Windows Action Center and Windows Security
should automatically detect its installation Center don’t recognise installed
and disable Microsoft Defender and AntiVirus… on FixWin’s System Tools tab.
Windows Firewall. It should also show This resets the Windows Management
your preferred program(s) under Instrumentation service, which is
‘Security providers’ in Windows responsible for reporting whether – and
Security’s Settings and in the Action which – antivirus software is installed.
Centre (which you access by pressing
Windows key+A or clicking the speech-
bubble icon at the end of your taskbar).
If Windows doesn’t
14 Unlock Windows tools
disabled by malware
Unless you’re using a company-owned
recognise your antivirus computer, you should be able to access
software, the problem is Windows tools without being told they’ve
probably caused by been ‘disabled by your administrator’.
leftover traces of a security Sometimes this restriction is imposed by
tool you’ve uninstalled. a program you’ve installed, but there’s
The removed program also a risk it’s caused by malware. FixWin
may still be identified as can unlock certain features that have
your security provider supposedly been disabled by your
(such as the ESET administrator, allowing you to use them
examples in our as normal.
screenshot above) or On the System Tools tab, you’ll find
options for removing the restriction from
FixWin repairs Microsoft
Defender Antivirus by re- Task Manager, Command Prompt, the
registering multiple DLL files Registry Editor and System Restore (see
screenshot below). Just click the Fix
button next to each one to delete the
registry value that’s locking that tool.
Make sure you run a full antivirus scan
exact steps the afterwards, in case there is a sinister cause.
program will
take, such as
tweaking a
certain registry
setting or running
a specific command in Command Prompt.
To save the fix for future reference or
share it with someone, double-click the
instructions to copy them to your clipboard.
You can then paste the text into a document
or email, to try the fix without using FixWin. Use FixWin to remove ‘administrator’
restrictions from Windows tools
 NEVER PAY FOR
PC REPAIRS
FIVE QUICK FIXES YOU CAN MAKE WITH FIXWIN
1
Five FixWin settings
you should ignore
2 Reset Internet Explorer
FixWin includes several IE fixes that
have presumably carried over from
a previous version of the program.
Microsoft’s old browser is officially dead,
so there’s no point repairing it now.

4 WslRegisterDistribution
failed with error
This baffling tweak is aimed at software
developers who use the Windows
3 Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The rest of
us needn’t worry about it.

FixWin’s Additional Fixes tab provides a range of useful Windows tweaks
Re-enable the
Hibernate feature
The power-saving feature Hibernate is
unnecessary if your PC has an SSD, but
it’s useful for traditional hard drives.
If the Hibernate option has disappeared
from your shutdown menu, you can
use the Enable Hibernate setting ( 1 in
our screenshot above) on FixWin’s
Additional Fixes tab to bring it back.
This runs a command and tweaks the
registry to place Hibernate alongside
Sleep, ‘Shut down’ and Restart.
Rebuild corrupted desktop icons
A corrupted desktop shortcut won’t
affect the performance of your PC as
severely as a corrupted system file, but it
does look unsightly – with a blank-page
icon rather than a program logo or folder.
To restore your desktop icons to their
intended appearance, select the Icons are
corrupted option on the Additional
Fixes tab 2 . This clears and rebuilds the
icon cache to give your shortcuts their
intended design.
Restore desktop notifications
Desktop notifications often provide useful
information such as warning you your
antivirus is turned off or telling you when
an update is available. If your notifications
have gone silent, apply the Notifications
have been disabled fix 3 , which deletes
the registry value that’s blocking them.
Display taskbar ‘jump lists’
If your taskbar icons are no longer
showing a list of recently opened files and
web pages when you right-click them,
FixWin can restore these ‘jump lists’. On
the Additional Fixes tab, click Fix next to
Taskbar jumplist is missing… 4 to reset
the folders relating to this feature.
Stop OneDrive running
in the background
As we explain in our How To feature on
page 35, Microsoft recently imposed a
storage restriction in OneDrive, and that’s
not the only reason to stop using the
service. In Windows 11, OneDrive runs
automatically in the background,
Homegroup Troubleshooter
Microsoft has removed the HomeGroup
networking feature from Windows 10,
and never included it in Windows 11, so
clicking this troubleshooter just tells
you the service is disabled.
Mail or Calender app(s) are crashing
Not only does this setting misspell
‘calendar’, but it also directs you
to a web page to download a
troubleshooter that doesn’t exist. It’s
one of FixWin’s few flaws.
Telnet is not recognised
Telnet is an old network protocol for
logging into computers remotely. It’s no
longer commonly used and isn’t secure
because it doesn’t encrypt data, so
don’t worry about it not working.
consuming data and power as it syncs
files between your PC and the ‘cloud’.
You can prevent this from happening
using the Disable OneDrive setting on
FixWin’s System Fixes tab. This tweaks
the registry to stop OneDrive syncing
your files, and also works in Windows 10.
FixWin provides a Revert button if you
change your mind.

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Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 57

 Windows Copilot:
must-use tool
or annoying
gimmick?
Microsoft thinks its new AI tool will
revolutionise how you search your
computer and the internet. Nik Rawlinson
tries it out to see if it lives up to the hype
What is Copilot?
Microsoft calls Copilot “a digital
companion for your whole life”. At heart,
it’s a digital assistant, like Amazon Alexa
or Google Assistant, that can answer
questions you ask in natural English.
Microsoft reckons it will “empower you
to create faster and complete tasks with
ease and lessen your cognitive load”. Or,
in plain English: it can research and write
stuff, help you navigate Windows and do
some of your thinking for you.
Some of Copilot’s advanced functions
are aimed at business users who
subscribe to Microsoft 365, which
includes the most up-to-date versions of
Office tools. That’s why Microsoft is
highlighting Copilot’s ability to pick out
key points from meetings and build
PowerPoint presentations (see www.
snipca.com/47891).
You don’t have to be a high-flying
executive to find it helpful, though. Home
users can benefit from Copilot’s ability to
change settings in Windows or grab
information from the web. In
these respects, it’s more like an
improved Cortana than the
infamous Clippy Office Assistant,
which would pop up in Word
whenever it thought you were 1 2
writing a letter.
How does Copilot work?
First, you need to check that
your computer has installed the
‘Moment 4’ update for Windows
11, taking your machine to build Open Copilot, then type turn on dark mode and click ‘Yes’
60 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
22621.2361 or later. Even if you’ve
updated to Moment 4, you may not have
access to Copilot. Microsoft is adding it to
computers as part of a “controlled feature
rollout”, which means many users won’t
automatically get it right away.
Once you’ve updated and rebooted,
press Windows key+C (Cortana’s old
shortcut) or click the Copilot button on
the taskbar ( 1 in our screenshot below).
Copilot will open in a narrow sidebar to
the right of your screen. No other
windows can encroach on it, so they’re
limited to the remaining screen space,
and using Snap Layouts will take the
Copilot sidebar into account.
It looks almost identical to the pane
that appears in Bing when you use its AI
chatbot. The difference is that you can
open the Copilot pane from anywhere in
Windows and while using any program,
whereas the Bing chatbot runs only while
you’re using the Edge browser.
Type up to 4,000 characters into the
box at the bottom of the sidebar, or click
3 instructions
the mic icon 2 and speak your request.
Copilot may rewrite your request in
simpler terms before answering it, which
it does using the AI tool ChatGPT. This
examines huge quantities of human-
generated content, such as web pages and
books, both to learn how to understand
our requests, and to provide answers. All
online suggestions come from Bing
(Microsoft’s search engine), and clicking
a link takes you to Edge (its browser).
Perform Windows tasks quickly
We think this is how most people will use
Copilot. Type or speak a command and
Copilot will carry it out, saving you the
hassle of hunting for the task in Settings.
However, for the moment it seems to
work only with basic commands –
particularly those that have a simple on/
off or open/close action. Finding out
which work takes some trial and error.
For example, if you type or speak turn
on dark mode, Copilot responds with a
box containing the options Yes and ‘No
If Copilot can’t
perform a task,
it might give you
step-by-step
instead

WHAT COPILOT CAN/CAN’T DO
 What it can do
• Turn on/off Bluetooth
• Increase volume
• Open Office apps
• Open Task Manager
• View all devices
• Start a Focus session
Copilot learned to
recommend non-
fiction audiobooks
on Audible
What it can’t do
• Turn on/off Wi-Fi
• Increase brightness
• Change password
• Open Start menu
• Update Windows
• Restart your PC

thanks’ 3 . Clicking ‘Yes’ activates dark
mode without you having to open
Settings, then click Personalisation
followed by Colours to find the relevant
option. Cleverly, it even recognised our
mistyped command turn oin dark mode.
Sometimes, when Copilot can’t
directly perform a task – such as take
screenshot or change wallpaper – it opens
the appropriate app for the job, or the
specific section in Settings. And when it
can’t do that, it gives step-by-step
instructions (see screenshot below left)
or provides links to Microsoft’s online
support pages and help videos. If the
search results don’t look helpful, click
Stop Responding.
The box above contains some of the
commands we found Copilot could and
couldn’t perform.
Get online search results –
but will it replace Google?
Ask Google Search what the best ever
version of Windows is, and it’ll present
lots of sites all giving an opinion. It’s
hard to know which offers the most
insightful answer. But ask Copilot and
it’ll summarise responses from the
web, saying that Bill Gates’ favourite
version is Windows 95, while many
people prefer Windows 7. You can click
links to read more online, but Copilot’s
answer might be all you need.
Asking Copilot
for weather
information gave
up-to-date and
local details
Typing what’s the weather in Copilot
also yields useful results. It recognised
our location, gave sunrise and sunset
times, and showed several sites to click
for more information (see screenshot
below left).
This could be where Copilot’s main
appeal lies – in providing comprehensive
answers from the web without you
having to click anything. It’s fairer
therefore to compare it with Google’s
new Bard tool (https://bard.google.com),
which also uses AI to search the web.
Both Copilot and Bard can help you
grasp the fundamentals of a subject
without having to read through lengthy
documents. When we asked Copilot
what the average human reading speed
is, it said 238 words per minute for
non-fiction. At that rate, it would take
around 50 minutes to read ‘Technological
and industrial history of Canada’, which
at 12,068 words is one of Wikipedia’s
longest entries (www.snipca.com/47890).
Then we asked Copilot to summarise
the Wikipedia article and pasted a link to
it ( 1 in screenshot below). After 43
seconds, it had reduced the article to a
more manageable 334 words, with key
eras reduced to bullet points.
Google Bard trimmed it even further, to
86 words 2 , but there were no bullet
points and it was less helpful because it
read like the description on the back of a
book designed to help me decide whether
to read the full article or not.
1 more useful than the unloved Cortana
2 will often save you having to launch a
Copilot’s summaries of lengthy Wikipedia
articles were more useful than Google Bard’s
We tried again with some more
personal questions, including ‘what can I
do with three kids and a dog in north
Wales this weekend?’.
Bard suggested some good dog-friendly
options, such as Conwy Valley and going
to the beach – which was timely because
it was four days after the six-month
summer ban on dogs on Welsh beaches
had been lifted. Each suggestion was
accompanied by a photo that linked to a
related site.
Copilot suggested similar locations, as
well as Anglesey Sea Zoo, where it
warned that “dogs are not allowed inside
the building, but they have dog pens
outside”. The advice was very detailed,
and couched in terms you’d expect from
a knowledgeable friend.
It still makes mistakes, though we’re
impressed by how quickly it learns
from them. When we first asked it for
the best non-fiction audiobooks on
Audible, half of its recommendations
were fiction. Yet only a week later it
recommended 12 audiobooks – all
non-fiction – including Sapiens: A Brief
History of Humankind by Yuval Noah
Harari (see screenshot above).
VERDICT: Should
you use Copilot?
For such a new product, it’s a definite
yes. This is no overhyped gimmick.
Copilot already performs enough
Windows tasks to make it a valuable
desktop assistant, and is certainly
– though we expect some users will
give up after a few failed commands.
It’s best for summarising info from the
web so you don’t have to click through
to a site. Indeed, typing a question
browser at all. But whether it’ll prove
better than anything Apple, Amazon,
Google or Meta release remains to be
seen.

Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 61


Find your lost Android phone
If you’re an Android user and logged into
your Google account, you can track your
device online using Google’s Find My
Device service (www.snipca.com/47845).
It also works for some accessories,
including Pixel Buds, while support for
headphones from Sony and JBL is coming
soon (see www.snipca.com/47869). It’s
compatible with Tile and Chipolo tags too
– we’ll come to those later.
Google is currently working on a huge
update to the Find My Device app that
will use phones and tablets connected
to its network to help locate missing
devices. But it has already added a feature
that tells you whether someone has
slipped a location tracker into your
belongings to secretly track you
(see Issue 664, page 44).
Make sure ‘Use Find My Device’ is switched on
so you can track a lost Android phone
If your Android device isn’t showing
on the Find My Device map, make sure
it’s properly set up. Open Settings, tap
Location, and check that ‘Use location’ is
switched on. Go back to Settings and tap
either Security or ‘Security and privacy’
(it will vary depending on your version of
Android), followed by Find My Device.
If you don’t have Security or ‘Security
and privacy’, but do have an option for
‘Security & location’, tap this, followed by
Google Security, then Find My Device.
Finally, make sure the switch beside Use
Find My Device is on (see screenshot
above).
Find your lost iPhone or iPad
If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, you’ll
need to use Apple’s Find My service.
Again, you can use this through the
browser by logging in with your iCloud
username and password at www.icloud.
com/find or by using the Find My app
built into iOS (for iPhones) and iPadOS.
For the latter, open Settings, then tap
62 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
STOP
losing
your
devices
There are plenty of new, advanced
ways to find lost phones, keys and
other items. Nik Rawlinson explains
how they work
your name at the top followed by Find
My. Now tap the ‘Find My iPhone’ (or
iPad) slider so it turns green ( 1 in our
screenshot below). To see your device
even when it’s offline, turn on ‘Find My
network’ 2 . To have the location of your
device sent to Apple when its battery is
low, turn on Send Last Location 3 . There’s
also a ‘Share My Location’ option for letting
friends and family know where you are.
To find your lost device on a map, you’ll
need to turn on Location Services. Go to
1 ‘separation alert’ if you wander off with
2 Find your device using
3 one to your keys or the zip on your bag
Turn on these settings so you’ll always be able
to find your iPhone, even when it’s offline and
its battery is running low
Settings, then tap ‘Privacy & Security’
followed by Location Services, and tap
the slider so it turns green.
The most recent update to iOS and
iPadOS (version 17, released in
September) lets you share the location of
an AirTag with up to five other people.
So, if you’re using it to track your dog and
it disappears in the park, your search
party can work with live tracking data.
Even if you haven’t bought an AirTag,
Find My tracks iPhones, iPads, Apple
computers and AirPods connected to
your account, placing them on a map.
If you’re unlikely to get your device
back, you can remotely wipe all personal
data from it. ‘Find My’ even sends you a
your phone but leave your AirPods
behind (see www.snipca.com/47871 for
instructions).
location tags
Apple AirTag, Tile and Samsung SmartTag
are miniature location beacons. Attach
and you can track your belongings as
easily as a lost phone. They work by
transmitting a signal over Bluetooth that
can be picked up by passing phones.
If a phone that receives it has the
Apple’s AirTag is a 1.26in
silver disc and costs £35 for
one or £119 for four
accompanying app
installed – like Find
My for AirTag, or
SmartThings Find
for SmartTag – it
uses the phone’s
location to update
the tag’s location on
a server. So, should
you lose a device to
which you’ve attached a
tag, you can log into the
service and see where it was last
spotted.
A single AirTag costs £35, or you can
buy a pack of four for £119 (www.snipca.
com/47883). The battery should last for
more than a year and, as an unfussy,
1.26in (31.9mm) silver disc (pictured
above), it’s probably the best-looking
tracker on the market.
The lack of a hole or loop means you
can easily slip it into a pocket, but it does
mean there’s no easy way to attach it to
your keys unless you also buy a loop. On
the Apple Store, these start at £14.95 for
a Belkin Secure Holder (www.snipca.
com/47859).
More than one billion people have
iPhones, all of whom could be watching
out for your missing AirTag. However, it’s
far from your only option. Tile has been
in the tracking business for a decade and
has broadened its range with new colour
options for its Slim and Mate tags (www.
snipca.com/47876).
We’ll look at Slim shortly, but Tile’s
Mate and Pro products are conventional
tags which, because they have an
integrated hole, can be attached to a key
With power-saving
mode switched on,
Samsung’s new
Galaxy SmartTag2
lasts up to 700 days
fob without the need for a separate loop.
This makes the Mate in particular a
cheaper option, at £19.99 for a single tag,
and £63.99 (£15.99 apiece) for a pack of
four (www.snipca.com/47858).
The Mate’s battery lasts for up to three
years, but isn’t replaceable. The battery in
Tile Pro (www.snipca.com/47861) lasts a
year, but can be replaced when it runs
dry. It works with the Tile app for both
iOS and Android.
Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag2 (£35
from www.snipca.com/47872, pictured
below) is the newest tag on the block,
released in October. It improves on its
predecessor’s battery life (up to 700 days
in power-saving mode) and introduces
Lost Mode. This lets users upload their
contact information to the tag, from
which it can be retrieved using a mobile’s
NFC chip. That way, if someone finds
your wandering cat with a SmartTag2 on
its collar, they can bring it safely home.
Choose a slimmer tracker
Apple’s AirTag trackers are 8mm thick
(almost as much as a stack of three
one-pound coins) and Tile Pro runs to
7.7mm. Each could put a bulge in your
wallet, but Tile Slim (£21 from www.
snipca.com/47878) and Chipolo
Card (£26 from www.snipca.
com/47862, pictured above
right) solve this
problem, being
shaped like a
credit card
How I track my keys
I have two bunches
of keys with Tile tags
attached. One is for
home, and the other
is for a flat I owned in
France (now sold). I’ve
lost track of the number of times I used
the app to check that one or other
bunch of keys was with me while half
way to Paris – particularly as I always
used the train, where luggage was
stored out of sight at the end of the
carriage. Tags are like an insurance
policy: not something you think about
day to day, but you’d be very glad you
bought some should disaster strike.
Nik Rawlinson
Chipolo’s range of card trackers are designed
to fit neatly in your wallet
and either 2.5mm or 2.15mm thick.
Naturally, the Tile Slim works with the
Tile app, and the Chipolo card with
Chipolo’s equivalent. But Chipolo also
makes Card Spot and Card Point, which
work across Apple’s Find My and Google’s
Find My Device networks respectively.
Chipolo has recently updated its
companion app so that double-pressing a
tag will make your phone ring and blink
its flashlight, making it easier to find in a
dark room or the bottom of your bag (see
www.snipca.com/47870).
Tile has the slimmest tag of all: stickers.
Its ‘Lost and Found Labels’ cost £12.99 for
15 (www.snipca.com/47866), and have a
QR code. Use the free app to activate
them and, when scanned, they’ll reveal
your details to whoever wants to return
your lost device.
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 63
 Problems Solved
Our experts solve all your tech problems
PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
How do I see screensaver locations?
I have Windows 11 and have
Q set the screensaver to display
the photos stored on my hard
drive, which it does just fine. My
problem is fairly trivial. Every so often
one of the photos catches my eye and I
think I’d like to print it or at least have
a better look at it. But as soon as I
touch the mouse or the keyboard, the
screensaver disappears. So, is there any
way I can stop the screensaver and
show the file name and path of the
photo being displayed? Or can I get it
to show the path at the bottom of the
photo being displayed? Hope you can
help. Thanks for an interesting and
useful magazine.
Bob Chapman
This is both not possible and
A possible, difficult and easy,
and risky and safe! You’d think
all those contradictions might take
some explaining, but really it all boils
down to whether or not you have
access to Windows XP.
That’s because the feature you want
existed in Windows XP and still works
in later versions of the operating
system, but for reasons known only to
itself, Microsoft removed it. So, if you
2 3
Click to open the ‘Screen saver’ dropdown
menu and choose My Pictures Slideshow
64 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
happen to have a PC still running
Windows XP – or can get access to one
– then it’s a quick, simple and safe task to
copy the relevant screensaver file to a
modern computer running Windows 11
to revive this handy feature.
First, on the Windows XP computer,
use Windows Explorer (as it was called
then) to navigate to the C:\Windows\
System32 folder. There, find the file called
ssmypics.scr and copy it to a USB stick, or
find some other way of getting it on to
your Windows 11 PC (by emailing it to
yourself, for example). Next, copy this file
into the same folder on your Windows 11
computer. For the benefit of other
readers, this also works for Windows 10,
Click to tick the box labelled ‘Show file
names’
1 Click on
Personalization,
followed by ‘Lock
screen’, and then
click ‘Screen
saver’
8, 7 andVista. Now restart your PC.
To activate this vintage screensaver in
Windows 11 (or 10 for that matter), first
click Start followed by the Settings cog,
and then Personalization followed by
‘Lock screen’ (see screenshot 1 ). Now
click ‘Screen saver’ (or ‘Screen saver
settings’ in Windows 10).
This opens the Screen Saver Options
box. Next, click to open the ‘Screen
saver’ dropdown menu and choose My
Pictures Slideshow 2 , then click the
Settings button. Now, under the ‘Use
pictures in this folder’ heading, click
the Browse button and use the Browse
box to select the photos folder, clicking
OK to confirm. Finally, back at the
Screen Saver Options box that opens,
click to tick the box labelled ‘Show file
names’ 3 and then click OK.
So that’s the easy and safe way to
resurrect this feature. If you don’t have
access to Windows XP, you’ll have to
look for the file online. It’s difficult to
find, and we’re afraid that no site could
be considered wholly trustworthy.
That’s because the file is under
Microsoft’s copyright, and no reputable
download site would risk hosting it on
their servers. Regardless, when you’ve
found and downloaded the file, run it
through your virus scanner, by
right-clicking and choosing ‘Scan with
Windows Defender’, for example. Then
you should be good to go with the
above instructions.

Why is my Ethernet slower than Wi-Fi?
I have TalkTalk full-fibre
Q broadband with speeds close to
1Gbps. I run an Ethernet cable
from the router to the living room, into
a 1Gbps switch. From the switch I
connect a Panasonic TX-58EX700B TV,
an Amazon Fire Stick 4K and an Eero
Pro 6 extender, all through Ethernet. A
Wi-Fi speed test using my Samsung S21
regularly shows 500-600Mbps, but a
check via the TV’s web interface gives
just 30Mbps and the Fire Stick around
90Mbps. Why are the Ethernet
connections giving such low readings
when all good advice says Ethernet is
better than Wi-Fi?
Ralph Webster
All else being equal, then a
A wired internet connection will
be faster and more reliable. But
it is rare for all else to be equal – and it
certainly isn’t here. Your incoming
broadband connection is up to 1Gbps,
and from the figures measured by your
S21 it’s clear that your router’s Wi-Fi
Why does my
laptop start so
slowly?
I installed Windows 11 on
Q a HP 15-bw069na laptop.
When it boots it stays on the
welcome screen for around 20 seconds
before it gets to the desktop screen. I
have disabled all the start-up apps.
In total it takes more than a minute
from switching on to showing the
Windows desktop. Can I improve
things or am I just expecting too much
from this old laptop?
Ron Lawrence
We have a feeling you
A already know more
or less what we’re
going to say. This laptop model
is now several years old, and was a
The Crucial BX500 SATA SSD should speed
up the boot of a HP 15-bw069na laptop
Email us your problem and we’ll try to help:
noproblem@computeractive.co.uk
connection is also fast. We think it’s
also safe to assume that the router
itself is capable of pumping out
Ethernet at speeds of 1Gbps, or
possibly more – and we know for
sure that the switch is.
However, it’d be wrong to assume that
all connected devices are capable of
operating at or near the maximum
equipment speed. In fact, the Amazon
Ethernet Adaptor (pictured, £16 from
Amazon, www.snipca.com/47630),
which hooks up to a Fire Stick 4K to
enable wired connections, has only a
100Mbps capability. And, while
Panasonic’s specifications for the
TX-58EX700B TV don’t list the exact
Ethernet rating, it sounds like it too has a
relatively slow adapter built in – and as
this model is several years old, we’d be
surprised if it did have a gigabit (1Gbps)
Ethernet capability.
So, we think the cause of your concern
is as simple as that. We’d also say that, for
these specific devices, the speed ‘limit’
shouldn’t much matter. Even a 4K stream
pretty basic model even when it was
brand new. Its AMD A9-9420 processor
isn’t even officially compatible with
Windows 11. The 4GB of memory is
barely enough for modern
requirements.
Even so, none of these facts
is likely to be contributing
much to the slothful boot time.
The culprit is almost certainly the
machine’s hard drive, which is a
relatively slow 1TB 5400pm model.
Replacing this with an SSD, even a
low-specification one, is likely to
dramatically increase the time it takes
Windows to start up.
The Amazon Ethernet Adaptor connects to a
Fire Stick 4K with up to speeds of 100Mbps
at full pelt doesn’t require a fraction of
your Fire Stick 4K’s 100Mbps Ethernet
specification. Netflix, for example,
recommends a 15Mbps connection as a
minimum for 4K. As it can play only one
4K stream at a time, a Fire Stick simply
doesn’t need a faster connection. The
same is broadly true of the media and
streaming apps built into your TV.
However if the Ethernet port’s 30Mbps
speed is causing you problems, try the
set’s integrated Wi-Fi, because even fairly
old wireless adapters have maximum
speeds that could potentially be faster.
Connect the Crucial
BX500 SSD to the HP
laptop using this SATA-
to-USB cable
The 1TB
model of the
basic Crucial
BX500 SATA SSD costs
around £39 (pictured left,
from www.snipca.com/47631).
Connect it to your laptop using a
SATA-to-USB cable (above, around
£5 from www.snipca.com/47632),
use a free tool like HDClone X.4
(www.snipca.com/47633)
to clone the hard drive
to the SSD, and then
simply swap the
hard drive out for
the new drive.
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 65
 Problems Solved
Where do I get an old Zennox manual?
How do I delete
an incorrect
I have a Zennox Negative & Can you
Q Slide Scanner (pictured right) help
William
email address? purchased many years ago, but
never used. I’ve somehow managed to
find a
manual
lose the manual. I found some paid for the
Once, when filling in a websites that say they have got a copy, Zennox

Q form online I incorrectly

entered an email address,
and unfortunately this was saved
automatically by AutoComplete. I
would like to remove this incorrect
email address. Can you please advise
how to delete single entries?
Tim Hockley
but I’ve either been sent the wrong thing
or nothing at all. I’d really like to get this
Negative
and Slide
Scanner?
free, in PDF format. I know it’s not the
sort of thing you normally get asked for,
but I hope you can help an OAP.
Wiliam Andrew
As you’ve discovered, plenty hosting many millions of old guides, but

The feature that enables

A this particular facility is
generally known as AutoFill,
though its precise name differs from
app to app. AutoComplete, just for
the record, tends to refer to features
that try to guess what it is you’re
attempting to do – completing the
end of a word or sentence, say, or
saving an email address.
That’s just a bit of background for
clarity. You didn’t tell us which
browser you use, but, fortunately,
the method for eliminating single
AutoFill entries is the same in all
the main browsers. It’s very simple.
First, in any form field where the
offending email address appears,
use the cursor (arrow) keys to step
down to highlight it (see screenshots
below), and then just press
Shift+Delete (Del).
A of places exist online that’ll
fleece you of money on empty
promises. Indeed, many such sites exist
purely robotically, generating endless
pages for Google and other search
engines to find instruction guides for
any given product – and that’s almost
certainly what’s happened here.
We say that because we don’t think a
manual for this ancient product exists
online. The product itself is niche, very
many years old, and from a little-known
brand. ManualsLib is a well-known and
reliable resource for manuals online,
it has just a dozen for Zennox products
(www.snipca.com/47634, see screenshot
below). We did find a few complete
Negative & Slide Scanner packages for
sale on eBay, second-hand but complete
– but they’d be an expensive way to get
the manual, at around £50.
So, we can’t help directly, but we’re
publishing your request because it’s
just possible that a friendly fellow
reader has this product and would be
prepared to scan the manual for you.
Should anyone volunteer, we’ll put you
in touch with them.

Even ManualsLib, a well-known resource for manuals, only has a dozen for Zennox products

Q: Should I root my
seven-year-old tablet?
A: Issue 628, page 66 – find it on
our 2022 Back Issue CD
Replace the Shift and Delete buttons Buy it from
from here, with a + in the middle www.snipca.com/44660

66 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669

 Can Thunderbird show separate Gmail inboxes?
I love Gmail, but also enjoy
Q Thunderbird. I would really
like to configure Thunderbird
like Gmail. What I mean is that Gmail
sorts incoming mail into three separate
inboxes – Primary, Promotions and
Social. Is there any way I can configure
Thunderbird the same way?
Derek Unsworth
We’re afraid this isn’t possible.
A If you read the ‘What’s the
difference between…?’ piece in
Issue 666’s Problems Solved pages,
then you’ll understand that Gmail
doesn’t really use folders at all. Instead,
messages are assigned one or more
labels. To recap, those labels are used
by email programs like Thunderbird as
the basis for sorting synchronised
Gmail messages into what you see as
‘folders’. A message with more than
one label will appear to exist in more
than one folder, though there’s really
only ever one message.
This background is important to
understanding why you can’t achieve
1 Go to ‘See all settings’ (1),
click the Labels tab (2),
scroll down to Categories
and click hide (3)
2
what you want,
because the ‘inboxes’
3
you mention aren’t
actually labels but
what Gmail calls
‘categories’. While a
user can create their
own labels, and choose which are inboxes will more closely mirror what
synced over IMAP to email programs you see in Gmail. To do that, first visit
like Thunderbird, for whatever reason Gmail on the web and log in, then
Google doesn’t (yet, at least) allow this click the Settings cog at the top right,
with categories. followed by ‘See all settings’ (see
This has been the situation for years, so screenshot 1 ). Next, at the top, click the
we don’t see it changing soon. All we can Labels tab 2 and then scroll down to
suggest instead is disabling categories the Categories heading. There, next to
entirely, as then at least your Thunderbird Categories, click the ‘hide’ link 3 .

What are these 1 2 3

strange heart
icons?
I have a Samsung Galaxy S21
Q phone. Recently, some of the
icons on my home screen have
started displaying a small icon or badge
to the left of the app’s name. It’s a circle
with gaps at 12 and 3 o’clock, enclosing
a tiny heart (see screenshot 1 ). On the
screenshot I’ve sent you, it’s next to
Chrome, Contacts, Gmail, Facebook,
Messenger and Bard. On my wife’s
identical phone, these icons or badges do The heart icon (1). In Settings go to ‘Digital Wellbeing…’ (2), and then tap Digital Wellbeing (3)
not appear. I’ve searched high and low
and can't find anything to reveal what are alerts triggered by aspects of the software? It’s not impossible that a
these hearts are trying to tell me, and I feature. They can indicate, among other glitch during the process resulted in
wonder if you have any clues? factors, apps that you use a lot – or are features being enabled that you haven’t
Steven Spink using ‘too much’, if you’ve set certain previously used.
triggers via the Digital Wellbeing pane of Regardless, the ‘Digital Wellbeing and
We have some clue, yes – but not Settings. However, we think you’d know parental’ controls panel 2 from Settings is
A the whole picture. This icon
relates to the Digital Wellbeing
or remember if you did this, so why
they’ve only recently started appearing
where you should look first. From there,
tap Digital Wellbeing 3 and then explore
feature that’s been part of Android for the on your phone we can’t say for sure. Have what options are enabled, focusing on the
past few years. The icons you’re seeing you recently updated your phone’s screen-time goals for the flagged apps.

Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 67

 Problems Solved
Can I go past
Android 9?
I have a Samsung Galaxy S8+
Q phone (pictured), which seems
to be stuck on Android 9. I
understand it is capable of running more
recent versions of Android, but even
though the phone is set to automatically
download updates, the
last time it updated was
way back in August
2022. Is it possible to
update it manually?
Martyn Sandford

Officially, your
A phone supports
updates only up
to Android 9. It’s already
on that, so it won’t ever
The XDA Developers site has advice on upgrading the Galaxy S8+ to LineageOS
automatically update
again (unless Samsung version of it built by functional, though on your particular
has a change of heart, enthusiasts, known as phone these appear to be minimal.
but that is exceedingly LineageOS (https://lineageos. As the process is both complex and
unlikely). org). The process is indeed often changes, we can’t offer instructions
However, unofficially very manual and, if you get it on these pages. However, the excellent
the phone will run wrong, could break your XDA Developers website maintains
Android 12, or at least a phone – and should that detailed guides for upgrading countless
happen, don’t expect any Android phones beyond the point
support from Samsung. There intended by their manufacturers. The
Officially, the Samsung
Galaxy S8+ can be updated are also aspects of LineageOS starting point for you is XDA’s Galaxy S8+
to Android 9 only that might not be fully forum, at www.snipca.com/47636.

Can I connect my old Blu-ray via USB?

I have an internal 5.2in LG The Sabrent USB-
Q Blu-ray rewriter that my
current desktop PC won’t
12 supports optical
drives
accommodate. I bought a SATA-to-USB
3.0 adapter with 12V/2A mains power,
thinking that this would suffice, but
unfortunately the rewriter doesn’t
show up on my computer. Do I need a
different SATA connector? Is it even
possible to connect the rewriter?
Richard Wakefield

It’s possible, but many such

A adapters are designed for hard
drives or SSDs, not optical
drives. Did you buy one that specifically
supports optical drives? The pictured
Sabrent USB-12, for example, does
(around £30, www.snipca.com/47635)
– but note that we haven’t tested this
gadget with a 5.25in Blu-ray drive.
Another possibility is that you’re
connecting the drive to a USB 2 port. A
Blu-ray drive requires much more
bandwidth than this old standard
supports, so be sure to connect it to a
USB 3 socket.
These can sometimes be determined
by a blue plastic insert inside the socket
or a label on the outside, but these
identifiers are by no means universal –
so just try the drive in different USB
sockets.

68 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669

 ?? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN...
Air and liquid cooling?
I’ve been toying with the idea
Q of buying a PC for gaming, as
I have a lot more time on my
hands these days. I’m not all that
clued up about specifications, or that
bothered by them really, but I am
curious about why some gaming PCs
offer liquid cooling and others air
cooling. I should be clear that I don’t
intend to build this thing myself – life’s
too short! But I’m just wondering if it’s
worth spending extra on ready-made
systems with liquid cooling, as these
options seem to be more expensive.
Ron Green
Both methods are designed to
A keep the PC’s internal
components – and specifically
the graphics card, or GPU – as cool as
possible. This is important because the
most demanding games can work
GPUs hard, making them very hot.
If they get too hot, your gaming
experience may suffer, because the
chips are designed to ‘throttle’ their
own performance to prevent them
overheating.
To that end, both air- and
liquid-cooling systems are
designed to minimise
internal temperatures
– and both have their
share of pros and cons.
Air cooling typically
means one or more fans,
strategically arranged to
direct heat out of the
case. They can be large
and, at full pelt, noisy.
By contrast, liquid-
cooling systems, like the pictured
A liquid-cooled PC, such as this one from
example from PCSpecialist (www. PCSpecialist, needs regular maintenance
pcspecialist.co.uk), tend to be smaller
and quieter, but they’re more complex to In summary, if you demand the
install and may require more regular
maintenance. For example, a custom-
pinnacle of performance from your
GPU coupled with (relative) peace and
built system might benefit from having quiet, liquid cooling is the best option.
the coolant fluid flushed and changed However, as you already know, expect
every few months, though modern to pay more for a liquid-cooled setup
‘closed-loop’ systems essentially – and you might need to factor in the
eliminate this need. Air-cooled systems added hassle, time and cost of specialist
will also benefit from some periodic maintenance.
attention, to remove built-up dust and so Want to know the difference between
forth, but generally this is an easier job, technical terms? Email noproblem@
requiring little specialist knowledge. computeractive.co.uk

Do these hackers have control of my PC?

I recently received emails
Q from two difference sources –
let’s call them John and
Bruce. Both informed me that they
had infected all my devices with
malware that gave them control over
the cameras and microphones, as
well as has having all my contacts
and a list of websites I’ve visited.
This pair both demanded differing
amounts of Bitcoin to stop them
sending supposedly ‘naughty’ stuff
to my friends and associates.
Neither has shown any
evidence of their claims,
and my PC doesn’t even
have a working camera!
Also, I’ve not done
anything more suspect
than playing Spider
Solitaire on my phone
while a young nurse
changed my dressings
and, in my late 70s, the only thing I lust
after these days is a comfy chair and a
cup of tea. Should I worry?
Nick Peters
At your request, we’ve changed
A your name. We’re as confident
as we can be that you have
nothing to worry about, because this
is a typical ‘sextortion’ attempt – and
the scammers behind it probably send
millions of them every day to random
people. We found a couple in our
inbox this week alone.
This particular scam
is so called because it
plays on the fears of the
recipients. Their devices
are no more likely to be
infected than yours, but if
Hit delete to confine a scam
message to the bin
only a tiny percentage of them are
worried enough to pay the ransom,
then that’s a good day’s work for the
criminals behind these efforts.
Our advice is simply to hit the Delete
or Spam button on these messages and
carry on playing Spider Solitaire without
any worries.
ON SALE
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• Where are my apps stored?
•H  ow do I sync my iPhone
with Windows?
•H
 ow do I stop Microsoft’s
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...And many more
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Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 69

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Problems Solved
Reader Support
Having a problem with our recommended software or expert tips?
Email editor@computeractive.co.uk and we’ll do our best to help
How do I export videos from
DaVinci Resolve?
Following Issue 666’s Workshop
Q (page 38), I’ve successfully used
DaVinci Resolve (www.snipca.
com/47458) to stabilise shaky videos
taken with a handheld, telephoto video
camera. However, I can’t work out how
to export the result in a format that I can
use in Serif MoviePlus X6. DaVinci’s
manual, which opens when you the click
the Help option, runs to over 4,500 pages
and is difficult to understand.
Peter Connelly
We agree that DaVinci Resolve’s
A manual isn’t the easiest to follow.
We’ll try to explain the process
as clearly as possible. Open the software
then click the Deliver button at the
bottom. You’ll now see different export
presets at the top for YouTube, H.264 and
H.265, as well as options to export in
Apple’s Final Cut and Adobe Premiere.
Choose one of these, or click the
Custom Export icon ( 1 in our screenshot
below) to make your own adjustments
– for example, renaming the video and
selecting where to save it. Now pick the
part of the video you want to export.
Everything shown below the grey bar on
the timeline will be exported.
In the Render section select single or
2 We don’t think we misunderstood
1 A
3 that there is no legal requirement for mobile
4 a handful even use solar or wind power,
Click ‘Custom Export’ in DaVinci Resolve then
choose settings such as resolution and format
individual clips 2 , then click the Format
menu and choose a format, such as MP4
3 . Also choose a resolution, making sure
it’s the same as your video 4 .
After you’ve exported your file, open
MoviePlus X6, then click File, followed by
Import. Navigate to your exported video
file and click Open. Your video should
now open, ready for you to watch and
edit. These exact steps may vary slightly
depending on which version of DaVinci
Resolve and MoviePlus X6 you’re using.
Did you misunderstand reader’s
question about power cuts?
You seem to have misunderstood
Q John Prater’s question in Issue
667 (‘How will we make calls
during power cuts?’, page 69). I have the
same problem so it resonated with me.
I believe John is saying that during
power cuts the actual local mobile mast
goes down with the power cut, as it does
in my village. I already have my own
UPS, as you suggest, but unfortunately it
doesn’t power the mast itself and is
therefore no help during these periods.
Old-fashioned telephone exchanges
used to have large battery backup systems,
but our local mast either doesn’t have this
facility or it’s not very well maintained.
Will mast providers be forced to sort this
situation out before the copper switch-off?
Derek Truby
John’s question. However, we
probably should have been clearer
masts to continue functioning during a
power cut, nor any requirement for them
to be backed up by a battery or generator.
Some masts do have backup batteries, and
but if there’s a local power cut then, yes,
mobile signals can go down too. In such
circumstances, you can keep making calls
for a short while by having a backup
battery supplying power to your phone,
router and optical network terminal (ONT).
Search for and install ‘App Installer’ in Windows
to see if it fixes problems with UpdateHub
Why won’t UpdateHub work?
You recommend UpdateHub
Q (www.snipca.com/47101) in
Issue 664 (page 19) to keep
software updated. Unfortunately, it
always hangs on loading and eventually
returns an ‘Unhandled Error’ message,
with the error type ‘Invalid
badgeNumber specified’. Any idea
what’s wrong? The only way to close the
program is via Task Manager.
Jim Darroch
Several people have reported
A a similar problem (see www.
snipca.com/47838), prompting
UpdateHub’s developers to suggest that
the solution is to install the Windows
Package Manager. This uses the command
Winget in Command Prompt and
PowerShell to search for, install, update
and uninstall software.
To install it, first search for and open
the Microsoft Store. Next, type app
installer into the search bar at the top and
press Enter. Select the ‘App Installer’
result, then click the blue Install button
(see screenshot above) or Update button
if you’ve already installed it. You can also
reach the app’s page on the Store by
visiting www.snipca.com/47855.
Once installed, restart your computer
then try running UpdateHub again. If
you’re still having problems, you may
have to wait until UpdateHub’s developers
release a version that doesn’t require
Windows Package Manager, which they
promise to do soon.
Issue 669 • 25 October – 7 November 2023 71
 Jargon Buster
4K Video with a resolution of at
least 3840x2160 pixels.
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.
APK Android Package Kit. The file
format Android uses to install apps.
AV1F AV1 Image File Format.
Open-source image file format
that has better compression than
WebP, JPEG, PNG and GIF and is
designed to replace them.
Benchmarking Comparing
software and products with an
accepted standard.
Biometric Using measurable
personal characteristics, such as
fingerprints, for identification.
BIOS Basic Input-Output System.
Software built into every PC that
connects the vital components.
Blue screen of death Technically
called a ‘Stop error’, this is shown
when your PC crashes.
Bot Automated software designed
to perform specific tasks.
Cache A temporary space for
storing information.
cd/m2 Candela per square metre.
Standard unit of brightness.
Chatbot A computer program
designed to recreate conversation
with human users.
Command Prompt A black
window into which you can type
instructions. To see it, click Start,
Run, type cmd and press Enter.
Cookie A small text file stored on
your computer by a website.
Core Units on a processor that
carry out program instructions.
CPU Central Processing Unit.
Another term for a computer
processor.
Dark mode Showing white text
on a black background.
72 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
Dark web Websites that can
only be accessed using special
software such as the Tor Browser.
DDR4/DDR5 The newest, fastest
types of computer memory.
Digital signature A block of
scrambled data that can be used
to verify the sender of an email.
DisplayPort A new socket for
connecting monitors.
DLL Dynamic Link Library. DLL
resources can be used by one or
more Windows programs.
DNS Domain Name System.
A technology that associates
computers with their addresses on
the internet.
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.
Emoji A small graphic that can be
inserted into a text or email.
Encryption key A random string
of characters used to encrypt and
decrypt sensitive data.
EPUB A file format used by many
popular ebook readers.
eSIM A non-removable SIM card
that’s built into a phone.
Ethernet A standard used for
almost all wired computer networks.
EXE A program file designed
to run in Windows. Has the file
extension .exe.
False positive When an antivirus
program wrongly detects a
malware infection.
Frame rate The number of still
images, or frames, shown per
second to create a moving image.
GHz Gigahertz. A measure of
how many instructions a chip can
process per second. 1GHz is equal
to 1,000MHz.
GPU Graphics Processor Unit. A
chip designed to create 3D graphics
and other computing tasks.
Graphics card A component in a
computer that produces the image
shown on the monitor.
H.264 A type of MPEG4 video
that is used on Blu-ray discs and
recorded by many cameras.
H.265 (aka HEVC, High Efficiency
Video Coding). The successor to
Advanced Video Coding (AVC). It
offers the same level of picture
quality as AVC, but with better
compression.
HDMI High-definition media
interface. A connection that transmits
high-definition video and audio.
HTML Hypertext Markup
Language. The language used to
write most web pages.
Hz Hertz. Measures the frequency
something happens: 1Hz equals
once a second.
IMAP Internet Message Access
Protocol. A method for email that
lets the user manage messages
stored on a remote server.
IP55 Ingress Protection 55.
Indicates that a phone has been
tested against dust and water for
up to 55 minutes at a pressure
of one atmosphere (or about 10
centimetres of air).
IPS A screen technology. Monitors
that use it have wider viewing
angles and better, more accurate
colours than monitors that do not
use this technology.
JPEG Joint Photograph Experts
Group. A common type of image
file created by most digital cameras.
LED Light-emitting diode. An
electronic device that emits light.
Membrane keyboard Keyboards
that use rubber domes that connect
to small electrical contacts.
MicroUSB A miniature version of
USB, often found on smartphones,
tablets and portable hard drives.
MicroSD card A small type of
memory card.
Mobipocket Ebook format that
lets readers add their own content,
such as drawings and annotations.
Modular Used to describe a
device or software that’s built from
self-contained parts that can be
easily taken apart or replaced.
MP4 A type of digital movie file
often used for portable players.
MVA Multidomain vertical
alignment. Monitors with MVA
have more accurate colours and
wider viewing angles than twisted
nematic (TN) or in-plane switching
(IPS) monitors.
NetMD USB interface for
transferring audio to a MiniDisc via
a computer.
NFC Near-field communication.
A technology that allows two
devices to communicate by being
touched together or placed near to
each other.
Noise cancellation Method for
reducing unwanted sound by
adding a second sound specifically
designed to cancel the first.
OLED Organic light-emitting
diode. A thin-film organic light-
emitting diode used in computer
displays and television screens.
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.
PAC Porting Authorisation Code. A
unique code that lets users retain
their mobile telephone number
when switching operators.
Passkey A method for signing into
accounts by typing a one-off code,
fingerprint or facial recognition
rather than a password.
Phishing A form of internet
fraud that tries to trick you into
revealing personal details.
PowerShell A Windows tool for
automating commands.
Private key Security tool for creating
digital signatures for outgoing
emails. Proves the sender is genuine.
PVR Personal video recorder. Set-
top boxes that let you pause and
record digital TV.
QR code Quick Response code.
A barcode that can be read using
smartphones.
RAM Random-access memory.
The computer’s working area
that’s used for data storage.
Read To access data saved on a
computer.
Refresh rate Measured in Hertz
(Hz), the number of times per
second the image on your monitor is
redrawn.
Registry key The Windows
Registry equivalent of a folder.
Response time How fast a
coloured pixel turns to white and
back again.
RTF Rich Text Format. A file format
used to transfer files between
word-processing programs.
SATA Serial ATA. An interface for
connecting hard drives to a PC.
SD card Secure Digital card. A
popular type of memory card.
Security key A USB device that
locks and unlocks your computer.
SIM Subscriber Identity Module.
The smart card used by all digital
mobile phones.
sRGB A standard RGB colour
space for use on monitors,
printers and the internet.
SSD Solid-state drive. Storage that
uses no moving parts.
Switch Mechanism under a
keyboard that determines whether
a key has been pressed.
Switch Allows more than one
PC to be connected to a wired
network.
System restore point Collection
of system files stored on a given
date and time to which Windows
can revert if a problem occurs.
Tag A keyword used to describe a
file or web page – used to organise
related information quickly.
TCP/IP Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol. The
protocol used to transfer data from
one computer to another.
Temporary file Created by sites
and software to store info for a
specific purpose.
Thunderbolt A very fast port for
connecting external storage to a PC.
Tor Browser A web browser
designed for anonymous surfing.
Two-factor authentication
A system that uses two different
means to identify the user.
UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply. A
device that provides an emergency
power supply in the event of a cut.
USB 2.0/3.0/3.1 Faster successors
to USB.
USB debugging A feature in
Android devices that lets them
communicate with a PC via USB.
USB-C A new connector that lets
you plug it in upside down.
Virtual memory Data that is
temporarily moved from RAM
to hard drive to make up for
shortages in memory.
VPN Keeps all internet
communication safe and private.
Whitelist A list of allowed websites,
email addresses and programs used
by security software.
Wi-Fi 6E Wi-Fi 6 extended to
include the 6GHz band.
Wi-Fi card Adds Wi-Fi
connectivity to a computer.
Write Save data to a hard drive.
ZIP file A file that contains
compressed documents or files.
 Easy when you
Know How
Worried about drawing attention to his sensitive
data, Robert Irvine tries to…
Hide passwords in audio files
H
aving been driven out of my flat
by an exorbitant rent increase,
I’m currently in the process of
packing up my stuff to move to a cheaper
place. All was going well until I
discovered a nasty black stain behind the
bookcase, which has proved impervious
to traditional cleaning products.
Who would suspect
an MP3 of a raspberry
sound contained
sensitive information?
Possible solutions, such as painting
over the stain, propping something in
front of it or embellishing it with a floral
trim, will only draw attention to the
problem, which may cost me a chunk
of my original deposit when the final
inventory is performed.
I have similar concerns about storing
my passwords in an encrypted document.
Though it’s undoubtedly one of the most
secure options, someone casually
browsing my PC may (correctly) deduce
that the mysterious locked file contained
important details. And yes, I know there
are tools that make your encrypted items
invisible, but I’d probably forget how I’d
done it and where I’d put it.
Seeking a more creative solution to
password concealment, I decided to try
the ancient art of steganography – well, it
sounds ancient if it was inspired by the
stegosaurus. This involves hiding sensitive
data within an ordinary, non-secret file
so that it’s literally ‘hidden in plain sight’.
For my first steganographic experiment,
I decided to hide a password in an image.
74 25 October – 7 November 2023 • Issue 669
DeepSound enabled
Robert to conceal his
passwords inside an
audio file
I created a text file
containing my login
information for
[redacted], then
downloaded a free
program called
OpenStego (www.
openstego.com). This is
one of the few
steganography tools
that’s still being updated – most have
gone the way of the dinosaurs – but that
didn’t stop it triggering a Microsoft
Defender SmartScreen warning. All
the reputable antivirus scanners on
VirusTotal deemed it safe (six obscure
ones didn’t), so I clicked ‘More info’ then
‘Run anyway’.
When OpenStego opened, I clicked
the ‘Hide data’ button and selected the
‘message file’ containing my password. I
then chose an image to use as the cover
file, and entered a name for the ‘Output
stego file’. I skipped the option to encrypt
the file with a password, and clicked
‘Hide data’ to test whether OpenStego
worked.
When I double-clicked the ‘stego’ file to
open it, the image looked exactly like the
original, with no hint that it might
contain something else. But when I
opened it through OpenStego by clicking
the ‘Extract data’ button, selecting the file
and choosing an output folder, out
popped the secret password document.
I then hid another text file, using
encryption this time, and OpenStego
prompted me to enter a password to
extract the item from the image.
Hiding a password in a photo seemed
like a clever way to protect it, but what
if a hacker knew about OpenStego and
somehow guessed my encryption
password? It’s unlikely I know, but my
paranoia convinced me to try a different
steganographic technique: concealing
Next issue: Robert tries to turn his phone into a mouse
data in an audio file. Who would suspect
that an MP3 of, say, a raspberry-blowing
sound effect contained sensitive login
information?
I downloaded and installed the
steganography tool DeepSound (www.
snipca.com/47773), which is designed for
that purpose, opened the program and
clicked Hide Data Inside Audio.
I then clicked ‘Open carrier files’ and
selected an MP3 I’d downloaded from
the brilliant BBC Sound Effects website
(www.snipca.com/47774). I clicked ‘Add
secret files’, chose my password file and
clicked ‘Encode secret files’ (see screenshot
above). As with OpenStego, DeepSound
gave me the option to encrypt the output
file, but I ignored this for now and clicked
‘Encode secret files’ again.
When I tested the result, it played the
raspberry sound effect without revealing
its secret. To extract the data, I clicked
‘Open carrier files’ in DeepSound,
selected the file and chose ‘Extract secret
files’. This revealed the hidden item, and
clicking the option again extracted it
from the audio file.
Steganography may sound complicated,
but these two tools made it remarkably
easy. If only I could use them to disguise
the black mark on my wall. In our next
issue, we explain how to avoid using
passwords altogether, so you don’t need
to worry about hiding the darn things.
Need help concealing your passwords? Let us
know: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk
9000