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YouTube says it’s not forcing viewers to watch hour-long adverts, despite users posting screenshots that seem to show this. One viewer posted on Reddit a photo that appeared to show an advert lasting just under 58 minutes (see screenshot 1), which they couldn’t skip. Another posted a photo showing what seemed to be an advert lasting just under three hours 2. Other viewers claimed they had seen adverts of 10 and 90 hours, though they didn’t post photos to support this. YouTube’s communications manager Oluwa Falodun responded by saying it doesn’t “serve minutes-long, non-skippable ads”. She pointed to YouTube’s policy on unskippable ads (www.snipca.com/53675), which limits them to 15 seconds online, and 30- or 60-second slots on TVs. In contrast, there’s no limit on the length of skippable adverts. Falodun…

Google will attach warnings to UK companies it has caught using fake reviews in search results and Google Maps. It will also prevent the worst offenders from receiving any new reviews, and have all their reviews deleted for six months or more. The clampdown, which applies to reviews of businesses but not products, comes after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into Google over concerns it was breaking consumer law by not protecting people from fake reviews. Google will also ban individuals who repeatedly post fake or misleading reviews, no matter where they are in the world. The CMA said tougher measures were needed because as much as £23 billion of UK consumer spending every year is “potentially influenced by online reviews”. It also cited research showing…

Netflix has announced some of its biggest ever price hikes in the US, with UK prices likely to follow soon. It has increased the standard subscription without adverts from $15.49 a month to $17.99. This currently costs £10.99 in the UK, and is thought to be the most popular package. It’s also raising the price of the cheapest plan, which contains adverts, by one dollar to $7.99. UK customers pay £4.99 for this. The most expensive package, called Premium, will go up by two dollars to $24.99. This allows streaming on up to four devices simultaneously in 4K, and downloads on six devices. It costs £17.99 in the UK. When Netflix last raised US prices in October 2023 it also did so for the UK. It’s also increasing prices in…

Why I didn’t upgrade to Windows 11 In Issue 702’s ‘Question of the Fortnight’ (pictured below right) you say “Windows 10 users won’t make the leap to 11 if they think Windows 12 is on the horizon”. Spot on. Indeed, that describes my attitude in 2022, when Computeractive first reported rumours of Windows 12. I had been considering upgrading my PC from 10 to 11, but thought there was little point if version 12 was imminent. More than two years later, and with no sign of Windows 12, I wish I had upgraded. I’m still using Windows 10 and have no choice but to upgrade before Microsoft ends support in October. I hope you’ll publish a full guide on how to do this so we’re not left high and dry.…

Search records of mining accidents If your ancestor was described in census records as a miner, it’s most likely they worked in a coal mine, although there were many other types of mines such as lead, tin, silver and slate. Working in any of these was a dirty and often dangerous job, and accidents frequently occurred. Look on Ancestry and Findmypast There are two main indexes that provide details of people who were injured or died in mining accidents – one free, one requiring a paid-for subscription. The former is Findmypast’s ‘England, Mining Disaster Victims’ record set, created from the ‘Alan Beales Database of Fatalities in the Coal Fields’ (www.snipca.com/53668), and covers Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. Visit www.snipca.com/53661, then type a name, date of birth, and the colliery and…

PC | £2,399 from PCSpecialist www.snipca.com/53533 At £2,399, there’s no getting away from the fact that PCSpecialist’s Nebula Goliath is expensive. However, we’ve chosen to take a look at it because it’s an absolute powerhouse, built around Intel’s best desktop processor, namely the Core Ultra 9 285K. This dynamic chip has 24 cores – eight performance and 16 efficiency. The result is muscle when you need it and efficiency when you don’t. “A powerhouse PC that breezes through most tasks, but it’s costly and lacks Copilot+ capabilities” It includes an NPU, but disappointingly it’s only rated at 13 TOPS, so falls well short of Microsoft’s Copilot+ criteria of 40 TOPS. That means it won’t keep up with certain significantly cheaper laptops when running AI-related tasks. That may not be a…

Can you suggest a sub-£600 desktop PC setup? Q I’ve promised to buy my granddaughter a ‘proper’ computer (ie, not a laptop) before she starts secondary school next year. My overall budget is around £600 for PC, monitor and peripherals. Ideally she’d like a mini PC to leave space for books on her desk. Can you recommend a suitable setup within this budget? A To work out how much you can spend on the PC itself, you need to find the peripherals first. We like the look of the LG 24MR400-B monitor (£74 from www.snipca.com/53608), which is an affordable 24in 1080p model from a trusted brand with plenty of positive reviews. You’ll also need a keyboard and mouse. No need to go mad here – you can always replace it later –…

SMART TV | £199 from Argos www.snipca.com/53637 Most TVs under £250 have screens around 32 inches, so it’s a pleasant surprise that this Bush TV has a generous 43in screen. It wouldn’t look out of place even in more spacious living rooms. One thing that makes it stand out from the crowd is that it uses the lesser-known TiVo operating system. Those with longer memories will remember TiVo when it made devices that let you record entire TV series so you could watch them at your leisure. The concept was made obsolete by the rise of streaming TV. “An affordable set that delivers eyecatching pictures and reasonable audio” Today’s TiVo system is surprisingly similar to others we’ve come across recently. You have a main screen that provides a selection of…

Microsoft likes to suggest that Windows gives us the freedom to do whatever we want on our PCs. Back in 2015, it launched Windows 10 with the slogan “A more human way to do”, and six years later it claimed Windows 11 “brings you closer to what you love”. To emphasise its generosity, Microsoft made both operating systems available as free upgrades – Windows 10 until 2017, Windows 11 ongoing – allowing everyone to “create, learn, play and most importantly connect in all new ways” (www.snipca.com/53614). In truth, Windows is more restrictive than Microsoft would have us believe, with certain rules we must accept and obey. Some of these rules limit what we can and can’t do on our PCs, while others govern what Microsoft wants Windows to do –…

Back up text messages in Android Android’s default method for backing up text messages is to use Google’s built-in Backup option – the precise route to this may vary depending on your device, but you should find it under Settings, Google, ‘All services’, Backup. Make sure the ‘Backup by Google One’ option is enabled (1 in our screenshot below), then scroll down and you should see that SMS and MMS messages are included 2. Bear in mind that this method uses your Google One/Google Drive allowance to store your phone’s backup, so if the backup size is larger than 15GB, you’ll need to pay for more storage. Prices start at £1.59 per month for 100GB (www.snipca.com/53695). Back up text messages in iOS Apple uses its own iCloud services to back…

Microsoft is letting iPhone users make calls and send messages from the Windows 11 desktop, having added this option for Android phones last year. The feature is available to Windows Insiders as part of the preview build 4805, released on 28 January. The Android version is available to all Windows 11 users who have installed the 24H2 update. For both editions you’ll need to set up Phone Link on your computer. This is a Microsoft tool that connects and syncs your phone with your Windows 11 PC. Microsoft explains how to set up Phone Link at www.snipca.com/52592. For it to work your computer has to be compatible with Bluetooth LE, and you’ll need to be signed into your Microsoft account. Once you’ve installed Phone Link, open the Start menu then…

TalkTalk has denied claims that the details of 18.8 million customers have been leaked online, but admitted that a company handling its data suffered a breach. The incident came to light when a hacker called ‘b0nd’ announced on a forum that they were selling the information. They said the data, which they obtained in January, contained names, email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses and other details. TalkTalk investigated the claim and confirmed it was “made aware of unexpected access to, and misuse of, one of our third-party supplier’s systems”. However, it said that the “number of potential customers referred to in certain online posts is wholly inaccurate and very significantly overstated”. The company has around 2.4 million customers, far fewer than the number b0nd claimed. It’s probable the hacker was…

The City of London Police have arrested a 29-year-old man belonging to a climate-protest group that claimed to have cut broadband cables to disrupt “hundreds of insurance companies across the UK”. The man allegedly belongs to the group Shut the System, which said it targeted cables in Birmingham, Leeds, London and Sheffield. It posted a photo on Instagram (www.snipca.com/53635, pictured) appearing to show an individual dressed as an engineer cutting cables in London’s financial district. The group said its “activists” were demanding “an immediate end to support for new fossil fuel projects and mandatory transition plans for all clients involved in the fossil fuel industry”. It added: “If these powerful companies don’t make public statements that they will stop driving fossil fuel expansion and destroying life on Earth, then we…

Many people remain confused about whether they need a TV licence, but the rule is simple: you must have one if you watch any live TV on any broadcaster or service – including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or YouTube – or any content on the iPlayer. Viewers who stick entirely to on-demand content on streaming services have always been exempt. But that might soon change. A report from Bloomberg suggests the Government is considering forcing these viewers to pay the licence fee in order to help fund the BBC. They’d pay this even if they never watch the iPlayer or live TV. It’s a hugely controversial proposal that’s likely to infuriate people who have switched from traditional broadcasters to streaming services. “Viewers would pay the fee even if they never…

When was your feature on recording TV shows, so you don’t have to rely on streaming services? Doug Sandbrook CA SAYS In Issue 693, page 62. I’m thinking of switching from PayPal over its new data-sharing policy. When did you warn about that? Neil Paisley CA SAYS In Issue 698, page 62. I want to buy a new TV stick, but can’t remember which issue had a Cover Feature on them. Can you remind me? Peter Byrne CA SAYS Yes, it was in Issue 684. Read it and the features above on our Back Issue CD: www.snipca.com/53433.…

MINI PC | £229 from GMKtec www.snipca.com/53554 In Issue 702 we reviewed the GMKtec NucBox G6, a sub-£200 mini PC that is something of a bargain, but used an older, low-end processor to keep the price down. For around £30 more, this NucBox M5 Plus tweaks the specification in a few areas, including a superior processor that provides a more powerful performance level. “A performance upgrade on previous models, but still reasonably priced” The eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 5825U chip in the M5 Plus is around three years old – the same age as the four-core Ryzen 3 in the G6. However, with double the core count the M5 can handle more tasks and runs faster. In our benchmark tests that push processors to their limits, the M5 Plus ran…

SMART PLUG ❘ £11 from Amazon www.snipca.com/53577 One of the easiest and most effective ways to turn your house into a smart home is to use affordable smart plugs that give you more control over your existing mains-powered devices. This simple unit from Tapo plugs into a wall socket and you then simply plug another device, such as a lamp, TV set or charging cable, into its pass-through socket. Use the free Tapo app to connect it to your Wi-Fi and you then have a lot more options about how you switch the attached device on or off, whether you’re at home or away. The app includes a useful energy-usage monitor, so you can see how much electricity you’re saving. We used it on a variety of devices – plugging…

We’ve become so used to jumping online at any time and wherever we are that it can be a shock to the system when we can’t. Perhaps your Wi-Fi has gone down, or you’re in a library that only offers an Ethernet connection, or you’ve already paid for a connection for your laptop and don't want to pay for a second for your tablet. In each of these scenarios and more, there’s a solution – sharing your computer’s internet connection over a wireless hotspot. This network sharing is a core feature of Windows which, when enabled, makes your computer behave like a wireless router. Here, we explain how to enable this feature and how to connect your two devices. 1 Set up a Windows hotspot Open Settings by pressing Windows key+I…

I hadn’t heard of FotoSketcher (www.snipca.com/53248) before you recommended it in Issue 700 (page 18), but I’ve used it a lot since. I’ve transformed many of my Christmas photos using its various effects, such as watercolour and pencil. I had a lot of photos to edit, so I’m glad I discovered the ‘Batch processing’ option. This lets you edit several photos in one go. Click ‘Edit’ at the top left then ‘Batch processing’ (or press Ctrl+B). Now click ‘Add files’ (1 in our screenshot) and select the photos you want. Next click Process 2, then choose a visual effect in the box that appears and click the blue ‘Draw!’ button. Your photos will now be transformed by the effect you chose. Keep an eye on the blue progress bar at the…

Send event invites and manage RSVPs There are plenty of websites that let you email invites to events and manage who’s replied, but it’s hard to find one that offers enough tools for free to make it worth using. The exception is Evite. It does have two paid-for packages (see www.snipca.com/53560), but the free version lets you customise your designs and send invites to up to 750 people. That should be enough for most clubs, though the invites do contain adverts, and invitees will also see ads on the RSVP page. Import your contacts and design your invite First you need to create an account. Visit www.evite.com then click ‘Sign in’ at the top right followed by ‘Create one’ at the bottom. Once that’s done, you should now import a…

PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT How do I stop Firefox nagging me? Q I’ve used Firefox for many years, not necessarily because I think it’s the best browser, but because I’m now so familiar with it. However, I’m getting fed up with it nagging me to update every time I launch it. I know it’s important to keep programs up to date and I don’t mind doing that occasionally, but recently it feels as if Firefox has gone update mad. It seems barely a day goes by when it isn’t moaning at me to download the latest version. Clicking the Dismiss button (see screenshot 1) is easy enough but, boy, it’s annoying me now. I think years ago you published a tip that explained how to stop this incessant nagging. I vaguely…

Switch to an ergonomic mouse A long with dry eyes and keyboard crumbs, repetitive-strain injury (RSI) is one of the hazards of sitting at a computer for 10 hours every day. I’ve been lucky to avoid the worst RSI symptoms – shooting pains, muscle cramps, swollen joints – but recently I’ve noticed my wrist going numb after long periods of relentless pointing and clicking. “The Amazon photo of the mouse resembled Darth Vader’s travel iron” Equally worrying is that when I remove my hand from my mouse, it retains a claw shape until I stretch my palm and fingers to get it back to normal. Even then, I have trouble playing the piano, but that’s also because I only know Chopsticks. As part of my new health kick for 2025,…

Microsoft has removed the Smart Lookup feature in Word as part of a push to get more people using the AI tool Copilot. Introduced in Office 2016, Smart Lookup let you rightclick words in documents to make related searches online, such as for definitions and synonyms. The results appeared in Microsoft’s search engine Bing. The ‘Search’ option still appears when you right-click a word, but it now shows the message ‘We are sorry, but this feature has been deprecated’. Microsoft uses ‘deprecated’ to describe tools it has abandoned. Microsoft’s support page for Smart Lookup has a banner at the top confirming it was “retired” on 1 January. It doesn’t mention using Copilot instead, but Microsoft is keen to encourage people to use the AI tool in its Office suite. It…

O2’s AI ‘granny’ Daisy (pictured) has now spoken to over 1,000 scammers since launching in November, most of whom work in call centres and read from a script. It’s one of the main findings of the implementation of the AI tool, which has been programmed to waste scammers’ time when they phone looking for victims. It tricks the fraudster into thinking they’re talking to a real person who appears to be a soft touch. But rather than follow the scammer’s instructions, Daisy frustrates them with “human-like rambling chat” that goes nowhere. O2 said that “on multiple occasions, Daisy heard the same well-rehearsed lines from different scammers”. “Fraudsters even began to recognise her, indicating they’re operating together and sharing knowledge of their triumphs and failures,” it added. Scammers repeatedly called Daisy…

SSD ENCLOSURE | £100 from Amazon www.snipca.com/53595 This Ugreen enclosure is an external storage device that plugs into a USB port on your PC, but doesn’t have any storage inside. Instead it’s an empty shell into which you can add an M.2 SSD salvaged from a laptop or PC, or one that’s been purchased specifically to install into this device. “A stylish and fast SSD enclosure that converts built-in drives to external storage” While £100 sounds expensive for an empty case, it’s worth noting that it contains the technology needed to transfer data at the highest current USB speeds, and comes with the cables you need too. It supports USB 4.0 with speeds of up to 40Gbps, which can be achieved if you have a compatible USB-C port on your…

WEBCAM ❘ £79 from Amazon www.snipca.com/53582 Logitech is one of the most reliable brands in the webcam market, and offers plenty of choice to suit different needs and budgets. The C920S sits in the middle of their range, offering a sensible balance between price, quality and features. Setting things up is easy – simply plug its USB-A connector into your PC (it has a 1.5-metre cable) and off you go. It worked immediately and without fuss on every video-chat tool we tried without having to download any drivers. We’d definitely recommend installing the accompanying software because it provides options for tweaking the picture, so you can adjust it depending on lighting conditions. We were pleased at how well the 1080p resolution captured video, while audio was crystal clear. It isn’t…

LAPTOP Dell Inspiron 14 Plus £699 from www.snipca.com/51831 Tested Issue 683 This laptop has the same processor (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H) as our previous favourite (Acer Swift Go 4), but manages to squeeze more speed out of it. It also comes with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and a 14in 2240x1400-pixel screen. Excellent value overall. ALTERNATIVE Acer Swift Go 14 Still a fast and powerful laptop, with a great 14in screen. £749 from www.snipca.com/49733 ANDROID TABLET Honor MagicPad2 £500 from www.snipca.com/53150 Tested Issue 700 With a larger screen (12.3in) than the Galaxy Tab S9 (below) and a similar performance for less money, Honor’s MagicPad2 is a superb new tablet. The OLED screen has a strikingly sharp resolution, and yet battery life is a mighty 18 hours. ALTERNATIVE Samsung Galaxy Tab S9…

What you need: Chrome browser on a phone/tablet Time required: 30 minutes Crooks are getting better at cracking passwords, and we now need so many of them that making sure each one is unique means it’s impossible to remember them all. That’s why many sites are adopting passkeys. These delegate the task of verifying your identity to a smartphone or tablet, which can check that you really are who youclaim to be by sending you PINs or scanning your face/finger. When the device has identified you, it uses the passkey issued by the site to unlock your account. To save you setting up a new passkey for every device, programs like Google Password Manager in Chrome can synchronise them across every device on which it’s installed. It’s just been rolled…

1 To customise the page that opens when you launch Firefox or open a new tab, click the cog in the top-right corner. In the Wallpapers section 1, choose whether to use a solid colour, abstract design or photo 2 as the background for the page. 2 Switch off the Shortcuts option 1 to stop Firefox showing sites you’ve visited or saved on the page, or leave it on and increase or decrease the number of shortcut rows. You can also hide recommended stories2 and details of recent activity 3. 3 Click ‘Manage more settings’ for further options. These include separating the Home and New Tab page layouts (so that one shows a blank page instead 1), hiding the Web Search box 2 and choosing the type of recent activity…

What is it? A fast-rising AI app that’s been called the new ChatGPT. Like that tool, it’s a chatbot powered by a large language model (LLM), designed to generate human-like responses to questions. Its rapid success sent the tech world aflutter at the end of January, and caused panic among existing AI companies. Why’s that? Because its makers claim to use less advanced processors, meaning it was built for a fraction of the cost of tools that have hogged the spotlight for the past few years. Oh – and also because it comes from China. Why is that important? Most AI breakthroughs have happened in the US, driven by companies such as Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia and of course OpenAI, which runs ChatGPT. They assumed they would dominate the…

What is Google doing and why? On 16 February, Google will update the ‘program policies’ for its advertising platform to allow advertisers to use digital fingerprinting. This will make it easier for them to identify you and your devices, so they can target you with personalised ads. Google says it’s making this change to reflect “advances in privacy-enhancing technologies” (www.snipca.com/53623) and the shift towards smart TVs and streaming services. “Businesses who advertise on CTV (connected television) need the ability to connect with relevant audiences and understand the effectiveness of their campaigns”. In simple terms, this means traditional tracking cookies are no longer proving effective at collecting users’ personal data across devices, but digital-fingerprinting techniques will let advertisers obtain all the information they want. Google previously pledged to eradicate third-party cookies…

I can’t get faster than 16Mbps, so do I need a new router? Q Because I live in a rural area, the fastest broadband I can get is 16Mbps. My router is provided by Sky. After reading Issue 701’s Cover Feature (‘Why you must bin your old router’), my question is what improvements would I see from buying a new router? Frank Milnes A If you’re not getting the speeds promised by your broadband provider, buying a new router is probably not the best first step. Before doing anything else, we’d suggest contacting Sky and asking why your broadband is so slow and whether there’s anything the company can do to speed it up, particularly if you are paying for a faster service. You may have tried this, but it’s worth contacting…