Table of contents for 683 in Computeractive

YouTube is cracking down on software and apps that block adverts when you watch videos. It said that viewers using these tools “may experience buffering issues or see the error ‘The following content is not available on this app’ when trying to watch a video” (www.snipca.com/50178). YouTube said these apps break its rules because they prevent video creators from being paid. Adverts let the site be watched by “billions of people around the world”, it added. It’s part of a “global effort” by YouTube to discourage viewers from using ad blockers. This included a crackdown last year on extensions that block adverts when you watch videos on a browser. YouTube started pausing videos and showing messages telling the viewer that they would only be allowed to continue watching if they…

Microsoft is showing full-screen ‘thank you’ messages to Windows 10 users whose computers aren’t able to upgrade to Windows 11. The message, titled ‘A new journey with Windows’, thanks you for your “loyalty as a Windows 10 customer”. “As end of support for Windows 10 approaches, we’re here to support you on your PC journey,” it continues. It confirms that support for the operating system will end on 14 October, 2025 and that you’ll receive security updates and support until then. It adds that you can “learn more about preparing to make the transition to Windows 11”, and has buttons offering more information about the latest operating system, and about why support is ending for Windows 10 (1 in our screenshot). However, there’s no ‘X’ at the top right to…

You know you’re not a robot. We know you’re not a robot. But the website you’re trying to log into doesn’t know. It has good reason to suspect you might be one of the new breed of automated programs – called bots – that can easily solve Captcha tests. Captchas have never been straightforward. Deciphering the wriggly text of the first tests (pictured below right) often meant squinting and turning your head 90 degrees. This was beyond bots at the time, preventing them from logging in and spamming sites. But they’ve evolved rapidly since then, driven by advances in AI. A study at the University of California last year found that bots solved distorted text with almost 100-per-cent accuracy. And as they’ve become smarter, so the tests have become trickier…

With the Chromebook Plus CX34 Asus has joined Google’s Chromebook Plus initiative, which pits basic Chrome-based laptops up against their equivalent Windows counterparts by guaranteeing a bare-minimum specification of 12th-generation Intel Core processors or AMD equivalent, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and a Full HD screen. The first such model we reviewed was the Acer Chromebook Plus 515 (reviewed in Issue 673), which launched at £429 but has dropped to £399 since (www.snipca.com/48421). “Good specifications for a low price, but its screen is average” The CX34 is clearly pitched at a similar market. It has the same Intel Core i3-1215U processor and 8GB RAM, but a smaller 14in 1080p screen. It outflanks the 515’s 128GB of storage with 256GB of its own. Asus’s model was, however, slightly disappointing in…

This ultra-slim portable SSD is intended for anyone who wants to significantly boost their PC or laptop’s storage capacity with a fast and lightweight external drive. And it represents one of the most portable options we’ve come across. “Lightning transfer speeds and a slick, robust design” At 7.8mm thick, the main body has a solid aluminium casing, giving it a smooth, minimalist look while ensuring it can survive the odd knock while on the move. It has a single USB-C port and comes with a short cable. Annoyingly, when we first connected it the SL500 didn’t initially sit flat on our desktop. Because of its small size(50x65x10mm) and flimsy weight (43g), it was pushed up at one end by the twists in the attached cord. However, straightening out the cable…

Unless you live in a remote area, your Wi-Fi signal will almost certainly stray into your neighbour’s home. As long as you’ve set a strong password, it shouldn’t be easy for neighbours to ‘piggyback’ on to your broadband network – but it may still be possible. So it’s worth checking which devices are connected to your router on a regular basis so youfamiliarise yourself with what devices should (and shouldn’t) be connected. Here we’ll explain how to do that and block any unauthorised devices to stop them downloading content or accessing dubious websites over your connection. We’re using a Netgear router so the options on your router may vary slightly but should be broadly similar. STEP 1 Open a browser and log into your router. If you don’t know its…

A fun way to make your virtual club meetings more enjoyable is to run an online quiz. Members can play individually or split into teams from the comfort of their own homes. There are dedicated pieces of software designed to make a quiz, but these are often costly and frankly too complicated for what most people need. As an alternative we recommend building a quiz using Google Slides, which is free and easy to use. Also, many people these days have a Gmail address – or can easily create one – so your quiz will be widely accessible. It all works within a web browser, so contestants can either load the quiz themselves or you could present it to the whole group and act as quiz master during the meeting.…

Should I upgrade to Wi-Fi 6? Q In Issue 679 (page 69) you explained the difference between Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E. I note the devices I own need to be capable of using Wi-Fi 6. But will my current devices (which I presume work on Wi-Fi 5) still work on 2.4 or 5GHz and only newer devices work on Wi-Fi 6? Also, I have a BT Hub 2 router. Do you know if BT is bringing out a Wi-Fi 6 edition? John Murphy A Wi-Fi 6 routers are ‘backwards compatible’, so older devices will connect fine if you upgrade to a new model – but only at their current speeds and frequencies. As you surmise, only devices that work with Wi-Fi 6 will benefit from the faster connection speeds. BT/EE recently…

A website that lets people post crime updates has fixed a flaw that could have exposed the details of 500,000 users to scammers. Neighbourhood Alert (www.neighbourhoodalert.co.uk), run by Nottingham firm Visav, lets members of local Neighbourhood Watch schemes send messages to each other and post crime information. Its website and app are endorsed by local authorities across the UK. Fire and rescue departments, police forces and councils all use it. But until mid-April it used a flawed security system that allowed anyone with an email address to sign up and see the phone numbers and addresses of users. In some cases they could even see photos of members. Anyone could register as a Neighbourhood Watch coordinator on the site and create a ‘scheme’ by drawing an area on a map…

LastPass is warning users about scammers phoning customers to claim that their account has been accessed from a new device. The fraudsters tell you to press 1 to allow access, or 2 to block it. Pressing 2 shows a message saying that someone from LastPass will call you back shortly. When they call you, they also send an email containing a link to a fake login page. The email looks convincing because it contains the company’s logo (1 in our screenshot) and appears to come from ‘support@lastpass’ 2, but it’s been sent from the fake domain ‘help-lastpass[.]com’. When you log in, the scammer locks you out of your account by changing the phone number associated with it, as well as the email address and the master password. LastPass said that…

Police from across 19 countries have disrupted a UK-founded site that allowed scammers to create phishing sites and trick thousands of people. The operation also led to the arrests of 37 people around the world, including some at Manchester and Luton airports, as well as in Essex and London. The site, called LabHost, allowed more than 2,000 users to make sites designed to steal personal information such as email addresses, passwords and bank details. It even provided tutorials so criminals with limited IT skills could still run successful scams. Its home page now shows a message that it has been seized (pictured). Metropolitan Police said that since the site launched in 2021 scammers have used it to steal 480,000 payment-card numbers and 64,000 PINs worldwide. As many as 70,000 victims…

Ofcom has increased the amount that broadband and landline companies must pay in compensation for service failures and installation delays. It means that providers that have signed up to Ofcom’s voluntary compensation scheme will now pay £9.76 per day for delayed repairs, £6.10 per day for delays to the start of a new service, and £30.49 for a missed appointment. Previously, the amounts were £9.33, £5.83 and £29.15 respectively. Ofcom increases amounts in April every year based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate of inflation on 31 October the previous year. This was 4.6 per cent in 2023. If you’re due compensation your provider will pay it automatically, without you having to ask for it. All you have to do is report the fault or delay to your provider.…

Download free PCC wills Wills are some of the most useful documents for tracing your family tree. From reading the actual words of your ancestor, you can discover their occupation, where they lived, and the property and land they owned, as well as family relationships. Although your wealthier ancestors are more likely to have left wills, plenty of ordinary people made them too. Until 1858, numerous ecclesiastical courts had the right to prove wills. The most senior court was the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC), which covered the south of England and Wales. It was also the only court that could prove the wills of those who died abroad, so it covered many soldiers and sailors. Even if a more minor court could be used, some people still chose to…

We don’t generally think of routers as portable devices, but if you’re going on a family holiday or often enjoy breaks in a caravan or campsite, having a router you can take with you makes a lot of sense. The trouble is, portable routers tend to produce a weak signal or be over-priced, so it’s impressive that Asus has overcome both those problems with the RT-AX57 Go. “A versatile device that turns mobile data into a Wi-Fi network while on holiday” For such a low price it comes as a pleasant surprise to get a decent dual-band Wi-Fi 6 router. It has most of the core features we’ve seen in standard routers from Asus, including a VPN, parental controls and the option of connecting it to a mesh Wi-Fi network…

What is it? It’s what happens when Microsoft creates an AI tool that can add moving lips and speech to a still photo. The 16th-century lady with the enigmatic smile becomes a 21st-century rapper complaining about paparazzi attention. What’s the tool? It’s called VASA-1, and it’s been developed by Microsoft Research Asia. They claim the technology can generate “hyper-realistic” talking face videos with “precise lip-audio sync, lifelike facial behaviour, and naturalistic head movements”. Can I watch the Mona Lisa video? Yes, visit Microsoft’s blog (www.snipca.com/50163) and scroll down to the ‘Out-of-distribution generalization’ heading. You’ll also see videos of what look like real people (pictured below), though none of them actually exist. Microsoft created them all using VASA-1. Do they look realistic? Yes, extremely. As well as matching the lips to…

Microsoft is showing adverts in Windows 11’s Start menu, but you can block them in Settings. They were introduced as part of the KB5036980 optional update, released on 22 April. Adverts will appear in the ‘Recommend’ section of the Start menu and promote apps available in the Microsoft Store – such as 1Password (see screenshot). Microsoft said the apps will come from “a small set” of developers it has selected, in order to “help you to discover some of the great apps that are available” (www.snipca.com/50223). However, it does explain how to turn off adverts. First open Settings (press Windows key+I), then click Personalisation on the left. Now click Start on the right and turn off the slider for ‘Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more’. • Disable Microsoft’s…

You can now get more detailed results in Brave’s search engine by using its new ‘Answer with AI’ option. Brave claims it’s the first “answer engine” in a privacy-focused search engine that’s widely available. It works by default if Brave thinks you are seeking information. For example, type ‘Robert Oppenheimer biography’ into https://search.brave.com and it will produce a five-paragraph account of his life, above links to relevant websites. However, if you just type ‘Robert Oppenheimer’ (1 in our screenshot) you need to select the ‘Answer with AI’ option at the bottom of the options that appear 2. Brave gives other examples on its blog (www.snipca.com/50171), including ‘People who walked on the moon’ – which lists all 12 men who have done so – and ‘Road bike vs mountain bike’, which compares…

NEW LOGITECH MOUSE HAS CHATGPT Logitech has released a mouse that lets you open AI tool ChatGPT by pressing a button. The Signature AI Edition of the M750 wireless mouse comes with Logitech’s new Prompt Builder software, which uses ChatGPT to summarise documents, rewrite paragraphs and write emails (pictured). Buy it for £54.99 from www.snipca.com/50112. WATCH ITVX ON PLAYSTATIONS You can now watch the TV-streaming service ITVX on Sony PlayStation 4 and 5 gaming consoles. It had previously been available on Xbox consoles and the Nvidia Shield, but not PlayStations. Search for ITVX to install it on your PlayStation. You don’t need to sign up for an account. UPDATE LG TV TO FIX SECURITY FLAW Anyone who has bought an LG TV since 2019 should install a software update to…

Pros and cons to telegraph poles In response to Ted Blackwell’s letter (‘In support of telegraph poles’, Letters, Issue 681), most BT cables are run through ducts in pathways or grass verges from the street cabinets to feed-distribution poles, or run all the way underground into homes. Any maintenance is usually carried out in an underground joint box. If a large cable is damaged, a new cable is drawn through the duct and re-jointed. No digging would be required. Main distribution poles are fed underground from cabinets, while secondary (or ‘carrier’) poles are fed via the main distribution pole or an underground joint. They may also be fed by an aerial cable from the distribution pole. Underground feeds to houses are usually fed by a duct from the street pathway,…

Like many keyboard-and-mouse sets, the Signature Slim MK950 is basically two existing standalone products bundled into a single box. However, it comes with software that gives it something of an edge over many similar products. Logitech’s software (called Options+) has all the usual settings for reconfiguring keys and buttons, but it also adds Smart Actions. These are commands that can be set to run when a particular event occurs – such as on startup, at shutdown or when you press a particular combination of keys. It lets you create time-saving shortcuts – for example, automatically opening the software you tend to use when you first switch on your PC. “A nice design, quiet keys and built-in options to make life easier” While this technology is nothing new, and you may…

This issue’s How To was inspired by a tip from reader Brian Gibbs, who uses smart plugs to let his daughters monitor his daily actions so they know he’s healthy (Issue 681, page 41). He uses smart plugs as an alternative to CCTV, but another option is to wear a fitness tracker that your vulnerable relatives can monitor. Even older trackers, such as the Fitbit device we’re going to set up here, can count steps and monitor heart rate, then send that data wirelessly to a paired smartphone, from where it’s synced to online storage (‘the cloud’). Once set up, it works without much involvement from the wearer – as long as you remember to charge the tracker every few days. New fitness trackers can be expensive and many have…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Will Virgin Media be affected by the copper switch-off? Q I live in a housing estate where most houses were connected up with BT phone lines. Later, Telewest cabled the estate with its coaxial system, which I watched being installed (no copper wires anywhere). This provides broadband and landline-phone services through the same cable, and I am connected to both. This was later taken over by NTL World and eventually by Virgin Media – the current provider. My question is, if I stay on this system will I be affected by the copper landline switch-off? I imagine some of your readers will be in a similar boat, but I haven’t seen any relevant information. Tom Fry A This is a good question. The copper switch-off is national policy,…

When I moved house last year, it took me three ‘passes’ to reduce my collection of personal belongings to a manageable and transportable size. Boxes of old Christmas cards, faded clothes that no longer fit me and broken gadgets that had beeped their last were all eventually – albeit reluctantly – disposed of in the appropriate recycling bins, once I’d overcome the notion they might one day prove useful again. I have the same inclination to keep software I rarely use installed on my PC – just in case I ever need it in future. And while removing a program I can easily download again isn’t as big a deal as chucking out a spare toaster or a pair of jeans I could have squeezed into if I breathed in…