Computeractive

With the police cracking down on TV sticks that have been hacked to access programmes for free, you might think there are no legal ways to modify these devices to watch more than you thought you could. But that overlooks the joy of sideloading. This

New TV-streaming service Freely (www.freely.co.uk) has launched, but only channels from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, plus STV in Scotland and UTV in Northern Ireland, are currently included. The service, a collaboration between the UK’s mai

Microsoft has added passkey support to its ‘consumer’ accounts, letting you sign in without having to remember passwords. It means you can log into Office, OneDrive, Outlook, Skype, Windows and Xbox using your face, fingerprint, a security key like Y

Netflix will scrap its Basic tier in the UK on 4 June, forcing viewers to pay more to watch without adverts. Priced £7.99 a month, it’s currently the cheapest for watching programmes without adverts. Netflix stopped new customers signing up to Basic

The UK has become the first country to block manufacturers from using easy-to-guess passwords as the default on devices. Under the new Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure act, passwords such as ‘admin’ and ‘123456’ will be banned.

Broadband cable theft fell by more than a third last year thanks largely to Openreach using an invisible ‘DNA marker’ that links criminals to crime scenes. Engineers coated miles of underground cables with an ultraviolet marker (pictured) that uses s

What’s the threat? Websites are selling fake Royal Mail stamps made in China at “too good to be true” prices. An investigation from the Daily Telegraph found four Chinese companies offering to print up to one million counterfeit stamps a week. These

A favourite trick of scammers is to send emails warning you’ve been hacked and urging you to change your password immediately. You can confidently bin most of these, but you shouldn’t ignore one recent message which happens to be genuine. It comes fr

I was interested in Issue 683’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’ on why Captchas are getting harder. I’m not sure they are actually. I much prefer the visual-based puzzles that ask you to rotate an object than try to decipher squiggly words. It would ofte

Q In March, I bought a laptop from Studio (www.studio.co.uk), priced £119.99. When it arrived I decided it wasn’t right for me, and Studio said I could return it as long as I didn’t open it. I returned the laptop by first-class post, but Studio says

www.snipca.com/50390 What you need: Windows 10 or 11 The built-in Windows search tool is notoriously slow and unreliable, often failing to find files and pushing you to search the web instead. Listary provides a faster and more accurate alternative,

Malwarebytes' ‘you’re at risk’ scare tactics If, like me, you’ve been hacked before, you often find yourself looking over your shoulder when surfing the web. I mean that both metaphorically and – when I’m using my laptop on the train – literally. I t

LAPTOP | £1000 from Huawei www.snipca.com/50311 We reviewed a Huawei MateBook D 16 back in Issue 639, but Huawei has revamped everything for this new version, including the case. What hasn’t changed is Huawei’s mission to make affordable laptops that

PC MONITOR | £180 from Acer www.snipca.com/50262 We realise that not everyone has hundreds of pounds to splash out on a good-quality monitor, which is one reason our current (and long-time) favourite is the £120 Iiyama ProLite XU2492HSU-B2 (www.snipc

PRINTER | £247 from Printerland www.snipca.com/50350 If you do a lot of colour printing that doesn’t involve photos, then a colour laser printer such as Brother’s HL-L8240CDW is certainly worth considering. It may seem expensive next to cheaper inkje

DOCKING STATION | £250 from Amazon www.snipca.com/50323 The Anker 675 USB-C Docking Station is a true jack-of-all-trades solution that lets you plug in peripherals, charge your devices, raise your monitor to a more comfortable height and keep your de

KEYBOARD | £80 from Amazon www.snipca.com/50289 The x Aula F75 from Chinese manufacturer Epomaker is a mechanical keyboard that is fairly high quality, packed with features and reasonably priced. It’s excellent for both typing documents and playing g

EARBUDS | £80 from Nothing www.snipca.com/50286 While the UK smartphone manufacturer Nothing may have an awkward brand name, there’s certainly nothing wrong with its Ear (a) earbuds. For a very reasonable price you get noise-cancelling buds that are

Both the CD and Stick contain all 26 issues from 2023 ON SALE NOW! SOLD OUT! Buy the CD from us at www.snipca.com/48860 Buy the Stick from us at www.snipca.com/48861 ■

What you need: Handy Viewer Time required: 30 minutes Photos are among the most precious files any of us own. But unfortunately, physical photos degrade over time. And even if the colours haven’t faded through the years, the original images are rarel

Edge 124, released at the end of April, continues Microsoft’s integration of its Copilot AI tool with the browser, by adding the option to rewrite text. Previously, you needed to open the Copilot sidebar and either type (or copy and paste) the text y

Typing into a document normally means keeping your text fixed horizontally left to right. But you can use a text box to rotate your text for effect. In Microsoft Word, click Insert (1 in our screenshot below), followed by the Text Box button 2, then

With their affordable prices and compact designs, streaming sticks and boxes make excellent alternatives to smart TVs. They’re particularly handy for upgrading an old, ‘dumb’ TV set with the latest streaming services, and for taking your entertainmen

The rise of AI has helped with one of the most arduous chores of any meeting: producing an accurate transcript. In Issue 655, we explained how to do this using Otter (https://otter.ai), but you may be put off by its 30-minute limit for free users. By

Burglars don’t like to smile for the camera. Surveys suggest that most will avoid homes with CCTV installed outside. But many still take the risk because they’re confident of disabling cameras, or avoiding them. However, they won’t be able to do this

Email us your problem and we’ll try to help: noproblem@computeractive.co.uk Q I wanted to watch a very old foreign-language movie that I couldn’t find on any of the main streaming services (or even any of the minor ones!). So, I found a way to downlo

One of the best things about Google Maps is the ability to zoom in to see the names of shops, restaurants and other amenities, so you know what’s available in an area before you get there. However, in the last few years its maps have become overly cl

Is WinX DVDRipper really free? Q I was excited to read about WinX DVDRipper (www.snipca.com/50228) in Issue 671’s Problems Solved (page 69), but you didn’t mention that the “free download” is only a trial version limited to five minutes. Is that righ

When Microsoft announced it was ditching the option to run Android apps in Windows 11, I wept for three days and considered retiring to a monastery. Not really, of course, I’d only tried the feature for the purpose of writing this column (see Issue 6