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One of the ironies of software design is how difficult it is to make things simple. The instinct most developers have is to keep adding buttons, settings and menus, mistakenly thinking users will equate more features with a better product. But the best developers see their job as removing such clutter. Crucially, they’re not afraid of users instantly rejecting a stripped-back interface because it looks too basic. They also know which tools are essential in a program, and prioritise those within the design. Robert Irvine has spent most of his adult life seeking simple software, and reveals his current favourites in our Cover Feature. These most definitely aren’t basic tools. They all contain advanced features that will satisfy confident users. And they all seem to know what you want to…

Wikipedia has paused a trial that involved using AI to summarise articles following severe criticism from the site’s editors. It had started showing summarised articles on phones and tablets to about 10 per cent of users who have the Wikipedia browser extension installed. These summaries were marked with a yellow ‘unverified’ label (1 in our screenshot). Tapping the summary showed the full article below 2. The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, began the test on 2 June, intending to run it for two weeks. It hoped the “machine-generated” summaries would “take existing Wikipedia text, and simplify it for interested readers” (www.snipca.com/55172). But it abandoned the trial just two days later after a backlash from editors angry about the use of AI. The first comment left by an editor was just the…

Malwarebytes has become the latest security firm to let you upload suspected scams for checking. The tool, called Scam Guard, is part of its Mobile Security app – both the free and paid-for versions. Start by downloading the app (Android www.snipca.com/55153; iOS www.snipca.com/55154) then look for Scam Guard in the Security section and tap Chat followed by ‘Start a new chat’. You can now type the content of a potential scam or a dodgy URL and ask for Malwarebytes’ verdict. Alternatively, tap one of the bottom-left icons to take a photo of a possible scam or upload a photo you’ve already taken. We tested it with a scam text claiming we could apply for a £200-£300 allowance from the Departments of Welfare and Trade and Industry. It said the URL…

Do I have to pay to return shoes to China? LEAD CASE Q I recently paid £29.95 (plus £4.80 delivery) through PayPal for a pair of size 12 orthopaedic trainers from Stylishoe (www.stylishoe.com, pictured) because the listing said they came with a wide fitting toe box. But when they arrived, they were far too small. Stylishoe says I must return the shoes, at my expense, to China. Is this right? Bill Simmons A It certainly doesn’t sound right. Retailers can only demand that you pay to return goods if you’ve rejected them because you’ve changed your mind. But the trainers Bill bought aren’t as described, and so he can return them under the Consumer Rights Act and ask Stylishoe to cover the cost of postage. Bill’s not the only customer to have…

Macrorit Disk Scanner Pro www.snipca.com/55264 Price: £17.78 Free trial period: N/A What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11 Rather than test the speed of your drives like CrystalDiskMark (see below left), Macrorit Disk Scanner checks for bad sectors. These are areas that can no longer store data, which can result in files becoming lost and unreadable, and affect the speed and reliability of your system. Both the Free and Pro editions perform thorough scans of your hard drive or SSD, and provide a visual map. This marks bad sectors in red and healthy ones in green. The Pro version has the advantage of scanning multiple drives at the same time, to save you having to check them individually. However, it’s important to note that neither edition – or the…

Band aid Acer has several Wi-Fi routers on the market and the Predator Connect T7 sits right at the top of the range. It’s a fully featured, tri-band Wi-Fi 7 model, capable of functioning either as a standalone unit or as part of a mesh system if you live in a larger house and buy more than one. At 212mm tall its rigidly rectangular case is quite imposing, so it’ll need an area with enough headroom. The rear panel has a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port for a high-speed broadband connection, but only two other Gigabit Ethernet ports for connecting other devices. There’s also a USB-C port on the back, which lets you attach a hard drive or other storage device to your network. However, the latter only supports transfer speeds…

Video feed The PeckPerk Smart Bird Feeder lets you feed the birds in your garden and watch them on its video camera. It sends footage to your smartphone, much like a security camera or video doorbell, except that it’s capturing wildlife rather than intruders. The nature-inspired, acorn-like design makes it appealing to birds, though it’s made from recycled plastics. Setup is simple and we had it up and running in just a few minutes. The camera arrived pre-charged, so we simply needed to attach it to a tree with the included straps, add some bird seed, download the free PeckPerk smartphone app and connect the camera to our Wi-Fi. “Any bird movement triggers the camera to record for 10 seconds” It comes with a solar panel, which more or less…

Perfect for both vinyl enthusiasts and those new to the format, the Majority Folio Bluetooth Turntable combines classic sound with modern features. This elegant record player offers USB recording and playback, making it easy to convert your cherished vinyl collection into digital files. Featuring an Audio Technica AT3600L cartridge, the turntable delivers clear, detailed sound, while its auto-stop function protects your vinyl and stylus by automatically stopping playback at the end of a record. Its sleek, book-like design makes it a sophisticated addition to any space, while the portable format allows you to take your music with you. It comes with a 45RPM adapter, high-quality slip mat to reduce vibrations, and a detailed user manual to get you spinning straight out of the box. To enter this competition, answer the…

TIP OF THE FORTNIGHT Browse File Explorer images within IrfanView It’s good to see the developers of IrfanView (www.snipca.com/54922) are still releasing new versions (Issue 711, page 19). It’s amazing that it’s still free. One hidden feature I love combines the speed and features of IrfanView with the folder structure of File Explorer in Windows. It’s the easiest and most familiar way to browse photos in the program. Click the Properties/Settings icon at the top (1 in our screenshot above right), followed by Toolbar then tick Thumbnails 2. Click OK to confirm and the Thumbnails icon will be added to the toolbar (1 in our screenshot right). When you click this you’ll see your File Explorer folders displayed in IrfanView 2, letting you batch-rename, convert or resize them within the program. Eric…

ANDROID & iOS Find words in images in Google Photos As part of the celebrations for its 10th birthday, Google Photos has updated its search tool to help you find images containing specific words. Powered by its AI chatbot Gemini, this builds on a feature introduced last year, which lets you search for photos by describing their subject – for example, ‘me on the beach’. The new option focuses solely on the text within images, so is useful for searching screenshots and photos of documents, tickets, receipts, menus, forms of identification and even magazine covers. To use it, Google says to put your search term in quotation marks, for example “boarding pass” or “account” (see www.snipca.com/55104). You actually don’t need to do this, because when you tap the Search tab…

Track who has opened your emails When you send an email to multiple club members, it can be useful to see who has opened your message. This can give you a good idea how widely your email has been viewed and who you may need to follow up with – in case some members missed your original message. Gmail and Outlook.com both support a feature called read receipts, which sends you a notification email when a recipient opens your message. However, you need to have a Google Workspace (paid-for) account to use read receipts in Gmail. Meanwhile, Outlook.com’s read receipt feature rarely seems to work as desired. A much better option is to install the Gmail and Outlook.com extension Boomerang, which works in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Edge. Boomerang’s…

It’s always exciting to discover a free PC program that offers advanced features you usually have to pay for. It’s also interesting to try new open-source tools from independent developers on GitHub (www.github.com). But that buzz can quickly drain away after you download and install a program only to find it bewildering to use. Common obstacles include cluttered interfaces, unlabelled toolbar buttons, mysterious menu options, settings that require configuration, and a lack of helpful guidance, such as tooltips or setup ‘wizards’. Whereas most paid-for software is thoroughly tested and documented to ensure users are satisfied with their purchase, some free tools have a steep learning curve. With no manual or customer support, you may end up uninstalling the program before giving it a chance. Thankfully, not all free software is…

Q My old desktop PC has separate sockets for 3.5mm headphone, microphone and a line-in audio. But my laptop has just one 3.5mm audio socket. This seems to work for both microphone and headphone with the headset that I plug into it and also works just fine for audio and speech input. But it makes me wonder what the difference is between the mic and line-in socket on my old desktop PC? And how come my laptop has just one socket for everything? Trevor Sanders A Let’s start with your microphone (mic) and line-in sockets on your desktop PC’s sound card, because there’s a subtle but important difference. Specifically, the mic input is designed to deal with weak incoming signals, such as that from your headset mic. The sound card (like the…

32bit/64bit A measure of how much data a PC can process at once. Most older computers are 32bit, more modern ones are 64bit. AHK A script file used by AutoHotkey to automate tasks, create shortcuts and remap keys in Windows. AMOLED Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode. An alternative technology to LCD for creating flat-panel displays. ARM Advanced RISC Machine. Processors that are more energy-efficient and are used in more devices than those made by AMD and Intel. Augmented reality Lets you view the real world on a screen and add virtual elements. AV1F AV1 Image File Format. Open-source image file format that has better compression than WebP, JPEG, PNG and GIF. Benchmarking Comparing software and products with an accepted standard. Beta A version of software that’s being tested. Beta versions are…

Microsoft is working on a tool that makes it easier to move your files and data from a Windows 10 computer to a new one running Windows 11, ahead of support for 10 ending in October. The feature, called MigrationApp, is part of the Backup tool, which Microsoft launched in 2023 for backing up files to OneDrive. It can be used to move data between any Windows computer, and was first added to preview builds of Windows 11 earlier this year. By adding it to Windows 10, Microsoft no doubt hopes people will use it to move their files to a Windows 11 computer ahead of the 14 October deadline. The tool was recently spotted in a test build of Windows 10 by a Windows Insider who frequently reveals new…

ChatGPT has been humiliated in a game of chess – by a 48-year-old Atari console. Developer Robert Jr Caruso from US software firm Citrix set up a match between the AI chatbot and Atari Video Chess (pictured) – a game released for the Atari 2600 in the late 1970s. He described the contest in a LinkedIn post (www.snipca.com/55248), saying it came after a conversation with ChatGPT about the history of AI in chess that led to the chatbot volunteering to play Atari Chess. ChatGPT wanted to find out how quickly it could beat a game that only thinks one or two moves ahead and is powered by a 1.19MHz processor. By contrast, today’s computers have processors that run at 3,000MHz (3GHz) or more, roughly 2,500 times faster. Caruso gave ChatGPT…

BT’s boss has said the rise of AI might lead the company to cutting even more jobs than the 55,000 it plans to axe by 2030. Chief executive Allison Kirkby (pictured above) said the current aim of scrapping 55,000 jobs doesn’t reflect how AI is transforming the workplace. She previously thought around 10,000 of the total jobs lost – most in customer service – would be replaced by AI, which Kirkby called a “reshaping” of BT’s workforce. But in June she told the Financial Times that this figure “did not reflect the full potential of AI”. She added: “Depending on what we learn from AI… there may be an opportunity for BT to be even smaller by the end of the decade.” Kirkby also said the value of Openreach wasn’t…

NatWest’s ‘sleek new design’ Somebody impersonating NatWest sent me an email to say it’s “changing the way we look”. It said some of its emails would soon “showcase a sleek new design”. So what, I thought to myself. Why would NatWest email its customers to communicate this uninteresting piece of news? And why would a mere redesign of emails mean I’d need to click a ‘Get Started’ button to “re-authenticate” my account? It did contain the correct logo, the bank’s corporate colour (purple) and its stunningly nonsensical slogan: ‘Tomorrow begins today’. Does it? Nobody told me. Warn your fellow readers about scams at letters@computeractive.co.uk…

Search for online parish clerks Online parish clerks (OPCs) are volunteers who collect, transcribe and publish parish records online that are free to search. Many counties have their own OPC websites, packed with data you won’t find on the big commercial genealogy sites. If you’re tracing your roots, these are goldmines hiding in plain sight. Find an OPC site for your area To see if there’s an OPC project for your county or parish, start with the list on UK BMD (www.snipca.com/55175). You’ll also find plenty of free transcripts outside the OPC network by searching GENUKI (www.genuki.org.uk). Another excellent resource is FreeREG – part of FreeUKGenealogy – which offers online transcripts of parish and nonconformist registers (www.freereg.org.uk). The best OPC sites are shown in the box below left. As with…

Can I convert my old recordable DVDs? Q Back in the 1990s and 2000s I recorded our family life both on video cassettes and 3in DVDs, then transferred the footage to recordable DVDs. At the time I could play these on DVD players connected to a TV, but no longer. Is there any software that would miraculously make these discs playable again? And can I back up the footage to a USB drive? Pete Maule A Your best option is to use Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr) to convert your DVD home movies to MP4 files. You’ll need a DVD drive for this – few PCs come with these built in any more, but you can pick up a cheap external drive online, such as the Hitachi-LG GP60 (around £25 from www.snipca.com/55075). Connect your…

What are they? Power banks (such as the Anker Laptop Power Bank, pictured, £90 from www.snipca.com/54067, reviewed in Issue 706) are portable rechargeable batteries you can plug into mobile devices to top up their charge. They come in all shapes, sizes and capacities. Small lightweight banks might only be capable of charging smartphones, for example, while bulkier, heavier units have enough power to recharge a laptop. How do they work? They are essentially a rechargeable battery within a plastic case. They have at least one port for connecting to the mains to charge up the power bank’s own battery. Then, when you’re out and about, this (or any other ports on the bank) can be used to charge any devices you have with you. What are the specs? The two…

What is it? Philips (www.philips-hue.com) has announced a free update to its Hue app that brings AI to your home lighting. It’s coming to the UK in July. What does it do? It lets you set colour and brightness using your voice and natural language. Suggest a mood, occasion or desired ambience, and the app (pictured) will set your lights accordingly. The app will try to use its existing mood-lighting options to provide your desired effect, or create something new if it doesn’t find a match. What’s the catch? There isn’t one. The update is free and, as long as you already have Philips Hue lights, you can choose whether to use the new AI system or stick to tapping controls on the app. So can I do without it?…

EDGE Play videos in an improved picture-in-picture mode Edge 137 improves the browser picture-in-picture (PiP) mode, which continues playing videos in a small floating window when you switch to another tab or program. To use the mode, either right-click a video twice and choose ‘Picture in picture’, or click the ‘Picture in picture’ icon if available. The updated PiP mode turns the floating window into a mini media player, giving you greater control over what you’re watching. You can play and pause the video, rewind or fast-forward by 10 seconds, use the progress bar to jump to a specific moment and mute the volume. Click ‘Back to tab’ (see screenshot below) to return to the main player. BRAVE Ask Leo to take screenshots of web pages Brave has updated its…

WINDOWS 10 & 11 Measure your internet speed in PowerToys You can now measure your internet speed using the Run function in Microsoft’s PowerToys. First though you have to install the SpeedTest plug-in. Visit www.snipca.com/55149 then scroll down to the Assets heading and click the ‘Download SpeedTest-1.0.2-x64.zip’ file (if your computer has a 64bit processor) or ‘Download SpeedTest-1.0.2-ARM64.zip’ (if your PC has an ARM processor). After downloading, unzip the file to extract its contents. You now need to copy these into your PowerToys Run Plugins folder. To find this, open File Explorer and type this into the address bar at the top: %LOCALAPPDATA%\ Microsoft\PowerToys\PowerToys Run\ Plugins. You can also copy and paste it from our Pastebin page: www.snipca.com/55150. But first, make sure you create a subfolder inside the Plugins folder…

What is it? It’s the title of a blog post by Sam Altman (pictured below) in which he describes how AI can become “superintelligent” while remaining safely under human control (www.snipca.com/55178). Who’s Sam Altman again? He’s the US tech entrepreneur who runs OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and probably the most influential voice in AI. What he says is always worth listening to, especially when referring to an event as momentous as the singularity. Should I already know what that is? Not really. It’s a term for a catastrophic moment when artificial intelligence becomes smarter than humans, not just at one or two things, but across the board. The phrase was coined by US computer scientist Vernor Vinge in the early 1990s: “Within thirty years, we will have the technological…

Why can’t I see your competition questions? Q I try to enter your competitions every issue (see page 33). But when I click the Snipca link to go to the specific page for the competition, I scroll down to look for the question, but it’s never there. What’s going wrong here? David Felsenstein A You’re probably using a privacy extension in your browser that blocks iframes, which are windows embedded inside a web page that show content from another web page. Some advertisers use iframes to track you across the web, so it’s understandable that many privacy extensions block them. The problem is that iframes are also used for perfectly legitimate reasons, such as showing videos, forms or – as we do – questions for competitions (see screenshot 1 below). One solution…

In the classic film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (either the 1956 or 1978 version – they’re both good), aliens infiltrate society by replacing human beings with sinister clones. Which is not dissimilar to the way malicious browser extensions are masquerading as legitimate tools, so they can steal users’ data and infect their PCs. “Was my browser harbouring malicious add-ons that secretly collect my data?” Barely a week goes by without new reports of dodgy Chrome extensions somehow evading Google’s ‘strict’ security checks and threatening millions of users. Some of these nasty add-ons pretend to be popular tools such as VPNs, AI assistants and video downloaders (see www.snipca.com/55132). Others are maliciously modified versions of existing extensions that have been sold or abandoned by the original developers. Either way, they’re becoming…

WATCH OUT FOR… HMRC scams following huge data leak What’s the threat? Security experts have warned about a potential new wave of HMRC scams after it emerged that 100,000 people had their tax details stolen last year, leading to the theft of £47m from taxpayer accounts. Officials say criminals gained access to the data by tricking organisations that work with HMRC into revealing customers’ details. They then accessed or created pay as you earn (PAYE) accounts to fraudulently claim tax repayments. HMRC wrote to victims between 4 and 25 June to confirm they won’t face any financial loss. It has since locked down the affected accounts and reset passwords to prevent further fraud, and has worked with the police to arrest some of those thought to be responsible. It has…

AI ASSISTANT WiseX 1.01 www.snipca.com/55260 What you need: Windows 10 or 11 From the company behind the free software Wise Disk Cleaner and Wise Program Uninstaller (see page 51 of our Cover Feature), WiseX is a new AI assistant you can use on your desktop. Rather than limit you to its own set of large language models (LLMs), it lets you switch between multiple AI tools without having to open their apps or websites. Options include OpenAI’s GPT 4-o, Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro and the Chinese-owned DeepSeek. The latter may raise eyebrows, but by accessing the LLM through WiseX (without a DeepSeek account), you’ll avoid the privacy concerns surrounding the DeepSeek app and website. Several AI tools, including Hugging Face and Brave Leo, also provide independent access to DeepSeek. To…

SOFTWARE WARNING! Win Master for Cleaner’s ccheeky trick If you’re looking for a new junk-cleaning tool, never search for one on Google. The results are littered with so many dodgy sponsored links that anything truly useful gets lost. One especially shameless example is this sponsored entry, which looks like it’s for a tool called Ccleanmaster (1 in our screenshot right) but actually leads to the awkwardly named program ‘Win Master for Cleaner’. Made by ‘Hong Kong master science and technology Limited’ (no, us neither), it claims to be “one app to fix it all”. Sounds promising. But look again at that URL in the grab: www.ccleanmaster.com. Spot the double c? Remind you of anything? Yes, it’s a brazen attempt to make you think of CCleaner, which is still one of…

CLAUDE Search the web for up-to-date information In our ‘ChatGPT vs the rest’ feature in Issue 711 (page 56), we predicted that when Anthropic added web-search capabilities to the free version of Claude (www.claude.ai), the AI assistant would produce higher-quality responses. That’s now come to pass and all Claude users have access to web search through its new Sonnet 4 language model. Like ChatGPT, Claude automatically searches the web when it determines a query would “benefit from up-to-date information or specialised knowledge”. This means you can ask it about current events, get the weather forecast and search for topics not covered in Claude’s training data. Claude displays a ‘Searching the web’ message (see screenshot below) when using this mode, and cites the sources of the details it provides. GEMINI Edit…