Table of contents for February 2017 in Tech Advisor

London is next in line to receive the Link high-speed Wi-Fi service that briefly brought high-speed porn to the streets of New York. Intersection, the company behind LinkNYC, is partnering with BT and outdoor advertising company Primesight to deliver the service in London. Intersection is partly funded by Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google’s parent Alphabet. Next year, BT will replace 100 of its phone booths with the LinkUK pillars, delivering gigabit Wi-Fi, free phone calls, and local information services on built-in Android tablets. The companies aim to install up to 750 of the hotspots across the UK in the coming years. The pillars will also offer free power, via USB charging sockets. There’s no risk of them slurping your phone’s contents, or infecting them via the BadUSB vulnerabilities, as…

Google Maps has a new feature the company highlighted on its Keyword blog now estimates how busy or slow things are in real time, thanks to Google’s data powers So you want to head over to that trendy new restaurant, but you’re not sure whether the line is going to be around the street corner. Well, Google Maps now has the answer. A new feature the company highlighted on its Keyword blog now estimates how busy or slow things are in real time, thanks to Google’s data powers. It’s unlikely that this will be available for every single location on the planet just yet, but if you live in a large city where Google has access to enough real-time information your mealtime decisions may get a whole lot easier. There’s…

Atop an almost-as-large increase in September, Firefox has stepped away from a precipice, and in two months recovered almost all the losses it incurred during the past year Microsoft’s browsers haemorrhaged another 40 million users in October, according to analytics vendor Net Applications, pushing the year’s total number of deserters near the one third of a billion mark. Net Applications pegged the combined user share of Internet Explorer (IE) and Edge at 28.4 percent for October, a fall of 2.3 percentage points. The decline was the second-largest ever for Microsoft’s browsers, behind only May’s plummet of 2.7 points. Unlike in most previous months, Microsoft’s bane was not Google’s boon, but instead Mozilla’s. Firefox’s user share jumped nearly two percentage points, to 11.1 percent. Atop an almost-as-large increase in September, Mozilla’s…

Password manager LastPass is taking a big leap forward for all its free users. The company announced that its service is now free to use across all devices at the same time. LastPass’s switch to a free model for multi-device access comes one year after the password management service gave up on its PC-first policy. Originally, LastPass free was only available on the PC, while mobile devices were only supported for premium subscribers. That changed in August 2015 when LastPass decided free users would be restricted to a single device type of their choice, including PCs, smartphones, or tablets. Now, multiple devices are open to free users. All the devices, all the time Anyone who’s already using the free version of LastPass can download the company’s mobile apps or the…

£499 inc VAT Contact lenovo.com/uk Specifications 10.1in (1920x1200) Full-HD IPS touchscreen; Android Marshmallow 6.0; 2.4GHz Intel Atom x5-Z8550 quad-core processor; 4GB RAM; 64GB storage with microSD support up to 128GB; 8Mp autofocus rear camera; 2Mp fixed focus front-facing camera; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac; Dual Channel (2.4- and 5GHz); Bluetooth 4.0; GPS; 8500mAh non-removable battery; 256x170.8x9.6mm; 690g Hats off, Lenovo. In a time where most smartphone are black slabs that look like iPhones and laptops are silver ones aping MacBooks, the company has created a product like no other. The Yoga Book is a svelte, light, futuristic 2-in-1 laptop/tablet that can do an awful lot while looking like it’s from the set of Minority Report. It is this desire to break away from a decade of design stagnation that drives the unique…

The 1200dpi scanner can scan in colour, so you have the option of scanning photos and other colour documents that you can email to others £129 inc VAT Contact ricoh-europe.com Specifications A4 mono multi-function laser printer with 600dpi resolution; 600dpi copier and 1200dpi colour scanner; 50-sheet A4 paper tray; 350x275x137mm; 7.5kg Ricoh tends to focus on the business market these days, producing high performance laser printers for office use. However, its new SP 150 range is a little more modest, and is aimed at home or small business users who simply need a fast, high-quality laser printer for monochrome documents. Price There are several models in the range, starting at just £74 for a single-function USB printer, but we reviewed the multifunction SP 150SUw (£129), which also includes scanner and…

£49 inc VAT Contact nintendo.co.uk Specifications Nintendo Classic Mini console (with 30 games preinstalled); one NES controller; HDMI lead; USB power cable; 173g There are still a few months until the Nintendo Switch hits the shops, but the firm is filling the gap with this tiny grey box packed full of nostalgia, the NES Classic. Price The low price is one of the best things about it. At just £49, it’s cheaper than any of Nintendo’s handheld DS consoles. The cost includes one controller, though you’ll probably want to spend an additional £7.99 on another. Design We knew the NES Classic was small, but it was still a shock getting it out of the box. This pint-sized plastic box is so tiny it fits in the palm of your hand…

After shelling out on a brand-new gaming PC, you’ll want a monitor that shows off the latest games in all their glory. Design and ergonomics are important. We like seeing displays that have the ability to be adjusted vertically, backwards and forwards. Almost all the monitors nowadays can be tilted by around five degrees forwards and 20 degrees backwards. However, finding one that has height adjustments can be a little trickier. If you are someone who is going to be gaming competitively, we would suggest leaning towards the TN-type (Twisted Nematic) panel. If, however, you’re a casual gamer or would like fantastic colour reproduction you should lean towards an IPS/PLS-panel (In-Plane-Switching and Plane to Line Switching). A VA (Vertically Aligned) panel sits somewhat in-between a IPS/PLS and TN-type panel. Its…

At the end of October, Microsoft held a big event in New York to launch plenty of new Surface hardware. However, it’s easy to see why the company called this a Windows event rather than a Surface shindig. Over the next 20 pages, we explain everything you need to know about the new features that will debut with the new Windows 10 Creators Update (page 82), which will be released in the spring of 2017. The name comes from the fact that the updates focus on the creation and manipulation of 3D content, sharing your Xbox Live gaming experiences, and easily communicating with others. The rest of event was dedicated to new Surface hardware, which has been designed to marry this powerful hardware with the best of those new software…

Price: $2,499 (£TBC), 1TB; $4,199 (£TBC), 2TB Microsoft’s Surface Studio charges aggressively into territory once held by Apple, combining an elegant design, a massive, lovely display, and an eye-popping price tag. Our colleagues at PCWorld had a chance to try the company’s first-ever desktop after it was announced. Although the specs fall slightly short of state-of-the-art, everything felt extremely fast and responsive. The base offering includes a sixth-generation (Skylake) Core i5, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M 2GB GPU, a 1TB hybrid drive, and 8GB of memory. At the highest end, the model includes a sixth-generation Core i7, 32GB of memory, and a GTX980M GPU, along with 2TB of storage. What we like most about the Surface Studio is how it pivots, literally, from a single-purpose workstation into an easel for…

Microsoft showed off a handful of marquee features, which we’ve covered over the past few pages, but the company hid 11 more new releases in its sizzle reel preview of the Creators Update. There’s a lot packed in there, including a new app, plus changes to Edge, Maps, Windows Defender, and more. The company declined to comment when asked about these features, and they may change or disappear before the update launches this Spring. Fair warning. 1. Groove Music Maker app It looks like Microsoft is aiming to compete with Apple’s GarageBand home music creation software with a new Groove Music Maker app. It’s been designed to let people mix instrumental and vocal tracks, plus apply basic effects such as reverb. 2. Revamped Windows Defender Microsoft has focused heavily on…

We’ve heard from a number of readers who have been unable to log into their PCs. In every instance they had not touched their computer nor changed anything, yet all of a sudden their password wouldn’t work. Microsoft hasn’t acknowledged this problem in its update log, so it could be a hardware/software malfunction, perhaps some problem with the installation of an update. First, try the on-screen keyboard (accessed via the login screen) to enter your password, as it could be your regular input device isn’t working. Click the Ease of Access icon (it looks like a clock with a dotted circle) in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Alternatively, you could use Windows System Restore to go back in time to when the previous password worked. Because you can’t…

Facebook Live videos are a new wheeze by the social network giant to take up more of our precious time. However, our Notification list is getting taken over by brands pushing their Facebook Live videos at us when we haven’t asked for them. Luckily, it’s easy to turn them off. Go to your Facebook account’s desktop page on a PC, Mac or laptop. Click on the Notifications Globe icon. Just under the icon you’ll see a ‘Settings’ link. Click this. Near the bottom of the next screen you’ll see a video icon called ‘Live videos’. This gives you the ability to ‘Choose if you want to receive notifications when interesting live videos happen’. To the right you’ll see the option is set as a default to ‘on’ (see right). Click…

A new Raspberry Pi competitor called Orange Pi Zero has been launched. It can be used to make electronics or robots, or it can fill in as a file or media server. Such developer boards are also used to create and test industrial devices. The computer is a competitor to the minuscule Raspberry Pi Zero, a stripped down version that sells for £4. However, the Orange Pi Zero has better hardware with a faster processor and Wi-Fi capabilities. Don’t expect it to deliver booming performance or be a full-fledged PC replacement. If you’re looking for a powerful board computer, consider buying the £40 Raspberry Pi 3. The Orange Pi Zero has a quad-core Allwinner ARM Cortex-A7 processor, which in recent years has been used to power low-end and mid-range smartphones…

For now, this is just a test feature, or at least a feature that is rolling out very slowly, and very quietly. Nevertheless, it would be a handy addition to the Facebook app Facebook says it’s not a media company, but it just might be turning into a Wi-Fi finder service. Users of the social network’s iOS app report seeing a new feature in the More section that lets them find nearby public Wi-Fi access points. The feature does not appear to be widely available at the moment, which means this is probably something Facebook is only testing. The social network tests numerous features all the time but this one is particularly notable. As The Next Web points out, helping users find public Wi-Fi could enable more people to use…

Back in May, we gave you an early look at Google’s work to put Android Auto interface right on your phone. The company has since made good on its promise to release the new one-phone experience ‘later this year’. With the latest update, you no longer need an Android Auto-compatible infotainment system. All you need is your phone. No car, no problem You have, of course, always needed an Android phone with Android Auto running on it. You would plug it into your car via USB and then your infotainment system would show the interface, but use your phone’s data connection and information to play music, send texts, navigate via maps, place phone calls, and so on. For a lot of users, that’s no good. Yes, a large and growing…

Sometimes the truth hurts but you just have to face it. The internet advisory group BITAG lays it on the line for the IoT industry in a new report. “It’s safe to assume that most end users will never take action on their own to update software,” the Broadband Internet Technology Advisory Group said. Its recommendation: build in mechanisms for automatic, secure updates. That bit of human nature is just one of the harsh realities BITAG acknowledges in the report. It also points out that some consumer IoT devices ship with weak built-in usernames and passwords such as ‘admin’ and ‘password’, can’t do authentication or encryption, or can easily be taken over by malware that turns them into bots. The latter fact became obvious earlier this year when Mirai botnets…

£199 inc VAT Contact acer.co.uk Specifications 14in (1366x768) LCD; Google Chrome OS; 1.6GHz Intel Celeron N3060 SoC; Intel HD graphics; 2GB RAM; 16GB eMMC storage, 2GB RAM; 802.11ac, Bluetooth, HD webcam with wide area view; metal aluminium alloy chassis; 2x USB 3.0; HDMI; 3.5mm headphone; 340x236x17mm; 1.6kg Large displays are an uncommon sight on Chromebooks. The majority of models tend to have an 11.6in screen, which makes them a good option for everyday use while keeping them portable. Acer knows this, as its very popular R11 proves (see our best Chromebooks chart on page 122). But those who desire a bit more real estate for their eyes could well be tempted by Acer’s new offering: the Chromebook 14. Price Acer offers two variants of the Chromebook 14: the one we’re…

£150 inc VAT Contact hp.com/uk Specifications A4 mono multi-function laser printer with 600dpi resolution; 600dpi colour scanner; 150-sheet A4 paper input tray; 100-sheet output tray; USB; Ethernet; Wi-Fi; 383x260x230mm; 7.6kg HP’s LaserJet Pro range has traditionally tended to focus on the corporate market, offering high-speed workgroup printers for larger businesses. However, its new M130 range represents a slight change in direction, being aimed at individuals or small offices with up to five people sharing the printer. Price There are several models in the line-up, all based around the same 600x600dpi mono laser printer. Prices start at £130 for the entry-level M130a, although that model provides only simple USB connectivity. We preferred the midrange M130nw instead, which costs a still competitive £150 and adds both Wi-Fi and Ethernet for wired connections,…

£349 inc VAT Contact sony.co.uk Specifications x86-64 AMD Jaguar octa-core processor; 4.2TFlops, AMD Radeon based graphics engine; 8GB RAM GDDR5; 1TB storage; optical drive; 3x USB 3.1 Gen.1; Ethernet; Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac; Bluetooth 4.0; HDMI; digital out; 327x295x55mm; 3.3kg After months of rumours and gameplay clips from developers, Sony’s high-end PS4 Pro is finally here. With its enhanced graphics, native 4K gameplay and support for the PlayStation VR (read our review on page 46), it’s noticeably better than the standard PS4. Design With that improved performance comes a new design. Sony has stepped away from the angular shape of the launch model and, as with the new slimline PS4, opted for curved edges that give the Pro a much more elegant look. It’s 20mm wider than the original version,…

£32 inc VAT Contact nintendo.co.uk System requirements 2DS; 3DS; 3DS XL Pokémon is one of very few brands whose fan base spreads across generations. Yes, it’s aimed mainly at children, but it’s also for those who grew up playing the likes of Pokémon Red, Blue or Yellow. This means that developers Game Freak had a huge challenge on their hands, making a game that appeals to fans both young and old. Sun and Moon are the latest additions to the franchise: two separate games with different Pokémon to catch. Island Trials Gone are the days of sluggish, slow gameplay with extended periods wandering around in long grass battling Caterpies. Within the first hour of playing Sun and Moon, you’re introduced to a multitude of Pokémon and, depending on your skill,…

Whether you’re blowing chunks out of opponents or ploughing through reports for work, it’s essential that you have the right mouse under your hand. Gaming mice in particular have a seemingly endless variety of options to choose between, all offering different benefits. A lot of it comes down to personal choice: how it feels in your hand and whether you find the positioning of the buttons comfortable. Incidentally, left-handed gamers should take note; these are all exclusively right-handed mice. Aside from sheer ergonomics, there are other factors to consider. Many mice, for example, offer adjustable on-the-fly DPI (dots per inch) settings, allowing you to change your mouse’s sensitivity at the touch of a button. This is for when you need fine control when, for example, taking a headshot. Most gaming…

The newer GPU is far faster, but also far hotter. Microsoft said it added a second fan to keep it cool, but the Performance Base is also a little thicker than the original model Price: £1,799 inc VAT, 256GB; £2,249 inc VAT, 256GB; £2,649 inc VAT, 1TB It’s always been difficult trying to find the right category for Microsoft’s hybrid tablet/laptop Surface Book. And now with the new i7 in hand, it’s even harder to work out just what square hole to put this round peg into. The Surface Book i7 is the second iteration of Microsoft’s ‘convertible’ laptop. The top half is a beautifully proportioned 13.5in tablet with a ‘PixelSense’ screen that has touch and pen support. The keyboard base (called the Performance Base) is home to a discrete…

Price: $100 (£TBC) Move over, mouse and keyboard. Take a seat, Surface Pen. Microsoft has a new input device: the Surface Dial, a silver hockey puck designed to make life simple for digital artists. Mice move, pens draw; the Dial turns. If you tap it a radial menu appears. Turn the Dial, and you can quickly access the corresponding shortcut. It’s as simple as that. The Surface Dial was designed as a peripheral for the Surface Studio. It will work with the Surface Pro 3, Pro 4 and Book as well, but with the Studio, it can control the tablet while resting on the screen – an interaction that isn’t there on the older tablets. In some sense, though, it is a solution in search of a problem. Within the…

Price: Developer Edition, £2,719 inc VAT; Commercial Suite edition, £4,529 inc VAT This HoloLens is not for you. It’s for the people who will create the apps that you’ll use whenever an upgraded home version is released, a V2 or V3 that will live up to the promise of the concept and likely cost the same as VR kit such as the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. If you do get to use this HoloLens, it’ll be in a theme park-style setting: just as we got to try the modern generation of VR properly for the first time at a Game of Thrones experience, part of an exhibition dedicated to the TV show at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. You’ll queue to go into room and play a…

Google Chrome allows you to mute individual tabs, which is handy if you have just a few of open. If, however, you have multiple tabs open, muting each one can be tiresome. Thankfully, the free Silent Site Sound Blocker extension solves this. First, go to the Chrome web store (tinyurl.com/j23xkzt) and add it to Google’s browser. You’ll see a yellow speaker at the top right-hand side of your window. If you right-click on the icon, you’ll be presented with several options (see screenshot 1). Within each of these you’ll be presented with different settings (see screenshot 2). Toggle through these and decide which ones you wish to use. You can also add websites directly to your white- or blacklist. The extension works on all open tabs and windows (as long…

Microsoft has revealed a Unified Update Platform (UUP) that’s designed to make it easier for devices to upgrade from one version of Windows 10 to another. It encompasses a set of behind-the-scenes changes in Windows 10 that reduce the processing power needed to update, shrink the size of update files, and streamline updates on Windows smartphones. These improvements are designed to help Microsoft address user complaints about the update process. Because the company’s vision for Windows 10 includes many updates, streamlining those procedures is important. One of the biggest changes will involve Windows Update delivering only the updates relevant to the device requesting them, Bill Karagounis, director of program management for the Windows Insider Program and OS fundamentals at Microsoft, explained in a blog post. “Because more processing is being…

Security researchers in Canada and Israel have discovered a way to take over the Internet of Things (IoT) from the sky. Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but the researchers were able to take control of some Philips Hue lights using a drone. Based on an exploit for the ZigBee Light Link Touchlink system, white hat hackers were able to remotely control the Hue lights via drone and cause them to blink S-O-S in Morse code. The drone carried out the attack from more than a thousand feet away. Using the exploit, the researchers were able to bypass any prohibitions against remote access of the networked light bulbs, and then install malicious firmware. At that point the researchers were able to block further wireless updates, which apparently made the infection irreversible.…

Android just reached a new milestone in its worldwide dominance over iOS. According to new research from Strategy Analytics, 87.5 percent of smartphones around the globe are now running Android. Shipments hit a total of 328.6 million for third quarter of 2016, which is up 10.3 percent up year-on-year. While Android had always been hanging around the 80 percent mark, this latest number is a new high. Comparatively, Apple shipped 45.5 million iPhones, which is down 5.2 percent from the 48 million from 2015. The real drop is in ‘others’ such as Blackberry and Windows phone. In 2015, 8.2 million units of ‘other’ smartphones were sold in the third quarter. This year, the number is just 1.3 million. The growth worldwide is generally driven by low-cost devices, particularly in developing…

Google plans to update its AdSense program policies to prevent placement of its ads on sites distributing fake news. Facebook also recently announced that it had updated the policy for its Audience Network, which places ads on websites and mobile apps, to explicitly clarify that it applies to fake news. “In accordance with the Audience Network Policy, we do not integrate or display ads in apps or sites containing content that is illegal, misleading or deceptive, which includes fake news,” Facebook said in a statement. The company said its team will continue to closely vet all prospective publishers and monitor existing ones to ensure compliance. False news stories have become a sore point after the US presidential elections with critics blaming internet companies like Twitter and Facebook for having had…

£129 inc VAT Contact nextbase.co.uk Specifications 3in display; 140-degree wide-angle lens; GPS Logging; 32GB SD card; 4.3 hours recording time; 109x56x37mm Accessories: car charger; suction mount, adhesive mount; mini-USB cable Nextbase’s 512G is a great dashcam, but the new 412GW has a higher resolution (2560x1400) and a couple of features that make it a better buy. Design The 412GW looks a lot like the 312GW, and has the same magnetic ‘click-and-go’ mount. It means you can quickly remove the dash cam from its mount without having to unplug any cables. The magnet is quite strong, so you have to hold the mount to prevent the ball joint moving around as you pull the camera backwards. One change is that the buttons are now touch-sensitive. Despite our reservations about this, they…

£349 inc VAT Contact sony.co.uk Specifications 5.7in 1080p OLED display; 960x1080 per eye; 100-degree field of view; 18ms response time; 120Hz refresh rate; Tracks movement via PlayStation Camera; DualShock 4 controller; PlayStation Move controller compatible; 277x187x185mm; 610g Sony’s PlayStation VR headset has been a talking point ever since it was first revealed in 2014, offering the ability to provide a great VR experience without the need for a high-end PC. Designed to be compatible with the firm’s PlayStation 4 console, it’s set to add a whole new dimension to gaming. Design The livery is white with black accents, and there are blue lights that track the headset in conjunction with built-in sensors. It’s bulky, so before trying on the device for the first time, we assumed it would be heavy.…

When we last tested gaming PCs, AMD and Nvidia had only just announced the first (and top-end) graphics cards from their latest ranges. Now, the full set is available from both companies, and we asked PC builders to put together their best-value gaming rigs using the new cards. Since not everyone has the same amount of money to spend, there’s a range from £650 to £899. Although you do get more (and better performance) if you pay extra, each of these PCs is powerful enough to play modern 3D games in HD. The differences come when you place more demands on the PC, such as increasing resolution to 4K or by hooking up a virtual reality headset. And as you’ll see over the following pages, you’ll have to increase your…

For some PC gamers, having the right keyboard is almost as important as the hardware inside it. For the uninitiated, however, it can be hard to see what all the fuss is about. Is there really any difference between fancy gaming keyboards and a basic £10 keyboard form Microsoft or Logitech? In a word, yes. Different keyboards have different features, of course, but all gaming models come with extra options and features, and can dramatically improve your gaming experience. One of the principal differences is the keys themselves, and whether the keyboard is mechanical or membrane based. The latter use a layer of conductive plastic underneath the keys, which forms an electrical contact when pressed. The former have physical switches underneath each key. Mechanical keyboards are more crisp and responsive,…

Price: £TBC One of Microsoft’s operating system’s most historic applications – and one of Windows 10’s few remaining native desktop programs – is receiving a radical overhaul in the free Windows 10 Creators Update releasing next spring. The venerable Paint’s being transformed into Paint 3D, a Windows Store app brimming with new features designed to bring two-dimensional images to life. Paint 3D’s loaded with tools focused on making 3D image manipulation as simple as possible. The long-known Pencil tool now seamlessly works on any 3D objects, while new Sticker and Doodle tools exist to stamp 2D objects onto 3D images and convert 2D drawings into 3D images, respectively. A new Magic Select tool lets you remove the background from an image, leaving you free to work the primary object into…

Price: Free Microsoft sees the HoloLens (see page 88) and what it calls “mixed reality” as a big part of the firm’s future. We’ll get our first major taste of that vision this spring when the Windows 10 Creators Update rolls out. This seems to be targeted at Windows users between the ages of 12 and 24, who, Microsoft says, value creativity more highly than previous generations. That said, everyone else can come along for the ride too, with new 3D creation tools for smartphones, PCs, HoloLens, and virtual reality headsets. Gaming also gets a big nod in the Creators Update, with a built-in game broadcasting feature, custom gaming tournaments, and Dolby Atmos support for the Xbox One S. Here’s a breakdown of what’s coming. Windows Capture 3D A new…

FOR SCIENCE It could have been just another sad day when a confused power supply recently fried our Biostar Z97WE motherboard (pictured right). But rather than simply chuck it in the bin and move on to a new one, we decided to rip it apart piece by piece to show you some of the key hardware and technologies hiding inside that help motherboards serve as the central nervous system of your PC. Disclaimer: One motherboard was brutally dismembered in the making of this article. Let’s dig in. RUINING RAM The easiest parts to tear off a motherboard are the RAM slots. They’re held on with small metal tabs that can be easily released from the underside of the motherboard. Upon removing the plastic RAM slot, you’ll be able to see…

Windows XP’s Quick Launch bar was a much-loved feature that was removed from Windows 7. You can, however, get it back in Windows 10. First, right-click on an empty space on your taskbar and hover over ‘Toolbars’ (screenshot 1) to reveal another menu and click on ‘New toolbar’. Once you’ve opened it, click on the address bar found at the top of Windows Explorer and enter: %appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch (screenshot 2). Next, click ‘Select Folder’, which will present you with a Quick Launch bar at the right-hand side of your taskbar. Now that you have the Quick Launch bar, you can customise its position and what it contains. To unlock the taskbar, right-click on an empty space on your taskbar and untick ‘Lock the toolbar’. Next, right-click the dotted separator…

Personally, we don’t like browsers that display a warning dialog box whenever you try to close them with multiple tabs open. However, a lot of people do like this functionality, especially when they have dozens of browser tabs loaded. Unfortunately for those users, Chrome doesn’t offer a warning box in Windows. If you want to see a warning before closing Chrome here’s a quick solution. Admittedly, it’s a bit of a hack, but it works. Open the website Prevent Close (tinyurl.com/jeewg8k). This site uses JavaScript to throw up a dialog box that asks you if you’re sure you want to leave that specific website. The idea is to always leave that website tab open in Chrome, then when you click ‘X’ to close the browser, this site throws up a…

Short-form video creators everywhere were shocked at the end of October when Twitter announced it was killing Vine. There’s still no word on when the service will end, and there are rumours that Twitter may sell Vine to a third party, giving the service new life. Its fate is, however, uncertain and anyone who can’t get enough of their seven-second videos should back up their memories. It’s likely Twitter will provide a way for users to export and save their videos should the end truly come. For now, here are two ways to save your Vine videos to a PC, as long as your Vine account isn’t private. Giphy The most publicized tool for grabbing your Vines is a new site created by Giphy. It will take your short videos…