News and Info

PlusNet an ISP with a great broadband product 'up to 17Mb/s' broadband from £13.49 unlimited usage. ISP Review A useful site if you're fed up with your current ISP uk.telecom.broadband Newsgroup with users Q&A's. and for FAQ's to Broadand questions

REINorSHINE Read this if you're having broadband connectivity problems

Samknows is a great technical site. Click on the map on the following link to find nearest exchange May need to zoom out. Another great website with multiple filters ThinkBroadband

21CN services limited to 24Mb/s. High speed internet access via Fibre to the Cabinet/Home (FTTC/H) FTTP has potential to reach a maximum line rate of 2.5Gb/s

BT Full Fibre Essential 36Mb/s from £28.99 /month

Broadband Finder Tool Find the best package. Speed checker SpeedTest (Requires flash -m try Chrome browser)

BBC Future of broadband (article from 2009 but still worth a read)

Wireless Internet

Mobile phones currently use 4G Offers on average 15 Mb/s Use OpenSignal to see 4g coverage maps and here for 5G maps

Wi-Fi BT Openzone Wire-free internet browsing.

Security For all types of hoaxes (e.g. Text, E-mail, WhatsApp etc) use this site to check if it's real or not Snopes

Telephone/Mobile Phones/Tablets

UK Telephone Tariffs Residential tariffs. Check out BT's (Big Thief's) sky high charges!! Looking at the tariffs Call1899 is still (just about) one of the cheapest (Oct 2015) at 0.5p/min for most calls. Also a number of international calls are 1p/min. Registration required with payment by direct debit. Shell Energy offers fast fibre (35Mbs) and lie rental for £14/month

VOIP has had lots of publicity with 'free' phone calls using broadband internet access Skype provides computer software for completely free calls Skype-Skype

Check out Peak-Rate for cheap international calls from UK. When on holiday it's best to use a local sim card abroad 0044

Compare mobile networks

Android See what the latest version is? ( v12 -Jun 2022) see previous Android versions

Firefox OS Operating System for mobiles from Mozilla Firefox

ChromeOS Flex Cloud based Operating System for PCs Which Mag installation instructions

Thinking of buying a mobile phone? GSMArena is a good website to compare mobile phones specs

Compare mobile phone SIM deals

Samsung Galaxy S22 Pay many £100's for a great android mobile phone or buy one of these (Techradar guide)

WillMyPhoneWork? - useful site to check if your mobile will work with certain networks

Text to switch and end mobile contracts PAC / STAC (Ofcom)

Best value tablet? Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020) £90 or Apple iPad Air from £569

Register and stop unwanted 'Cold Callers'/JunkMail/Spam TPS/FPS/MPS/e-mps Take cold calling companies to Small Claims Court Which? report form For mobile phones text OPTOUT to 80057 see Which?

Spam Texts? Forward to 7726

Check website url links Sca.io

Slamming Read here for OFCOM info about account switching without your consent

Yellow Pages Find the address and telephone number of any business

BT Directory Enquiries (118 500) 10 Free searches a day. Also try UKPhoneBook (118 365) Find telephone numbers and address from name and town (requires registration - Also click through the advert that appears at start).

192.com Find people - Limited searches from Electoral Roll data

Technology

BBC World programme for netheads >Click

BBC Technology Good source of up to date techy info

Windows 11 Read TechRadar review about Microsoft's new OS Download Windows 11 here (Gaurdian link) Further instructions here (The Verge link

Windows 365 Announced July 2021. The future of home and business computing?

Microsoft 365 MS full Office suite, online, for £5.99/month

GSuite Offering from Google from £4.14/month

Chrome OS - Google's operating system not to be confused with Google's Chrome browser available here

Engadget Website with news about all the very latest gadgets, also a UK gadget magazine to have a look at is T3

Clove Technology Voted one of the best retail websites by PC Pro magazine

Smart Home Google Nest £49 Amazon Echo £90 Hive Thermostat £179 Nest Thermostat £219 Comparison of Smart thermostats by uSwitch

Miscellaneous

Consumer Direct Best website for consumer rights

International Consumer Rights UKECC UK International Consumer Centre

Consumer Rights Act (2015)

Ombudsman Complaints See this Which? guidance article

Court Claim (was Small Claims) Use in conjunction with CEO E-mails to get results in complaining

Jobmatch Find jobs online (Used to be Jobseekers)

Met Office Social Media Twitter, Facebook, Flickr etc

Links/Downloads Photos Weather Info DVDs/CDs/Books Cinema Cams TV/Radio Travel