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One thing our writers tried to do more of in 2020 was give their first-hand experience of testing and upgrading equipment at home. I want our advice to feel like it’s coming from real people in real situations, encountering and solving the same problems you face. Our Deputy Editor Will Stapley is real. At least, he tells me he is. His garage is real too, and it plays a central part in this issue’s Cover Feature. He explains different ways he tried to boost his home Wi-Fi so that he’s prepared for everything 2021 will throw at it. I hope his efforts inspire you to try to do the same. It’s been the most difficult year since I started editing Computeractive in 2013, but it’s also been the most rewarding.…

Young people are increasingly abandoning the BBC in favour of online alternatives like YouTube and Netflix, according to Ofcom. The regulator’s annual report on the BBC found that on average people aged 16-34 spend 58 minutes a day listening to or watching BBC content, down from 75 minutes in 2017. Viewers are switching off the BBC across all age groups, but the impact is most dramatic among younger people. For example, the overall audience to BBC One has dropped by 5.4 percentage points since 2017, while the fall is 9.4 per cent for 16-24 year-olds. However, Ofcom said younger people have a more favourable attitude to the BBC than their parents and grandparents. The report suggested this is because they tune into the BBC only to watch something specific, rather…

FLIGHT SIMULATOR FlightGear 2020.3 www.flightgear.org/download What you need: Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (see News, page 8) might be hugely impressive, but at £60 it’s also expensive. If you’d rather take to the skies for free, try the open-source FlightGear instead. Developed by aircraft enthusiasts, FlightGear comes with a handful of planes pre-installed, but you can download hundreds more (as we explain below). You’ll find everything from commercial airliners such as the Airbus A320 (which has an updated cockpit in this version) to classic war planes like the Fokker TV twin-engine bomber, and even the Space Shuttle. This release introduces 30 new aircraft, including the SUMPAC (a human-powered plane developed by students at Southampton University in 1961). Newcomers to FlightGear may face a steep learning curve.…

WARNING: JUNK AHEAD Junk offender: BurnAware Free BurnAware Free (www.burnaware.com) is a tool you may come across should you wish to take advantage of newer, long-lasting DVD and Blu-ray formats. The program appears towards the top of Google’s search results if you look for free tools that support M-DISC – the disc format that claims to last for 1,000 years. I’m not able to offer an opinion on the trustworthiness of M-DISC itself (ask me again in December 3020), but I can tell you that I wouldn’t let BurnAware Free anywhere near my computer. That’s because it tries to trick you into installing unwanted software on your PC – not once, but twice (see screenshots). It’s the latest in a growing number of tools I’ve encountered that sneakily saves its…

PC MONITOR £280 from Amazon www.snipca.com/36506 Iiyama ProLite XU2792UHSU-B1 Screen legend It’s hardly controversial to assume most people will buy a monitor for the quality of its screen, and that’s what Iiyama has focused on in this 27in 4K unit. 3,840 times 2,160 adds up to 8.2 million pixels, giving an extremely sharp image even at this large size, and colour fidelity is effectively perfect within the standard sRGB space. It’s not big enough to satisfy professional photographers, video editors or print designers, but is the norm for web design and general on-screen work. Our test meter found over 99 per cent of sRGB colours covered with an average Delta E of 0.36 (anything below 2 is excellent), and this was in the default display mode, at 90 per cent…

LAPTOP PRICE DROP Honor MagicBook 14 £498 from www.snipca.com/ 34688 Tested Issue 580 Using an AMD Ryzen 3500U processor, this lightweight metal laptop beat Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 with Intel’s i7-1065G7 in our tests. The 14in Full HD screen lacks colour accuracy but looks decent. For the money, it’s a great buy. ALTERNATIVE Dell XPS 13 New Intel CPUs and a taller screen make this a more powerful, all-round slim notebook, although prices now start at a steep £1,600 from www.snipca.com/36642 ANDROID TABLET Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite £349 from www.snipca.com/35795 Tested Issue 582 Competing with Apple’s cheapest 10.2in iPad, this slim aluminium tablet comes with an S Pen stylus and a generous 64GB of storage at a reasonable price. It’s less powerful, but a great buy if you prefer…

ANDROID & iOS Get alerts when phone rings or alarm goes off If you’re hard of hearing, or want to put your headphones on without missing the doorbell ringing or baby crying, ask your phone to listen out for you. iOS 14, which runs on any iPhone from the 6S onwards, now features sound recognition, which will alert you when it hears any one of 11 different sounds, including smoke alarms, sirens and dogs barking. It isn’t enabled by default, but you’ll find it in Settings. Tap ‘Accessibility’, followed by Sound Recognition, and tap the slider at the top of the following screen. Now tap ‘Sounds’ and select which noises you’d like it to alert you to. Doing so disables Siri’s “Hey Siri” function until you turn off sound recognition…

At the start of the first COVID-19 lockdown, the video-chat tool Zoom (www.zoom.us) shot to prominence, offering people an easy way to make high-quality video calls with lots of people. Zoom’s success was, in part, due to the failings of more established tools such as Google Hangouts, WhatsApp and Skype. Recent months have seen the competition up their game, with Skype the latest to offer something new, increasing its video-chat limit from 50 people to 100. In Issue 585's In The Club we explained how Microsoft Teams (www.microsoft.com/teams) lets you make video calls with up to 250 people. However, this requires you to set up a Teams account for your club, then invite all participating club members to join it. Skype’s group-chat tool is more straightforward – largely because Skype…

Subscribe to computer active today and save on the single issue price. Each issue of Computeractive will be delivered directly to your device each fortnight. SEE NEXT PAGE FOR SET-UP INSTRUCTIONS HOW TO SUBSCRIBE… … on an iPad or iPhone STEP 1 Return to the Computeractive library STEP 2 Choose your subscription term and tap twice on the 'price' box STEP 3 Choose whether to create an optional PixelMags account STEP 4 Enter your Apple ID password to confirm … on a Kindle Fire STEP 1 Kindle Fire subscriptions come with a FREE one month trial. STEP 2 Tap 'Free Trial Subscription' in the Computeractive library STEP 3 Chose your subscription term from the drop down menu on the popup that appears STEP 4 Tap 'Subscribe' … on an Android…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT Are Swedish hackers in my phone? Q I’ve received calls on my smartphone from a number in Sweden. I didn’t answer, as the number looked suspicious and I don’t know anyone in Sweden. However, when it rings off my phone goes haywire. The displayed clock flicks on and off, and the screen is filled with notifications. I can’t access anything and the only option is a forced restart, by holding down the power and volume-down buttons. Has anyone else encountered this? On the surface it is just a minor inconvenience, and I have now blocked the number. But I also worry it may have left something malicious on my phone. Any thoughts? Tony Allaway A This is certainly intriguing. You didn’t tell us anything about your…

‘Mute’ and ‘unmute’ have been named as words of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), with their use rocketing as people turned to video chats during the lockdowns. The OED’s ‘2020 Words of an Unprecedented Year’ report says online use of ‘unmute’ rose by 500 per cent during the year. The term, “relatively uncommon” before lockdown, entered everyday language as “flustered workers across the country scrambled for the right button to make themselves heard”. The rise in people working from home was behind some of the other words of the year, the report said, with use of the word ‘remote’ increasing by 300 per cent. In 2019 ‘remote’ was mostly used before ‘village’, ‘island’ and ‘control’; in 2020 it more commonly preceded ‘working’ and ‘learning’. The sudden rise…

Can Virgin refuse to pay credit for switching? Q I took out a broadband, phone and TV contract with Virgin Media in March, which included a £75 bill credit. Despite numerous phone calls and emails to Virgin, I haven’t received a penny of this money. The credit was part of the reason I left my BT contract early to switch to Virgin. If I never receive this money, would Virgin be guilty of mis-selling? Martyn Pinchbeck A If Virgin had never intended to fulfil this promise of a £75 credit to Martyn’s bill then, yes, it would be considered an unfair business practice: one that is detrimental to the customer. It would be seen as a misleading action under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, which became law in…

What can I use to open MBOX files? Q Before closing one of my old Gmail accounts, I downloaded my entire inbox using the Google Takeout service. I was hoping I would then be able to view my old Gmail inbox in Outlook, but it won’t open MBOX files. Can you tell me what tool to use instead? Lawrence Patton A Given that Google makes it so easy to export Gmail accounts using its Takeout service (www.snipca.com/36803), it’s a little frustrating that the company doesn’t also provide a way to actually view them once they’re downloaded. As you’ve discovered, Microsoft Outlook doesn’t support this format, but there are alternatives. Our favourite is the open-source MBoxViewer (www.snipca.com/36804). The tool doesn’t require installation – once it’s downloaded, open the ZIP file, click…

PC £800 from Ergo www.snipca.com/36658 Animal cracker During 595 issues’ worth of reviews here at Computeractive, we’ve found that many of the fastest, prettiest and cleverest products share one fatal flaw: they’re not cheap. We’ve seen some excellent desktop PCs recently between £1,000 and £2,000, but if you’re on the lookout for something that’s a little easier on your debit card, this medium-sized tower could be it. “Windows 10 Pro PC offers Wi-Fi 6 and rapid performance at a decent price” It’s based on AMD’s new 4000-series desktop PC processor family, which incorporates a multi-core CPU and GPU. That might ring a bell if you’ve been reading about Apple’s extremely fast new M1 chip, but this is nowhere near as fancy. It’s a conventional 64bit processor, like its Intel Core…

The new devolo WiFi ac Repeater+ enhances your router’s Wi-Fi signal and brings mesh Wi-Fi with a transmission speed of up to 1,200Mbps into nearby rooms in houses and apartments. It’s ideally suited for eliminating weak Wi-Fi in rooms on one floor. It uses both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands through crossband repeating for stable communication. The two integrated fast Ethernet connections also enable consoles, PCs or streaming boxes to be connected via a cable. With the integrated electrical socket, no power outlet goes to waste. In addition, the ‘beamforming’ technique uses antennas to determine the position of Wi-Fi-clients and sends the signal directly to them. This results in improved transmission power. Because multiple clients in a household usually need stable Wi-Fi simultaneously, MU-MIMO technology (Multi-User Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output) plays…

What you need: YouView box; BT TV app Time required: 15 minutes There was a time when you could schedule recordings on a YouView box from your phone – until YouView discontinued its app last March. The good news is that the BT TV app lets you do exactly the same thing, even if you don’t have a BT TV subscription. All you need is a YouView box that’s able to record. Once set up, you’ll be able to set programmes to record from your phone, even when you’re away from home. STEP 1 First, make sure your YouView box is connected to your router. If you can use it to stream shows using iPlayer and other services it means your box is already connected. You can check by pressing…

WINDOWS 7, 8.1 & 10 Force Windows to shut down When you select ‘Shut down’ from the Start menu or press the power button on your PC, Windows will first make sure all programs are closed. If you have a program open with unsaved data, such as a Word document, Windows will tell you this program is preventing your PC from shutting down. While this is a useful precaution, there will be times when you want to be sure your PC has shut down, even at the cost of losing some work (for example, when you’re heading out in a rush and want to be sure your computer turns off). To do this, click Start, type shutdown /f /s /t 60 (see screenshot above), then press Enter. The ‘60’ delays…

What is it? A new computer processor that will provide stronger protection from security attacks. What makes it so significant is that it will be built directly into the central processing unit (CPU). Why is that important? Because it’ll help block attacks that directly target a computer’s CPU, and help prevent flaws like Spectre and Meltdown, which had everyone panicking in early 2018. Remind me – what were they? They were flaws that affected how Intel processors try to ‘guess’ what piece of information a computer needs next (in order to speed things up). This is called speculative execution: the processor is speculating about what data it needs to execute next. The problem is that as the processor does this, it temporarily stores sensitive data such as passwords. Intel said…

Was your Surface Laptop Go pricing wrong? Q I’m fascinated by quoted prices for the new Surface Laptop Go models in the News pages of Issue 591. The version with 8GB of memory and 128GB storage is £699, and yet the same thing but with 256GB storage is £899. The difference in price between what I presume are NVMe M.2 SSDs must be tiny. Am I mistaken? Francis Norton A You’re not mistaken, and nor were we: the 256GB model really is £200 more for what is otherwise the same machine as the 128GB model. You’re also right that the cost difference between a 128GB and 256GB M.2 SSD is small. For example, the Torosus SSD (www.snipca.com/36513, pictured below) is just £39 – and that’s at retail prices. Clearly, a…

Facebook will remove false claims about coronavirus vaccines to prevent “imminent physical harm”. It says it will speed up plans to ban misinformation following the Government’s announcement of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine being approved for use. The site will take down claims “that have already been debunked by public health experts”, including lies about what’s in the vaccine’s ingredients and conspiracy theories that the vaccine contains a microchip to control patients. It added: “Since it’s early, and facts about Covid-19 vaccines will continue to evolve, we will regularly update the claims we remove based on guidance from public health authorities as they learn more”. The new policy is much stricter than Facebook’s normal rules, which label false claims as misinformation but don’t remove them. In October, it banned advertisements that discouraged…

NOW TV ENDS TESCO CLUBCARD DEAL Now TV will end its partnership with Tesco Clubcard at the end of January 2021, meaning you’ll no longer be able to convert your Clubcard vouchers into credit to spend on the TV-streaming service. At the moment you can convert 50p of Clubcard vouchers into £1.50 to spend on Now TV. SOPHOS WARNS OF SECURITY LEAK Antivirus firm Sophos has emailed a “small subset” of users warning that their details have been exposed in a security breach. It didn’t say how many people were affected, but confirmed that the leaked details were customers’ first and last name, their email address, and their phone number. In the email (www.snipca.com/36816) Sophos said it “quickly fixed the issue” and affected customers don’t need to take any action.…

Sync your family tree online In Issue 593 we looked at ways you can store your family history on a USB stick or disc to preserve it for future generations. But it pays to keep a backup online too, so that other family members can continue your work after you’ve gone. You may already be halfway to a solution if you’re storing a version of your tree online on Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) or Find My Past (www.findmypast.co.uk). Both sites are well-established, and neither charges for hosting your tree, so your research should be safe for years if not decades to come. They also let you share your tree with other people. Ancestry users should log into their account at www.ancestry.co.uk and select their tree from the Trees dropdown menu. Once it’s…

My tendency to take a hands-on approach when learning new software sometimes backfires. When I started using ExifTool – a powerful Command Prompt utility that lets you batch-edit your photos’ metadata - I ignored its comprehensive online manual and instead just ran a few commands to see what effect it had. The result? I inadvertently (and irreversibly) changed the names, timestamps and location data for a large portion of my photo library. I’m not trying to put you off – I just want you to learn from my mistakes. Before using ExifTool, make sure you have a complete backup of your photo library on a separate hard drive, and test your commands extensively on a small selection of photos before making widespread changes. ExifTool has a slightly convoluted download process.…

What you need: Windows Notepad Time required: One hour In the days before Windows, when everything was done by typing commands at a prompt rather than pointing and clicking on a desktop, executing several commands in succession could take ages. So, developers came up with the idea of batch files. These are plain-text files containing a whole series of commands that can be run sequentially simply by launching the batch file itself. These weren’t a sneaky workaround: they were built into DOS, the operating system used by most PCs before Windows appeared. In fact, they were so tightly integrated into Windows that the first thing it did when it had finished booting was to look for a particular batch file – autoexec.bat – and process its contents immediately. This usually…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Turn your iPad into a digital photo frame In Issue 592 there were two articles that I felt were related to each other – the reviews of digital photo frames (pages 24-25) and the Problems Solved question ‘What can I do with my old iPad?’ (page 66). I wanted a digital photo frame that was large enough so we could see the picture well, and had a good resolution. I bought an old iPad 3 for less than £50 from eBay (this one has excellent picture quality) and installed the LiveFrame iOS app (www.snipca.com/36576), which is free but charges £4.99 to remove adverts. The iPad has a reasonable internal capacity, but the big advantage is that it connects by Wi-Fi to my Google Photos account, where…

LIBREOFFICE WRITER & CALC Customise your mouse functions LibreOffice includes some hidden settings that let you change how your mouse functions when working with the suite. To view and change the settings, open Writer or Calc, then click the Tools menu and select Options (or press Alt+F12). Open the LibreOffice section at the top of the left sidebar, then select View. At the bottom of the section on the right, you’ll see a Mouse section. The first option here, Positioning, lets you choose what the cursor should do when a prompt box appears in LibreOffice (such as when the ‘Save Document?’ box pops up when you try to close LibreOffice). If you want your cursor to move to the box as soon as it appears, select ‘Dialogue box centre’. Alternatively,…

Like most people, I’ve spent more time at home in 2020 than in any other year of my life. As a result, my Wi-Fi has been put put under huge strain for long periods. With the Computeractive offices closed since the first lockdown, I’ve been regularly downloading huge work files on my home network that would normally be transferred over the more powerful company network. As a family, we’ve also been streaming far more video at home, and when the schools were closed the kids needed reliable Wi-Fi to keep up with their schoolwork remotely (my reliance on Google when answering their questions was worrying). Although my Wi-Fi, delivered by a BT Smart Hub and 74Mbps Infinity broadband, generally works well, it occasionally lets me down in rooms furthest from…

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. 802.11ac A standard for wireless networks that allows for much higher transfer speeds than 802.11n. 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard with speeds up to 10 times faster than 802.11ac. Also called Wi-Fi 6. 4K Video with a resolution of at least 3840x2160 pixels. Adobe RGB A wider colour space than sRGB, extending into richer cyans and greens. AMOLED An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. Aspect ratio A measurement of the shape of a display. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are often released so problems can…