Who’s talking about you online?

Nobody likes being talked about behind their back but it’s useful to know if it’s happening. Robert Irvine reveals how to find out whether and where you’ve been mentioned online

Unlock the Web’s Secret Content

Some of the web’s most interesting and useful content is buried beneath the surface. Wayne Williams reveals how to access hidden gems that few people know about

The web has so much great free stuff that it might seem greedy to want even more, but if you dig below the surface you can uncover all manner of delights. Some of the most interesting online content isn’t immediately visible to the casual browser because it’s either still being tested, is supposed to have been removed, isn’t prominently flagged on the site’s homepage or can’t be found for some other, more mysterious reason. In this feature, we reveal the web’s best-kept secrets. Over the following six pages, we show you how to access content that’s no longer available, unlock hidden tests and experiments, reveal secret tools and forbidden sites, and much more.

We also reveal some of the latest Easter Eggs concealed in your favourite websites and software, from the cute cat that’s hidden in Android Nougat to Google’s secret stock of animal noises.

Tips & Tricks (April 2017)

01 [Windows] Delete non-executed print commands from the printer memory

It is already annoying enough when Windows does not print a document but it gets even worse when the print job cannot be deleted. You can bring this issue to order with some manual intervention. First, terminate the service "Print queue”. Open the "Run” window using the shortcut [Win] + [R] or via the Windows Start menu and type "services.msc”. In the "Services” windows, search for "Printer Queue”, right click on it and go to the command "End”. Subsequently, delete the file to be printed, from the printer memory. Open the path "C:\Windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS” and delete the files in this folder. Thereafter, restart the "Print Queue” service. For this, open the Windows services as described above, where you type the command "services.msc” in the "Run” window. Right-click again on the service "Print Queue" and click on "Start” in the context menu.

Repair Like A Professional

A broken notebook doesn’t have to be repaired at a repair shop. Our experts will tell you what kind of minor damages you can repair yourself and what you need to look out for when doing so

Notebooks keep on outstripping conventional PCs, becoming so popular because they accommodate a computer with all peripherals plus battery in a compact body. But the high degree of integration increases the susceptibility to errors and complicates repairs. Furtheremore, the trend of thinner and lighter laptops aggravates the situation. With more affordable ultrabooks, special components or components soldered onto the motherboard are used, user-friendly screws replaced by adhesives and the weightsaving design is rarely the most robust one. Therefore, many notebook owners do not dare to repair the notebooks themselves. In view of higher costs and long processing times by the manufacturers service centre, Some end up buying new notebooks instead of repairing their current one.

The Best Wireless Network Tips

There are many benefits when you tune up your home network, such as more bandwidth, a more stable network and secure connections. We did some research and tried out the best tips

In the old days, the grey PC was the only device that could access the internet and it had to use a cable. Today, WiFi networks are dominating the scenario. According to a survey, there are about 21 million internet users in Malaysia alone. Furthermore, each home network contains an ever-increasing number of devices that are transmitting via radio, such as TVs, notebooks, tablets and smartphones. Some households even use NAS, radios, speakers and devices like Google’s Chromecast. The number of devices is set to rise even further in the future, with Smart homes beginning to integrate lamps, heaters, cameras and refrigerators into the home network.

Windows 10 Tamed

Lock screen ads, mandatory updates and hardly any data protection. Microsoft’s latest OS calls for the need of strict control

Aggressive - this is the term which Windows 10 would use to describe the system. This began from the update with the annoying upgrade requests. Meanwhile, the chief of marketing at Microsoft, Chris Capossela, has acknowledged that the company has advanced forcefully to bring the new system quickly to the people. A billion PCs in a maximum of three years is the target and all this was ‘for the benefit of the users’. ‘‘We want maximum number of users to use Windows 10 for security reasons,” he claimed. But data security does not come under security. Windows 10 digs deeper into privacy than any other older Windows version and it also provides many users with complete facts. Data is collected via a default setting that automatically runs updates without asking and advertisements are displayed on the lock screen. Microsoft bets on the fact that many users are happy with Windows 10, since there are no alternatives. Are you? For some, maybe, but we think Windows 10 should be even more user-friendly. In this article, we’ll show you how you can tame the operating system so that your privacy is safeguarded.

Master the PowerShell

Discover how to get started with Microsoft’s powerful scripting tool, with Nick Peers

At first glance, the Windows PowerShell looks to be a facsimile of the Command Prompt, but to dismiss it as such leaves you missing a huge trick. In fact, PowerShell is a platform designed to automate many Windows tasks through a clever scripting language. It’s based on the .NET Framework, which gives it lots of flexibility and scope, particularly when you access it through the PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) program, which provides even more useful tools and shortcuts — such as syntax highlighting and IntelliSense tab completion — to help you build the perfect script to achieve what you want.

How to control Kodi from any web browser

Kodi has a fantastic built-in web server you can use to control it remotely from any browser. David Ludlow explains how to use it

The Kodi smartphone app is a great way to get all the features of a remote control for Kodi (and a little more). However, the media software also has a built-in web server that gives you even more control over Kodi from any device that has a web browser.

For example, you can use the web interface to browse all your audio and video content and select what to watch or listen to. There’s currently no support for photos, but that’s the only thing that’s missing.

Secret hacks for Google Play

Google Play just celebrated its fifth birthday, but there’s always something new to learn about the app-and-entertainment store. Robert Irvine reveals its best secrets

Earn credit towards Play purchases

You don’t get something for nothing in this world, but thanks to Google Opinion Rewards (bit.ly/rewards420) you can make easy money for very little effort. Just answer a few quick questions about shops you visited recently or similar topics and the app will reward you with credit, which you can save up to spend on Google Play.

The information you provide in the short, simple surveys about your views and habits is collected anonymously, and you can trade your credit for Android apps, music, films, TV shows and books in just a couple of taps.

There’s usually at least one threequestion survey per week, with rewards ranging from 6p to 60p.

Our guide to WebAssembly

WebAssembly is being touted as the future of the web but you’d be forgiven for wondering what on Earth it is. David Crookes explains all

What is WebAssembly?

WebAssembly (webassembly.org) is a relatively new web standard that has the potential to revolutionise how we use high-performance applications such as games, video players and imageediting software. Rather than making us download and install these resource-heavy apps, WebAssembly offers the potential to run them in your browser with full functionality. Developers say this will make computing far more convenient, with some going as far as calling it the dawn of a new web era.

Kodi: New TV Streaming Sensation

Kodi is one of the most powerful media players that’s ever been released for Windows – and it’s also one of the most controversial. David Ludlow explains how to use it legally

Few programs in recent years have proved as controversial – or as popular – as Kodi. On one level it’s a brilliant music and video player, letting you stream content between computers. If you connect your laptop to your TV with an HDMI cable you’ll also be able to access and watch everything on the big screen of your television.

Kodi – known as XBMC until 2014 – also excels at online streaming. It gives you access to all kinds of add-ons that expand its basic features, so you can watch YouTube, iPlayer, out-of-copyright movies and a whole host of other video content straight from one convenient location. In addition, you can listen to hundreds of radio stations from around the world, view all your photos and stream podcasts.

Start afresh in Windows 10

If you upgraded to Windows 10 from a previous version your PC will probably be bloated with old apps and programs. Mike Plant explains how to restart Windows 10 with a clean installation

How did you install Windows 10? If, like the vast majority of Windows 10 users, you installed it over the top of a previous version – such as 7 or 8.1 – you’ve probably never enjoyed a full and clean version of Windows 10. That’s because installing one operating system over another is similar to wiping a whiteboard with an eraser. Most of what you scrawled on there has gone, but look close enough and you’ll see remnants of what was written there before.

The good news is that Microsoft’s new Refresh tool is there for users looking to make their version of Windows 10 as fresh as if it had come pre-installed on a new computer.

Here, we’ll take you through the process, starting with making a backup of all the important files and information on your PC, before explaining how to refresh Windows 10 and then get it off to the best possible start.

Keep your PC perfectly safe with sandboxing

Wayne Williams explains how to use a sandbox to protect your PC from malicious programs, snoops and more

Sandboxing is a method used to prevent software from taking control of your operating system or making any changes to it. It works by containing the program in a secure and disposable section of your computer’s hard drive or memory. Software running in this ‘sandbox’ is allowed to read data from the hard drive as normal, but it can’t write data outside of the sandbox or make any changes to Windows.

There are several benefits to sandboxing software in this way, such as keeping your system safe from potential malware and letting you try as many programs as you like without worrying about cluttering up Windows or causing problems.

It’s also useful for privacy reasons: if you sandbox your web browser, nothing you do will be recorded on your computer, and bookmarks, cookies, cached pages and browsing history will vanish when you empty or exit the sandbox.

Centralise your storage with a NAS

NAS drives take the pain out of backing up and sharing files across your PCs. Jonathan Parkyn explains why you might need one and how to set it up

Network attached storage (NAS) devices used to be costly and complicated to set up. But prices have dropped to the point where some models aren’t much more expensive than a standard external drive – Western Digital’s 2TB My Cloud, for example, can be bought for around £110 (www.snipca.com/23561). User-friendliness has also drastically improved, and many NAS devices are now simpler than ever to configure. But what is a NAS? Do you need one? And, if so, how do you go about setting one up? Read on to find out.

Complete guide to digitising your old photos

Scanning photos doesn’t have to be an organisational nightmare. Jane Hoskyn explains how to digitise and sort whole albums of photos for free

You might assume that turning your dusty old photo prints into digital photos is a right palaver. And, until recently, you’d have been right. You had to fork out for an expensive flatbed scanner, then spend days, weeks and months using the infernal thing to churn out massive files with meaningless names like ‘1931304_47829780167_8088_n.TIFF’ – not the most charming title for an image of your wedding day.

But things have changed fast, thanks to powerful scanning and tagging tools that make this once-Herculean task quick and easy. Here, we reveal the best new ways to capture entire albums of prints, then organise them using tags so your favourite scanned photos are even easier to find than when they were in albums on your bookshelf - and it won’t cost you a penny.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

Talion sprints towards the walls of Seregost Castle, undaunted by the glittering volley of flaming arrows streaking towards him and his loyal Uruk army. Nearby, a deluge of crude orcish artillery lands, exploding into a fireball that blooms and dissipates, leaving only a shower of wet earth and green bodies tumbling in its wake.

Talion charges on. This haggard ranger of Gondor is technically a dead man – given life only by the elven wraith Celebrimbor that resides within his undying frame – but he is feared and despised by Sauron’s forces nonetheless, who trade foul stories of the Gravewalker’s unnatural abilities and martial might.

During his first tour of duty, Talion spent most of his time engaged in a scrappy guerrilla war, shanking the odd captain here and beheading the occasional warlord there. But this time, Talion’s mounting a siege on Sauron’s fortresses across Mordor and beyond – and he’s building an army to dismantle the Dark Lord’s forces.

Access hidden Netflix categories

Get more from streaming-TV services Netflix and Amazon Prime Video with our expert hacks and secret tips

Netflix offers thousands of movies and TV programmes to watch, which it organises into categories or genres. When you click the Browse link on the homepage, it displays around 20 categories. There are actually many more – hundreds, in fact – but you can’t see them. Luckily, there are several websites that provide links to them.

Visit bit.ly/genre418 and you’ll see a list containing dozens of categories. Click the link at the top to view the extended list, which contains many more. Not every link works because Netflix sometimes deletes categories, but many still function and contain fascinating movies you might otherwise miss. You’ll find an alternative source of Netflix categories at netflixcodes.me. These category links are a great way to discover different films and TV series.

Best Add-Ons For Anonymity

Lots of browser add-ons claim to keep you anonymous online, but many are ineffective. Here, we pick the nine tools you need to guarantee your privacy

Your Complete Guide to Staying Anonymous

You’re never alone on the web – there’s always someone or something watching you. Jane Hoskyn, Edward Munn and Robert Irvine explain how to beat the snoopers and be completely invisible online

Spammers, scammers and other snoopers have devious ways of tracking your every online move. Google knows more about what you’ve been up to than you do, and eavesdroppers have become adept at piecing together your so-called digital ‘fingerprint’ or ‘footprint’ from even your most mundane web activity – then using it to work out who you are, what you do and even where you live.

Fortunately, there are ways to dodge these spies, without sacrificing the pleasure and convenience of life online. We’re not about to tell you to delete your Facebook account, stop using Google tools altogether or turn to the Dark Web – well, you can if you want, but these extreme measures aren’t the only ways to guard your identity.

WLAN Beats LAN

The 802.11ad wireless standard makes wireless networks faster than Gigabit LAN cables and fibreglass. We tried out the high-speed technology

The importance of WiFi speeds has never been more important than it is now. With the emergence of 4K videos, the quantities of data that we need to transfer between devices or download via high-speed fibre internet are on the rise. Furthermore, there are more and more tablets, smartphones and compact laptops with fast – but small – SSD storage. The real-time streaming that becomes necessary overwhelms the current ‘n’ and ‘ac’ WLAN (wireless LAN) standards, which are already struggling to output the required bandwidth using the available 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands. Compatible routers can only attain peak values of up to ‘5300 Mb/s’ under theoretical conditions, which only happens if you could simultaneously use multiple WLANs on a router.

Full Speed For Every SSD

Whether it’s SATA or NVMe SSD, getting the best performance out of your drives comes down to having the optimal settings. In RAID-Combine, two SSDs can achieve unprecedented speed

The ascendancy of the SSD is in full swing. Much has been spoken about the flash memory storage drive technology in the past, specifically about its limited capacities. But now, capacities of up to 1 TB have become available and becoming affordable. Also, midrange and top class SSDs have proven their durability, further reinforced by the manufacturers via their long warranty periods. Does this mean it’s time for you to setup, install the OS of your choice and start using it? Well, it’s not as simple as that. To achieve optimal performance and lifespan for an SSD, the correct settings are required. Therefore, in the first part of this article we will be showing you the settings for the common SSD types.

Tips & Tricks - March 2017

01 [Windows 10] Deactivate the Touch function and related components

If the Touchscreen function of Windows 10 is not important to you, then you can disable it in a few steps. For this, use the shortcut [Windows] + [R] to open the "Run" window, type "services.msc" and confirm with OK. In the window "Services", search for the "Tablet PC Input", then select it and open the "Properties" by right-clicking on it. You can set the Touchscreen function to "Off" or set the Start type to "Deactivate", either one works. Save the change by clicking on OK.

Born To Be Wild

Breath Of The Wild director Hidemaro Fujibayashi tells us how Link embraced the open world

Under ordinary circumstances, Hidemaro Fujibayashi could be considered something of an industry veteran. He has, after all, been making games since 1995, when he joined Capcom – and he’s been a level designer, after a fashion, for even longer, having previously been responsible for planning the layouts of haunted houses for theme parks in Japan. Indeed, his ties to The Legend Of Zelda alone stretch back 16 years, to the two Oracle games for Game Boy Color.

Teach your old spellchecker new tricks

Do you worry that you and your spellchecker aren’t speaking the same language? Mike Plant explains how to wrestle back control and get even tougher on typing errors

If Word has a nasty habit of rephrasing your split infinitives, or you’re left tearing your hair out whenever your email client fails to catch a spelling slip, you’re not alone. The built-in spellcheckers of your favourite programs can seem to throw the rules of English grammar out of the window at times, but there are things you can do to get them under control. Here we’ll explain how to replace or expand your spell-checking options to produce error-free documents and emails.

Get a faster & safer home network

It’s time to put an end to slow and unreliable home networks. Jonathan Parkyn explains how to speed up your Wi-Fi, boost your broadband, protect your privacy, share your files safely and more

If you have two (or more) computers at home working off the same router, then you have the raw ingredients of a network. You’ve probably got a combination of laptops and desktop PCs; connected to your router by a cable or via Wi-Fi; they may even all be running different versions of Windows. It doesn’t matter – they can all form elements in a home network that interact pretty much seamlessly.

Rime

The light at the and of the tunnel. After years in the shadows, Rime finally reveals its true nature.

“When you are responsible for other people – for the wellbeing of their families – sometimes you can get a lot of vertigo. But the sooner you get used to the feeling of always falling the better, because in life you often find yourself falling forever.”

Tequila Works’ CEO Raúl Rubio knows that the development of Rime is like no other. For the better part of four years, his studio has been home to one of the most anticipated independent adventure games of recent memory. But for the longest time it has also existed only on the periphery, as a project that found itself plunged into darkness as quickly as it was pushed into the light.

Fresh Hell

A short history of modern horror games – with Amnesia: The Dark Descent’s Thomas Grip

Traversing the decaying, twilit corridors of the Baker residence, we’re lost. We’re yet to find a map for this section of the swampy compound, we’re short on bullets, and we can’t work out what combiney-item thing we’re supposed to do with that clock. We’re confused, frustrated even, but also thrillingly helpless and terrified. It feels almost profound that a game can make us feel this way. Resident Evil, the series that inspired the term ‘survival horror’ yet had long since strayed from its rotten roots, has been reborn, and this year’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has become the clearest testament to the resurrection of the genre in recent  years. But the credit for that return to form doesn’t go to Capcom, or to Sega for the nerve-jangling Alien: Isolation. Back in 2010, while the Resi series was goofing around with co-op and the Aliens licence was being torn a new one by Gearbox and Rebellion, a little-known Swedish developer had caught the gaming world’s imagination with its quiet release of a first-person horror game on the PC.

Download Paid-For Software That’s Now FREE!

Not all tech prices are rising – in fact, many have been scrapped completely. Wayne Williams picks the 20 best formerly paid-for programs and apps that you can now download for free

We’re so used to reading about tech prices going up – from broadband to iOS apps – that it’s both a surprise and a pleasure to learn that a onceexpensive product is now available for free.

Obviously, as you see, plenty of brilliant free programs and apps around, but Premium and Pro versions of software have the advantage of being unrestricted, offering many more features and being free of ads and nags.

Over the last year, many quality tools you previously needed to pay for have become completely free. In this feature, we round up our favourites – full software, not free trials – and explain why you should download them.

Our list of newly free products includes image editors, photo filters, professional video tools, system and security software, iOS and Android apps, and much more, and will save you a grand total of at least £1,327. We also show you how to use two of our favourite new freebies.

What your phone LEAKS about you

Here we revealed what personal info is shared by your browser. In part two, Robert Irvine looks at the privacy hole in your pocket

Reboot anything from anywhere

Nothing fixes problems as quickly as turning a device off and on again. Edward Munn explains how to reboot your router, PC and phone, wherever you are

Best safer-browsing tools

Since Web of Trust (WOT) lost the confidence of web users, Andy Shaw has been testing the alternatives

Our guide to fake news

What you’re about to read is completely true, unlike many stories you see online. David Crookes exposes the facts behind fake news

What is ‘fake news’?

The term ‘fake news’ refers to stories that look real, but are deliberately false and misleading. Widely shared on social media, they entice people with their clickbait headlines and fool them with potentially damaging disinformation. By doing so, they have become one of the web’s most pressing problems, making it ever more difficult to distinguish between myth and reality.

Onkyo DP-X1 - entertainment for your ears

The DP-X1 is Onkyo's take on the personal hi-res audio player, but as Ed Selley notes, there's more to it than just a measured performance with tunes

Not content with making an AV receiver for all occasions, Onkyo has been busy beefing up its music credentials over the last few years. It's curated its own hi-res music portal (Onkyo Music), launched headphones in collaboration with Iron Maiden and courted two-channel love with a growing range of hi-fi separates. Now comes its DP-X1 personal audio player, which promises to deliver high-quality listening on the go and give your smartphone a break. If you're the kind of technophile who's amassed a hi-res library (FLAC, WAV, AIFF, ALAC, DSD, etc) but wants to set it free from the confines of your home cinema, this pocketsized gizmo is for you.

Top extensions for securing your web browser

Every now and again in this column, we like to go through and update our list of the best add-ons for securing your browser

These are the very top add-ons for making you safe from tracking cookies and metrics, from malicious website code and from hackers trying to intercept your browser traffic. They will block ads and bypass geoblocks and content filters as well — the latter particularly relevant now that certain websites are being blocked by Australian ISPs. All of these are available in the Chrome Web Store and in the Firefox Add-ons directory.

Minimising mobile data usage

Short on your gigabytes when out and about? Here are the tools you need to grab yourself some extra data

While monthly quotas for landline broadband services have (thankfully) finally grown to the point at which you generally don’t have to stress over your data usage, the same is not true for mobile services. Most mobile services offer only a few gigabytes per month, the kind of quota that can be easily wiped out with system and app updates, plus casual browsing. Worse, most post-paid mobile services will charge a ludicrous excess usage fee if you do accidentally go over your quota.

Luckily, there are tools to help you deal with quota anxiety. This month, we’re going to look at some of the top techniques to reduce your mobile data usage.

Troubleshooting Android bugs

Android is a fantastic operating system, but its numerous versions and thousands of hardware variations mean that frustrating bugs do pop up from time to time.

Most of these nasty bugs can be fixed quite easily, but the more stubborn ones can take a little digging to find and rectify the root problem. To help get you started on troubleshooting, we’ve put together a guide to the most common potential issues and how to fix them. We tested with a Nexus 6P running Android 7, so your phone’s menu layouts and options may vary somewhat.

Manage your monitor settings

Like much of the news these days your monitor isn’t always as accurate as it should be. Mike Plant reveals the tools to fine-tune your screen so that it displays everything flawlessly

Before you start reading this article (and certainly before you start applying any of our tips here), open a photo on your PC and take a few seconds to look at it. Though it might look perfectly fine, the chances are that its reds aren’t really red, its blues are far from blue and its greens… well, you get the idea.

That’s because monitors don’t come pre-calibrated to suit the unique conditions of the room you are in, meaning what you see on screen is a far-from-accurate rendition. In fact manufacturers of PC monitors and TVs often crank up the brightness levels and oversaturate colours so that their screens look vivid – even garish – in order to stand out on the shelf of your local PC World store.

That’s why it’s important to properly calibrate your monitor’s brightness, contrast and colour settings. This not only helps reduce eye strain, but displays photographs and images as they should be. Here we’ll explain how to tune up your monitor for a truer picture.

SuperB new uses for your old tablet & phone

Don’t just dump your old portable devices. Anthony Enticknap explains how to dust them off and give them a new lease of life

Unlike PCs, when tablets and phones get too old and sluggish to be useful anymore, there’s no easy way to upgrade them. Instead, we simply buy new ones. The question then is: what should you do with the old one?

You could bin it, but that feels like a waste. You might even donate it to a friend, family member or charity. But we all know most devices get consigned to cupboards or drawers, where they lie forgotten, gathering dust. If this sounds familiar, it’s time to dig out that old tablet or phone, because there are plenty of ways you could still make use of it.

Tinker Board

Asus’s new computer blows raspberries at its British rival

What is it?

A new single-board computer that’s being touted as a serious rival to the hugely popular (and British-made) Raspberry Pi. Made by Taiwanese company Asus, it runs a customised version of Linux – like the Pi – and is the same credit-card size.

Elite Speak

We sit down with one of gaming’s most influential developers, David Braben, to discuss the future of space travel and Elite’s long-awaited PlayStation debut

Elite Dangerous: Horizons changed forever on 5 January. Before then, the PC and Xbox One sci-fi simulator was a deep-space adventure filled with inter-player wranglings, political flashpoints and only small hints at there being something larger at play. But on 5 January a major event occurred: Commander DP Sayre was ripped out of a hyperspace jump and his ship was temporarily stripped of power as a massive alien Thargoids ship made first contact.

Speed Up Windows 10

Give Windows a shot in the arm by cleaning up and optimizing your PC

Spring is in the air, so it’s the perfect time to take a virtual vacuum to your computer. Every year, it’s the same old story: Despite your best intentions, you rapidly lose control of what goes on to your PC, as programs are installed and forgotten, while gigabytes of files — from documents to photos and videos — are copied multiple times to a myriad locations, clogging up your hard drives. The result? A computer that’s slow to start, performs sluggishly, and is approaching the limits of your storage capacity.

Recover Your Data

Nothing is lost until you’ve looked for it

IMAGINE WITH US: The worst has happened. Everything you held dear is gone. You ignored the clicking of the hard drive, those error messages, that suspicious-looking file for too long. You clicked the thing you shouldn’t have clicked. You emptied the Recycle Bin out of habit after letting your kids near your PC. And now? Now your photos are gone, your documents are dust, those precious family videos cast to the wind. Windows has gasped its last breath. All is lost.

Intel Core i7-7700K

Here we have it, the premier consumer enthusiast chip from Intel’s seventh generation of processors: Kaby Lake. The Core i7-7700K is the replacement for the Skylake family’s Core i7-6700K, and is a fully unlocked quad-core CPU with each core running at 4.2GHz with a 4.5GHz Turbo Boost clock.

It’s important to appreciate the extent of Skylake’s success since launching a couple of years ago and, in turn, the weight of expectation that Kaby Lake chips such as the Core i7-7700K carry on their pin-freckled shoulders. Architectural improvements to the Broadwell generation’s 14nm manufacturing process made for even more power-efficient processors, which both paved the way for a host of long-lasting yet reasonably powerful laptops and 2-in-1s, and enabled enhanced performance for desktops.

Skylake thus became the only kind of CPU worth bothering with, except for the occasional budget PC build. For portability, gaming or getting serious work done, however, Intel dominated, and will likely continue to do so until AMD finally launches its much-anticipated Ryzen chips.

What your browser LEAKS about you

Every time you go online, you reveal more personal info than you realise. Robert Irvine explains how to identify and plug these leaks

Do We Trust The Web of Trust?

Betrayed by a browser: The scandal surrounding the snooping ‘Web of Trust’ add-on for Chrome and Firefox proves that when it comes to the internet, there’s no escape from data collectors

An alleged 140 million internet users use the Web of Trust (WOT) browser add-on to protect them from data snoops, hackers and rip-off artists when they’re using the internet. However, the manufacturer (myWOT) was caught offering highly volatile user data on the data market: Lists of all the web addresses that millions of WOT users visited within a period of one month – In fact, the sample data set acquired by NDR reporters contained the detailed surfing histories of millions of WOT-users. An anonymous statement provided by the manufacturer claimed that it was just an accidental slip-up, and promised that the situation would be fixed.

Make Your Computers Boot Faster

If your long-serving computer keeps booting up at a slower speed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to buy a new one. How you can more than double the boot-up speed?

It’s usually only a matter of time before the boot-up speed of a Windows computer starts dropping.

This often happens because of a magnetic hard drive that is gradually getting filled up. Such a hard drive may contain several tools of varying degrees of usefulness, which automatically boot up along with the operating system. This is combined with the everincreasing fragmentation of the system files.

Make Online Payments Secure

Online payment services can only score if they strike the right kind of balance between security and comfort. Using Germany as an example, we’ll tell you how you can do just that

Cash or card? Online payments aren’t as simple as payments that are made at the shop. When it comes to the virtual checkout counter, you have to choose from an average of five different payment procedures. In addition to classic offline methods such as those involving bills, direct debits and credit cards, the group also covers online payment systems such as PayPal, giropay and paydirekt. When it comes to being an intermediary between customers and retailers, these are the services that are more or less trustworthy. In addition to being both quick and easy to use, they do not force the buyer to hand payment data over to the online shop. We took a closer look at the most popular online payment services, and we’re going to point out the pros and cons. The table at the end of the article contains a compact expert assessment of the security and comfort levels.

Joy Division

Part console, part handheld: can Nintendo Switch put the house of Mario back on top?

The first real moment of magic comes, inevitably, in Breath Of The Wild. Disappointed as we are by Nintendo’s decision to set Link’s Switch coming-out party in  the same area of the game as E3 2016’s Wii U demo – this is our fourth playthrough of the new Zelda game’s opening section – that’s not really what we’re here for. After pottering around as Link, using the new Pro controller, for a few minutes, it is time: we slide the Switch from its dock and, instantly, the biggest Zelda game to date is running on a 6.2-inch screen in our palms. We have played bigscreen games on handheld displays before, of course, but the transition has never been so elegant, the results never so natural in the hands. A few minutes later the process is reversed, the tablet returned to its base station, the action returning seamlessly to the TV, resuming as quickly as we can pick up the Pro controller.

Sinclair Resurge Ltd

The ZX Spectrum is back – and there’s no need to dig out your tape recorder

Have you ever wondered what inspires Bossa Studios to dream up oddball games such as I Am Bread? Look no further than gamer-in-chief Henrique Olifiers, who had his childhood mind scrambled by eccentric ZX Spectrum games such as Jet Set Willy.

Firefox vs. Chrome vs. Edge

Most of us use the humble web browser more than any other program. These ubiquitous apps act as portals to the Internet, and because we use them daily, we want them to be reliable and easy to use, as well as secure. By far the most popular browsers on Windows are Chrome (with 57.1 percent of the market in November 2016) and Firefox (with 11.1 percent). Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has fallen from grace, but the software giant is pushing its new browser, Edge, in Windows 10, in a bid to gain its lost market share. There are other browsers, such as Opera, but we’re looking at the three major players, to see which is best.