Web User - UK (2020-01-22)

Your Top Tips

Our pick of the best advice from our

readers. Please send questions and answers

to [email protected]

70 22 Jan - 4 Feb 2020

SECURITY

Automatically lock your PC
If you work in close proximity to other
people and value your privacy, you
should always lock your computer by
pressing Windows+L whenever you leave
it unattended. If you find you often
forget to do this, you could use your
phone as a proximity key, to
automatically lock Windows when you
step away from your computer.
In the Settings app, open Devices and
select ‘Bluetooth & other devices’. Turn
on Bluetooth on the computer and your
phone, and pair the two devices. Then go

to Settings, Accounts, ‘Sign-in options’

and scroll down to ‘Dynamic lock’. Tick

the box next to ‘Allow Windows to lock

your device automatically when you’re

away’. Your phone will then be added

to the setup.

Assuming you always keep your phone

on you, Windows will lock your PC when

you walk out of Bluetooth range.

Paul Roberts, via email

WINDOWS

Start with your last-used

apps open

If you use the Insider Preview version

of Windows, as I do, you

can get Windows to

automatically open the apps

you were using the last time

you shut down your

computer. In the Settings

app, click Accounts, then

‘Sign-in options’. Find

‘Restart apps’ down near

the bottom and turn on the

switch to automatically

restart your last-used apps

when you next log in.

It’s not quite perfect and

is limited to restartable apps, so

Windows 10 apps such as Microsoft

Calendar, Microsoft Todo and a few

others restart, but old-style programs

don’t. I also find they restart minimised in

the taskbar. However, they open instantly

because they are already loaded.

Gary Murray, via email

BROWSERS

Permanently zoom Chrome

My eyes aren’t what they used to be and

I struggle with very small text on my

laptop. For anyone in the same boat,

open Chrome settings and, in the

appearance section, set the ‘Page zoom’

to 110%. This applies to all websites and

won’t change again unless you ask it to,

but you can still zoom further in on

individual sites if you prefer.

Neil Walker, via email

ANDROID

Disable Android phone

animations

Readers have recently mentioned using

developer options, so I thought I’d have a

play around

myself and I

stumbled across

a way to make

your phone run

a little smoother

by disabling

Android’s

animations.

Once you’re in

the Developer

Options menu,

you need to find

and disable

three different

options:

‘Window

animation scale’,

‘Transition

animation scale’

and ‘Animation

duration scale’.

TOP TIP

I’m loving the new version

of Chrome and thought

that other readers might

be interested in trying

the tab-freezing feature,

which is one of the

experimental tools you

can enable by going into

the ‘flags’ menu. To get

straight there, go to

chrome://flags/#proactive-

tab-freeze.

Once you’ve turned it on, tab

freezing is a great way to speed up

your browser, especially if you often

run lots of tabs at the same time. It will

‘freeze’ tabs if you don’t use them for

five minutes, which saves memory.

Enable tab freezing in Chrome

BROWSERS

I find the basic setup works fine but

there are a few additional options.

For example, if you want your tabs to

refresh periodically, you can choose to

have them unfreeze for ten seconds

every fifteen minutes, which keeps the

content up to date.

Larry, via email

Auto-lock your PC when you walk away with your phone

Speed up Android

by switching off

animations

Switch on Chrome’s secret tab-freezing tool

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