Experts solve your computing problems
APC and its readers can be one giant helpdesk. If you have a technical problem, chances are one of us can solve it.
We fix your tech problems.
SECURITY WHAT’S ADAWARE’S WEB COMPANION?
I’ve suddenly become aware of an icon in my Taskbar notification area – clicking it brings up a screen pointing to Adaware Web Companion, with some kind of security tool for my web browser. What is this, and is it safe? Stuart Fenton This almost certainly got on to your computer alongside another program – in other words, a Potentially Unwanted Program or PUP. The first warning can be found on the program’s own FAQ, with “How do I uninstall Web Companion from my computer” the second article in the list. Click Start > Settings > Apps and scroll down until you find and entry for Web Companion near the bottom of the list – you’ll see when it was installed, giving you an idea of how it arrived on your computer (sort the program list by ‘Installation date’). More importantly, you’ll be able to remove it. Click ‘Yes, I’ll take the chance’ when prompted (the scaremongering is another indicator that this program isn’t necessarily to be trusted). It does leave some leftovers, so if you want a more thorough clean-up, remove it using IO-bit Uninstaller Free ( www.iobit.com). Matt Hanson
LINUX LOW ENERGY COMPUTING
I am trying to find a low-energy solution for a good performance machine I can use for my weather satellite monitoring and my weather stations. My machines run 24/7, so I am trying to reduce the number of watts I use, and hence my electricity bill. I have been a Gentoo enthusiast since probably 1999. My present machine runs CentOS 7, with Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 2.40GHz, it has 16GB of memory and two NICS bonded, because I need plenty of Ethernet speed for moving the weather satellite images around. It has two 500GB drives with RAID 1 and one 1TB without. The VGA is Nvidia Corporation GT200 GeForce GTX 260 dual-head for two monitors. Yup, lots of real estate, so quite a bit of power needed. Is there any advice you can give me? Francis West Yikes! That old Q6600 in itself will consume lots of power – its TDP is 105W. A modern desktop processor will likely halve this (taking into account lower-power DDR4 and motherboard chipset) and provide triple the CPU power, combined with integrated graphics able to run three displays and a motherboard with dual NICs. The six-core AMD Ryzen 5 1600 is a good all-round choice – but you will need a graphics card on top – to build from scratch. On the Intel side, for similar speed, you’d want a Core i7 7700K, but it’s almost $200 more just for the chip, though it does have integrated graphics. Do let us know how you got on! APC Team
EMAIL SWITCH FROM THUNDERBIRD TO THUNDERBIRD PORTABLE
I’ve decided to switch from an installed copy of Thunderbird to a portable one, so I can carry it around with me. I’m trying to copy my profile – which I presume contains everything I need – from the installed copy to my portable copy, but am confused by the instructions online. Can you help? Steve Cox By default, Thunderbird stores all your data and settings in a profile folder under C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\ Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\ - the quickest way to open this folder is to
press Windows-R, then type %AppData%\Thunderbird\Profiles\ and press [Enter]. Look for a folder with ‘.default’ at its end – this is your profile folder.
Open up Thunderbird Portable, but skip the account configuration and close the program – then navigate to ThunderbirdPortable\Data where a new ‘profile’ folder has been created. You need to copy the contents inside the ‘. default’ folder into this folder, replacing any items when prompted.
Reopen Thunderbird Portable again – you should find everything has been migrated across, enabling you to uninstall the other version and use Thunderbird Portable going forward. Note, your original profile folder will be left behind – either delete it manually, or uninstall it using IO-bit Uninstaller ( http://bit.ly/2HtDmL6), which can remove the profile folder automatically for you as part of its leftover cleaning feature. Rob Mead-Green
INTERNET WHICH DNS PROVIDER SHOULD I CHOOSE?
I’ve been reading up on DNS servers and wonder if you have any pointers as to which one I should choose. Rav Saluja
DNS servers are used to translate userfriendly web addresses like techradar. com into their corresponding public IP address (185.113.25.59 in TechRadar’s case). By default, you’re using your own Internet provider’s DNS provider, but this comes with certain privacy concerns since by default your browser history isn’t encrypted and can be logged.
ISP-provided DNS servers aren’t always the quickest either, but the good news is there are a number of thirdparty alternatives you can try – these DNS server addresses can be added to individual devices on your network or applied at the router level to apply to all your networked devices.
In the past we’ve been fans of OpenDNS.com (DNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220), but we’re currently trialling CloudFlare’s new free offering (DNS servers: 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1), which promises to be both private and fast. Visit http://1.1.1.1 where you’ll find details of what it promises to do and – crucially – how to apply it to either individual devices or your entire network. Matt Hanson
WINDOWS WINDOWS 7 PC BOOT ERROR
My PC will no longer boot – it shows me the following error: ‘Your PC/Device needs to be repaired’ followed by one of two errors. Both ask for recovery tools. What should I do? Jamie Thomas
Try running Windows 7’s automatic repair tool from the Windows 7 installation disc. If this doesn’t work, try a third-party repair disc instead. Our personal favourite is Lazesoft Recovery Suite Home ( www.lazesoft.com/download.html).
Download and install Lazesoft’s