Table of contents for 567 in Computeractive

There’s a cliche in horror films where it dawns on the victims that the killer/monster/three-headed alien has somehow entered their house, despite the doors and windows being barricaded. They realise with terror that they forgot about a less obvious entry point – a blocked-up chimney, perhaps, or rusty air vent. Gulp. In PC security, your router is the overlooked weak point. You know the importance of installing antivirus and updating software, but that flickering box in the corner of the room often lies unguarded. In our Cover Feature, Nik Rawlinson explains how to check whether your router is unsafe and, if so, how to update it. He also reveals settings you should tweak to protect your network, and the best new routers for speed and features. Follow his advice and…

Security company Trend Micro has contacted thousands of customers to say their personal data was stolen by a member of staff. It said that an employee had sold information from its customer-support database, including phone numbers and names, to an unknown third party. The company grew suspicious in August after its customers reported receiving phone calls from scammers posing as Trend Micro staff. It believes around 68,000 of its 12 million customers were affected. Trend Micro said the suspect was an employee, now fired, who “improperly accessed the data with a clear criminal intent”. It’s working with the police to investigate the breach. The company said that its customer-support staff would never call people “unexpectedly”. It added: “If a support call is to be made, it will be scheduled in…

STOP BEING ADDED TO WHATSAPP GROUPS You can now prevent people adding you to WhatsApp groups without your permission. Previously, anyone with your phone number could add you to a group chat. Open WhatsApp, tap the bottom-right Settings icon, then Account, Privacy, Groups. You’ll see three options: Everyone, ‘My contacts’ and ‘My contacts except’ (see screenshot). The first means anyone can add you, the second means any of your contacts can, while the third lets you select specific people. APPLE TV+ ARRIVES IN THE UK Apple has launched its new TV-streaming service in the UK, letting you watch original content for £4.99 a month or £49.99 a year. Called TV+, it’s available via the Apple TV app on your iPhone or iPad, or via https://tv.apple.com on your PC. You can…

Microsoft has added ‘Quick search’ buttons to Windows 10 to make it easier for you to find important information. The four buttons, called Weather, ‘Top news’, ‘Today in history’ and ‘New movies’ (see screenshot), appear in the latest preview version of Windows 10 20H1, which will be a major Feature Update released next Spring. They’re placed at the bottom of the page that appears when you start typing in the Search box at the bottom left of the taskbar. Clicking the buttons shows info pulled from the web. Microsoft said in a blog post (www.snipca.com/33248) that the buttons are available in the US now before being released worldwide soon. It didn’t reveal why it chose these four subjects as quick searches, but presumably it has research showing these are popular…

GOOGLE AXES FLASH FROM SEARCH RESULTS Google will soon stop showing search results for web pages that contain Flash content, as the axe continues to fall on Adobe’s problematic plug-in. Writing online (www.snipca.com/33218), Google’s Dong-Hwi Lee, said most users “won’t see any impact from this change”, which will happen before the end of 2019. Once essential to the internet, Flash has become riddled with security flaws. Adobe plans to stop “supporting and distributing” it at the end of 2020. SKY HIRES 500 CALL-CENTRE STAFF Sky is hiring 500 people to work in a new call centre in Leeds to assist customers with their broadband and TV problems. In addition it will recruit 500 engineers to help install its Sky Q TV service in customers’ homes. It brings the total number…

Don’t forget BBC radio listeners Regarding Issue 566’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’ (‘Will the BBC licence fee be scrapped?’), what about the BBC radio stations which seem to be free at present, or are at least subsidised by the TV licence payers? Surely we should be considering making payment to the BBC from general taxation, and some form of ‘independence’ protection from the Government. Just a thought, but in my opinion this should level the playing field for all. Derek Vivian To answer Issue 566’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’, yes the BBC licence fee will eventually be scrapped. We now live in an age where people want to pay for specific services that benefit them individually, rather than contribute to a public pot of money for society to benefit from.…

Do I have to put up with another Dell repair? LEAD CASE Q When I wrote to you about problems I’d been having with the battery of my Dell XPS 15 laptop (see Issue 560), you said that if anything else went wrong I could have a refund (Case Update, Issue 562). Now something else has gone wrong – the motherboard is faulty – but Dell has already refunded me £100 for the trouble I had with the battery. Can I still get money back for this latest problem, or do I have to put up with another repair under Dell’s warranty? Carl Bassett A First things first: if Carl pursues are fund, he should do A so using the Consumer Rights Act (CRA), which gives him more rights than…

Search old trade directories A quick glance at census records shows that many of our ancestors were small businessmen. Studying old trade directories stretching back to the 18th century (or 1677 in London), you can track their businesses to build a bigger picture of their working life. After becoming established in London, trade directories slowly spread to other parts of the country until most areas of Britain were publishing them every year. Several competing publishers were involved, including Pigot’s and the better-known Kelly’s Directory, which appeared every year from the mid-19th century and was the closest thing Victorian Britain had to the Yellow Pages. Access Ancestry’s directories If you have an Ancestry subscription, the best place to search these directories is in its ‘UK, City and County Directories, 1600s-1900s’ collection…

Like most other collections in my house, books tend to end up stored in boxes in the garage. Not because I don’t want to read them, but since having children virtually all storage space in my house has been hijacked by mountains of Lego. Ebooks are a different matter, however. Requiring no physical storage I can have as many as I like and because the file sizes are so small I barely notice them on my hard drive. I do, however, need something to organise them all - and to do this I use Calibre (https://calibre-ebook.com). If you’re new to Calibre, this free program lets you add, categorise, convert and, of course, read your ebooks, all from a single, centralised library. In what appears to be a recurring motif with…

What is it? Nvidia’s new Shield TV-streaming box supports 4K resolution (four times as sharp as Full HD), as you’d expect these days. That’s only really useful if you have a 4K TV or monitor to show all those pixels. Even if you do, not everything you might want to watch is available in 4K, and even if it is, your broadband connection might not be able to keep up with streaming all that data. So Nvidia offers three modes that upscale video from 1080p Full HD, or even coarser 720p HD, to what looks like 4K crispness (see image above). The cleverest of these upscaling methods uses ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI), which means, as usual, machine learning making use of a neural network – a computer model that works a…

TRACKER From £20 from Amazon www.snipca.com/33163 Tile’s wireless tracker tags can be attached to almost anything and, by keeping in touch with your smartphone, let you know where that thing is if you mislay it. This update expands the family to four: last year’s Tile Mate (£20) and Tile Pro (£30, see Issue 540, page 29) plus a revival of the Tile Slim (£25), rejigged to the size of a thick credit card, and a new Tile Sticker. The last two are more waterproof, but – in a throwback to the very first Tile – their batteries can’t be replaced, so once they run out you have to replace the whole thing. They’re estimated, but not guaranteed, to last three years. The Sticker costs £35 for two or £55 for…

Red Hydrogen One What was it? Announced in the summer of 2017, the Hydrogen One (pictured) didn’t materialise until more than a year later. It was a surprise entry into the smartphone market by Red, best known for pioneering digital video cameras in the film industry. Unfortunately, the Hydrogen One was nobody’s favourite phone. The main justification for its £1,000 price tag was that it could both shoot and display 3D video, thanks to dual lenses and a Nintendo 3DS-style ‘autostereoscopic’ screen that let you see in 3D without glasses. A modular accessory system promised add-ons including Red-quality cameras. Why did it die? The screen looked grainy, its 3D effect likened by testers to seeing one picture on a piece of cardboard above another. By spring 2019, with no sign…

In Issue 565 Howard Gatting asked readers for more tips for Windows Narrator. I’m happy to oblige. It’s probably the tool I use most in Windows, so with every update I check to see if anything new has been added to it. I recently discovered some new keyboard shortcuts that skip and re-read sentences. To do this, you first have to know what key acts as Narrator in shortcuts. By default, this is the Caps Lock or Insert key. You can change this to something more suitable in Narrator settings, but Caps Lock is fine for me. To skip a sentence, you press the Narrator key+Ctrl+. (full stop). This is useful when you want to skim-read (or skim-hear, I suppose) a document. Just keep your fingers on the Narrator key…

ANDROID Manage your Android notifications Email updates, Facebook posts, Instagram alerts, texts… you don’t need to install many apps before you find yourself swamped with notifications. If you’re trying to work, drive or concentrate on a book or film, they’re a serious distraction. Even switching to airplane mode will only stop notifications that arrive across the internet, not those generated locally. Worse, when airplane mode is active, no one can call you. Google has the answer in Post Box (www.snipca.com/33199), its free app for Android. Once installed, you choose how many times a day you’d like to receive notifications (between one and four) and it diverts any incoming alert to its hidden inbox, only revealing them at one of your specified intervals. You can set the exact times this occurs…

WINDOWS 7, 8.1 & 10 Reopen folders where you left off before a shutdown Whether it’s to complete the installation of a program or simply the result of a crash, restarting your PC is sometimes unavoidable. One way to ease this irritation is to force Windows to re-open all the File Explorer windows you were using when your PC shut down – particularly useful if you had multiple folders open and were moving files between them. To make Windows re-open them on reboot, open a File Explorer window (Windows key+E), then click the View tab followed by Options in the top toolbar (in Windows 7, open File Explorer, then click Organise, followed by ‘Folder and search options’). In the window that appears, select the View tab, then scroll down and…

In our How To feature (page 35), we show you how to use the ‘Find & Replace’ tool in Microsoft Word and LibreOffice Writer to remove unwanted line breaks from text you’ve copied and pasted. This tool can be used in various other ways to tidy up documents, including removing unsightly irregular spacing before items in a list and replacing them with tabs. In both Word and Writer, press Ctrl+H to open the Find & Replace tool, then type {2,} (see screenshot) in the ‘Find what’ (Word) or Find (Writer) box. Note the use of curly brackets (press Shift+the square bracket keys to generate these) and the space that precedes them. This tells Word or Writer to look for two or more spaces. If the list items are indented with…

When did you last think about your router? All being well, you plugged it in when it arrived, and haven’t touched it since. But maybe the quiet reliability of routers are storing up problems for a later date. Because when they carry on just doing their job, we carry on neglecting them even as they age, they are superseded by superior models, and eventually become a security risk. It’s time to take a long hard look at your router and decide whether it’s still up to the job or whether a replacement is required. For example, a router that’s a few years old may no longer be supported by its manufacturer. If not it won’t be receiving vital security updates. And even if yours is relatively new, it may not…

Making a claim for a device using its manufacturer warranty may not always be your first recourse to action when it comes to getting a repair or replacement. If you identify a fault with a device soon after buying it, your best bet is to make a faulty goods claim under the Consumer Rights Act (CRA), which should be directed to the retailer you bought the item from, rather than the manufacturer. Under the CRA, you have a right to reject faulty items and claim a full refund within 30 days of purchase. If you notice the fault within six months, you may also be able to request a repair or replacement from the retailer. After six months, it’s usually best to contact the manufacturer directly to get faulty devices…

Is a product key necessary? Q I’ve been reading Computeractive for many years and always look forward to it. However, I must take issue with Issue 564’s ‘Upgrade to Windows 10 for free’ article (page 60). The second paragraph, on activation, seems to be missing some important information. I recently upgraded three Windows 7 computers, none of which required a key to activate. They all were activated without me doing anything, with a digital licence. Two of the PCs I bought without an operating system, which I installed myself from purchased Windows 7 DVDs. The third PC was an Acer all-in-one with Windows 7 preinstalled. I had the Windows 7 product keys ready for a free upgrade, but were not needed. I used the suggested ‘slmgr / xpr’ command to…

£5.99 Monthly cost of BritBox, the new TV-streaming service from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 - p8 50 Years since the first online message was sent - p10 KB4523786 Microsoft’s ‘junk’ update for Windows 10 - p21 HOW TO USE SNIPCA URLs We use snipcas to turn long URLs that are hard to type into ones that are short and simple. They aren’t websites themselves, which means they won’t be recognised if you type them into Google. Instead, you need to type them into your browser address bar, then press Enter. Doing this will take you to the correct website.…

OLD SAMSUNG TVS REMOVE NETFLIX Netflix will stop working on some old Samsung TVs made in 2010 and 2011 due to “technical limitations”. From 1 December these models will show a message that Netflix will no longer be available, though you’ll still be able to watch it by connecting to your TV another device that contains Netflix. Samsung didn’t confirm which models are affected, but said it was a “small number” and that it will contact all customers with alternative options. O2 STOPS CLASSIC 3P O2 has stopped selling its ‘Classic’ pay-as-you-go (PAYG) deals, which charged 3p a minute for calls, 2p for texts and 1p per MB of data. They’re being replaced by ‘Big Bundles’, which start at £5 a month for unlimited texts and minutes, but no data.…

The Government has said it plans to close a legal loophole that lets drivers using phones to take photos and record videos avoid prosecution. It is illegal for drivers to use their hands to call or text on phones, but some motorists have dodged punishment by claiming they weren’t using their phones to communicate with other people. In July judges overturned 51-year-old Ramsey Barreto’s conviction for using his phone to film a crash in north London two years ago. The ruling led to two High Court judges calling for the law, which came into force in 2003, to be updated to ban taking photos and videos as well as calling and texting. Emma Patterson, whose law firm represented Mr Barreto, argued that “unless police can prove beyond reasonable doubt that…

When the computing student Charley Kline sent the world’s first online message in October 1969, he couldn’t have foreseen that within 50 years it would lead to the spread of fake news, the rise of internet abuse, the death of privacy and the growth of international crime. At least, that’s how one of Kline’s former colleagues sees it. Leonard Kleinrock (pictured below), a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), created the mathematical theory behind packet switching, which breaks a message into chunks of data to make it easier to send. Now 85, he’s not happy about what the internet has turned into, saying it’s the “perfect formula for the dark side”. Back in the idealistic late Sixties, he saw his research as a force for good. “As engineers,…

In his Ed’s Letter in Issue 566, Daniel Booth asked us for hard-drive analogies. I used to describe the hard drive as a bit like a larder, where all your food is stored. RAM is like the rings on your gas cooker. The processor is like the cook. The bigger the larder/hard drive, the more food/programs/data you can store. The more rings on your cooker/RAM, the more things you could do at the same time. And the more cooks you have (or the younger/faster they were), the quicker you’ll get the jobs done. Does this deserve a mug? Tony Harris CA SAYS It certainly does - we’ll send one. Can any other readers come up with computing analogies? We’ve got lots of mugs seeking careful owners.…

We suspect that someone at Apple needs a quick lesson in British geography. In Issue 565, John Howe told us that the company wouldn’t allow him to post his faulty iPhone for repair under warranty because he lives on the Isle of Wight. What did Apple have against this lovely island, which is home to Osborne House, the Needles and chocolate-box villages? The answer might be that the person who spoke to John thought the Isle of Wight was part of the Channel Islands, from which the company doesn’t accept returns. At least, that’s what Apple told us. The warranty’s small print (www.snipca.com/33117) does state that you may have to return faulty goods to an Apple store rather than using its pre-paid postage service, though it doesn’t mention the Channel…

ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE Malwarebytes 4 www.snipca.com/33222 What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Unlike most antivirus programs, the free version of Malwarebytes doesn’t continuously scan for malware, so it won’t clash with your existing antivirus software (be that Windows Defender or a paid-for suite), reducing the risk of throwing up false positives. Instead, you need to run any scans yourself – on a regular basis or after you’ve downloaded a file or program you’re concerned about. If you’re familiar with Malwarebytes, you’ll notice the simpler design of version 4, with a large Scan button sitting prominently on the home page. As with previous versions, there are a fair number of ads prompting you to upgrade to the Premium version (£30 per year), which adds real-time protection (malware is blocked when…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: Microsoft’s KB4523786 W10 update Much as I appreciate the need to keep my PC up to date, I do wish that Microsoft would sort out its Windows updates, especially now they’re mandatory in Windows 10. I regularly find myself faced with some wretched annoyance or other after an update has landed. Default apps that need to be switched back on, external devices that suddenly stop working, and strange new Wi-Fi glitches are just a sample of the post-update challenges I’ve encountered. Recently, I even read reports of users struggling to make their Start menu work following botched updates. And now Microsoft has just gone and released an update for a Windows feature that isn’t even installed on most PCs. I give you the KB4523786 update,…

LAPTOP £1,549 from Currys www.snipca.com/33144 A portable computer is like a diet hamburger: the more you improve it, the further it gets from what you were trying to achieve. Ideally, you’d have all the power and usability of a desktop PC and 27in monitor in a device no bigger than a paperback book. Sadly, the laws of physics won’t allow that to happen. The popular compromise is currently an ‘ultraportable’ with a 13-14in screen that weighs little more than a kilo and lets you scroll around and flip between tasks quickly enough to make the limited display space a bearable frustration. “This 17in laptop is both portable and pleasant to use” A year ago, LG had another crack at achieving a better balance with the Gram 15 (£1,499 from Currys…

PHONE £669 from Google www.snipca.com/33159 Despite the popularity of Samsung’s feature-heavy Galaxy phones, Google’s Pixel 4 is very much the iPhone of the Android world, coming from the same manufacturer as its software and with a more elegantly restrained design. This year, Google has finally added a second camera (though not a third or fourth) to the glass rear panel, replacing the awkward stripe at the top of previous Pixels with an iPhone 11-like square bulge (pictured below). The extra lens provides 2x optical zoom, and new low-light and HDR abilities help to ensure you’ll get the legendary Pixel image quality in almost any conditions. The iPhone 11 Pro is still a whisker ahead, though, and Google’s video stabilisation is more prone to judder. The front selfie camera is back…

Tile tags don’t connect independently to the internet, but your phone sees them via Bluetooth when within range, and so can other devices with the Tile app. If you leave a tagged item in the middle of nowhere, the hope is that a passing Tile user will trigger an alert, which comes privately to you and lets you know the location. Tile reckons 90 per cent of lost tags are found. In the Tile app (pictured), each tag you own is allocated a category, such as Keys, Wallet or Luggage, so you can quickly identify and find it. There’s a Tile skill for Alexa, too, so with any Echo device (or the Alexa app) you can say, for example, ‘Alexa, ask Tile to find my keys’ and the tag on…

Find out what other products we liked. Buy our new 2018 Back Issue CD: £15 from www.snipca.com/30307 LAPTOP HP Envy 13 £999 from www.snipca.com/29555 Tested Issue 539 The combination of an eighth-generation quad-core i5 chip and MX 150 graphics makes this an excellent all-round laptop, let down only by the poor colour reproduction of its Full HD touchscreen. Seven-hour battery life is adequate, and it’s nicely made. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 This premium laptop starts at £1,200, but the best deal is with the brand new quad-core i7-8550 and QHD touchscreen. £1,280 from www.snipca.com/26796 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 9.7 £299 from www.snipca.com/30707 Tested Issue 501 Now discounted and with a stylus included, this full-size HDR tablet is a better deal than the new Tab S4 (see Issue 540).…

1 Click Edit, followed by ‘Find & Replace…’, then click the box next to ‘Regular expressions’ 1. These are patterns that you can use to search for characters that aren’t rendered visually within the document. In this instance, we want to remove all the carriage returns at the end of each line, but preserve the actual paragraph breaks. 2 Type $^ in the Find box, and *** in the Replace box, then click Replace All. LibreOffice Writer will now replace all double returns – the ones between your actual paragraphs – with three asterisks. Once it’s finished, replace $^ with just $ 1 and *** with a single space 2, then click Replace All to replace the carriage returns for a space 3. This may take a while to complete.…

TeamViewer ✓I was using TeamViewer (www.teamviewer.com) to remotely access PCs used by friends and family. I know more about computing than they do, so I used it to help them perform tricky tasks. And what I use instead… However, I wouldn’t call myself a computer expert, and after a while I became bewildered by TeamViewer’s numerous settings and buttons. I switched to AnyDesk (https://anydesk.com/en) because it seemed simpler, and so it has proved. In fact, when you first open AnyDesk the interface is so minimal that you may think it’s not working properly. But it just shows you what you need - the code on the left (see screenshot) to allow access, and a bar to drag and drop files. TeamViewer, by contrast, is simply baffling. Pete Deane Tell us…

Time Immersive Free Android www.snipca.com/33207 iOS www.snipca.com/33206 This great demonstration of augmented reality drops the Amazon rainforest or Moon’s surface on your desk, floor or dining table. You can then move around it as you navigate a narrated feature. Extra features and locations are expected soon. Yuka* Free Android www.snipca.com/33203 iOS www.snipca.com/33204 Take the guesswork out of healthy eating: point your phone at the barcode on a food item and Yuka will tell you how good (or bad) it is, pulling out vital info like calories, salt content and saturated fat. It also identifies harmful chemicals in cosmetics. Frame Dragger Free iOS www.snipca.com/33205 Sometimes your best photo is right in the middle of some video footage you’ve shot. With Frame Dragger, that’s not a problem, as you can simply extract…

You have to feel sorry for that strange key to the right of the Space key (see screenshot) - nobody can agree on its name: Context key, Menu key, Application key… the list goes on. Even the key’s icon varies depending on the keyboard you’re using. Identity problems aside, it’s an incredibly useful key that lets you perform a right-click using your keyboard. Press it when your cursor is over a misspelled word in Office, for example, and it will show you possible alternatives – as if you’d right-clicked your mouse. However, not all keyboards have this versatile key. If yours doesn’t, you can still perform the same function using the Shift+10 keyboard shortcut. Best of all, it works in Windows for all programs (unless you use one that has…

Plan and assign tasks for a club event Getting ready for a big club event can be daunting. As well as deciding what needs to be done, you need to work out who does what and when. You could use a spreadsheet to keep on top of things, but it’s not ideal and more likely to confuse. In contrast, a dedicated project-management tool will give you and your members better oversight of your event preparations and should help avoid any last-minute slip-ups. Create a board for your event Project-management tools don’t get much better than Trello. It’s free to sign up to and although some features require a paid-for account, you’re unlikely to need them. To get started, go to https://trello.com/signup, enter your email address, then click Create New Account…

ASUS If your router is listed in the ‘End-of-life’ column at www.snipca.com/33126, it’s no longer receiving updates. To view and download updates for supported routers, enter your model under ‘Select a Product’ at https://www.asus.com/support, click ‘Driver & Utility’ on the right, then select ‘Bios & Firmware’. For update instructions, visit www.snipca.com/33173. D-Link Search for your router at www.snipca.com/33174, then check under ‘Product status’. If it’s listed as ‘End of life’, it’s no longer receiving updates. For supported routers, click Firmware at the bottom of the page to see the latest updates. Update instructions are at www.snipca.com/33175. Netgear Netgear doesn’t provide a list of unsupported routers, so contact them at www.snipca.com/33176 to check your model. For the latest firmware and update instructions, visit www.snipca.com/33177. TP-Link Search for your router at www.snipca.com/33178…

At risk of stating the obvious, providing false information with the aim of defrauding, harassing or abusing a business or individual (such as applying for a loan or abusing someone on social media) could land you in hot water with the law. But what about using a VPN to fake your location and access US Netflix, for example? All online services have lengthy terms of service that you agree to simply by using them. In the case of Netflix, these state that you can only view content “primarily within the country in which you have established your account”. Why? As always, it’s down to money. If a show is only available on US Netflix, it’s because Netflix has only paid the copyright owner for a US licence, rather than a…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. 3G/4G/5G Technologies that deliver faster mobile broadband. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. 720p/1080p/1440p Common types of high-definition video of 1280x720, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels respectively. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A technology that converts a standard phone line into a broadband internet connection. Airplane mode Phones and tablets in this mode disable all radio communication (GSM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc) so they are safe to use on aircraft. Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a digital display and add elements from the digital world. Core…

Neighbourhood Watch has teamed up with security company Avast to teach local communities how to stay safe online. The Cyberhood Watch scheme will provide training and accreditation for Neighbourhood Watch representatives, as well as downloadable guides on cyber-security. It follows a survey of 14,000 Neighbourhood Watch members showing that over a third are more concerned about cyber-crime than physical crime. One in five said they had been a victim of online fraud, with many losing over £1,000. Significantly, only 30 per cent of victims reported the crime to the police, reinforcing research from charities that shows many people – particularly among the elderly – feel embarrassed about falling for scams. John Hayward-Cripps, head of Neighbourhood Watch, admitted the scheme may surprise some people who think the organisation is “solely focused…

Mozilla has urged Facebook and Google to ban political adverts during the General Election campaign because “UK citizens cannot trust the information they are encountering online”. The not-for-profit organisation that runs Firefox wrote an open letter to both companies (www.snipca.com/33221) to call for an “immediate moratorium on political and issue-based advertising in the UK” until 12 December. It pointed to Google’s decision to block political adverts two weeks before last year’s Irish referendum on abortion rights, and to suspend them during the recent Israeli and Canadian elections. The letter, which was also signed by political researchers and digital-rights campaigners, was published two weeks after Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg ruled out blocking political ads in the US. He said the company had considered a ban, but concluded it would be wrong…

I was delighted to see that Eileen Joly (pictured) won her case against the NHS for age discrimination (News, page 9, Issue 566). I was in a similar position about 20 years ago, working for an accountancy firm. The management were trying to force workers to learn a complicated new computer system that I thought was needlessly advanced. I seemed to be the only person bothered by this. When I raised this with my boss, I was accused of being a ‘technophobe’. I pointed out that I had a subscription to Computeractive and loved computing, but this cut no ice with her. Looking back, her attitude was disgusting, and I probably could have reported her to HR, but it was obvious I had little future at the company. At the…

I had a query about my smart meters, so I visited the Secure Meters website (www.securemeters.com) to find a phone number or email address I could use. I tried the phone number, but it involved negotiating a procession of menu options. Being old and deaf, I hung up and started writing an email instead. I’d been typing for a few minutes when my phone rang. It was Steve from Secure Meters! I asked him why he was ringing, and he replied that he’d heard me sigh before hanging up (it seems I’d been invited to leave a message). I consider that ringing me back was beyond the call of duty – and Steve was even table to answer my question. Jack Luxon Has a company impressed you with its customer…

How can I click links without using my mouse? Q My ageing fingers are finding it increasingly difficult to use the buttons on my mouse, making browsing the web in particular a slow and painful experience. Can you recommend software that will let me ‘click’ links without using my mouse? Frank Shields A You may find using a key on your keyboard less painful. Most browsers let you cycle through the links on a website by pressing the Tab key – you can then ‘click’ the one currently selected using the Space key. However, this only really works for sites with a small number of links because cycling through them all in this way can take time. A better idea is to install a free browser extension call Vimium (currently…

PC £1,250 from Palicomp www.snipca.com/33102 Just as the shops were starting to put up their Christmas decorations, Palicomp sent us the most festive-looking PC we’ve ever seen. The substantial steel Corsair iCUE 220T RGB tower case came in white, with a snowstorm of geometric cutouts revealing twinkling multi-coloured LEDs mounted on the three cooling fans behind the front panel. If you’re not feeling the Christmas spirit, you can swap the white case for a black version, but it’ll cost you an extra £11, you curmudgeon. “Beneath the twinkly exterior is a powerful PC that can handle any game or task” A glass panel on the left side reveals two 8GB memory modules with a few more LEDs attached, which gently illuminate a set of components dominated by chip maker AMD.…

PRINTER £50 from Amazon www.snipca.com/33151 Despite an official price tag £25 lower than the Expression Home XP-452, which is now discontinued, this printer/scanner sells for the same 50 quid online. The model number suggests it’s nine times better. It isn’t. For a start, the standard USB port and SD card slot that allowed printing from USB sticks and cards on the earlier model have gone, so you can only print via Wi-Fi or from a PC connected to the USB-B port. It supports Wi-Fi Direct, so you can connect to it even if you don’t have a home Wi-Fi network – but chances are you do. “A solid budget printer – but with high running costs” In other respects the specifications are pretty similar. This is a four-colour inkjet, so…

Q My HP Envy 120 inkjet printer provides scanning, printing and copying plus HP’s web apps, and has a lovely design. What would be the closest replacement in the current Envy line? Ben Ward A The Envy 120 was a unique all-in-one four-ink printer with a motorised touchscreen front panel and eye-catching upside-down scanner. Sadly, there’s nothing like it in HP’s current range; the only unusual model is the Tango (see our review, Issue 547), which doesn’t have a scanner. External design aside, the Envy 120’s specification wasn’t especially high. The plasticky HP Envy 5010 (£49 from Amazon www.snipca.com/33156) is slightly faster while matching its Wi-Fi and online features, 80-sheet input tray and double-sided (duplex) option. It lacks the memory card slot and output tray. Canon’s TS inkjets might appeal…

SECURITY CAMERA £80 from Box www.snipca.com/33183 This standalone wireless security camera, model DCS-8515LH, connects through your home broadband router to the mydlink app. We were hoping its motorised pan and tilt functions would make us feel like MI5 agents in a BBC thriller, but things quickly descended into a sitcom as we tried to get the hang of the controls. Once you’ve positioned the camera, it shoots a 340° panorama of your room, and you can then touch any part of this to direct the camera there. But the panorama is fiddly to see on your phone screen, and doesn’t help with pointing the camera up or down, which you do by swiping. “Some decent features but it’s all a bit gimmicky” The field of view isn’t as wide as…

The CHERRY DW 9000 SLIM uses rechargeable lithium batteries that let you work for a week without charging. When you do need to charge it, just use the microUSB cable included. It has an integrated metal plate, making it sturdy and stable, preventing bending and bounding when typing. For a steeper angle you can adjust the keyboard using the four rubber feet included with the set. LEDs built into the keys tell you whether the Caps Lock, Scroll, or Num keys are activated. In addition, they flash when battery life is low. The mouse fits perfectly in your hand thanks to its rubber-coated side parts and compact design. In this competition we’re giving away three silver-and-white DW 9000 SLIM packs. To enter, email your home address to cacomp@dennis.co.uk with ‘Cherry’…

Netgear Orbi Outdoor RBS50Y £235 from www.snipca.com/31688 ✓ work from home in a garden shed that I converted into an office. It’s cosy and I can play my own music without bothering the wife, but the most important thing is that it gets good Wi-Fi via Netgear’s Orbi Outdoor unit. You reviewed this in Issue 551, and it sounded exactly what I needed, because I already had set up Netgear’s Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi system throughout my five-bedroom home. I use an extension lead to place it in a protected location in the garden, near the shed. Eventually I’ll probably get around to sticking it on a wall. I was sceptical of your claim that it could boost speeds to 450Mbps, but that’s precisely what I’m getting. I consistently get…

Daylight.One £1.99 iOS www.snipca.com/33210 When is dusk? It depends on who you ask. Daylight.One tracks civil, nautical and astronomical dusk – and much more – for the current day or any day in the past or future you care to dial in. For anyone heading out to take photos of nature, it’s a handy tool for identifying the perfect light for any shot. Best for Natural-light photographers Cosmic.Watch £3.39 (Android)/£4.99 (iOS) Android www.snipca.com/33208 iOS www.snipca.com/33209 A stunning 3D globe, constellations and the option to zoom right in or out as far as the Solar System to help you understand time and light in a detailed, engaging way. Play around with the time and date and you can even see what the sky looked like at the moment of your birth.…

LIBREOFFICE WRITER & MICROSOFT WORD Show or hide comments when printing When you print a document in Microsoft Word, any comments inserted into it will also be printed. Even if you never use Word’s comments tool yourself, this could still be a problem – for example, if you’re sent a Word document by someone else who has inserted comments. To stop comments being printed in Word, open the document, then click File, Print. Now click Print All Pages, then click Print Markup at the bottom of the list to untick it. The Print Preview window will now be updated to show that comments will no longer be printed. In LibreOffice, by default, comments aren’t included when printing. If, for any reason, you’d like to include comments when printing, click File,…

What is it? A security feature on Google’s new Pixel 4 phones (£669 from www.snipca.com/33087) that unlocks the device when it recognises your face. As with all biometric security, it aims to offer stronger security than conventional passwords. Remind me, what does biometric mean? It’s a form of security that analyses something unique about your features, whether that’s your face, fingerprint, voice or iris pattern. While not infallible, these are much harder to hack than passwords, and you don’t have to worry about remembering them. But there’s a serious problem with Face Unlock. What’s that? It works even when your eyes are closed, meaning someone could sneakily unlock your phone while you’re asleep. For proof, watch BBC reporter Chris Fox unlocking his phone: www.snipca.com/33092. Ah, so that’s a big security…

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