We interrupt your regularly scheduled Hassle-Free PC post to bring you the Hassle-Free Phone edition.

Trying to decide between, say, an HTC One and a Samsung Galaxy S4. Sure, you can read PC World's awesome reviews, maybe talk to friends and hit some stores for hands-on demos. But ultimately your best bet is to compare them directly, to see their specs, strengths, and weaknesses side by side.

That's what you get at PhoneRocket, a nifty site that compares any two smartphones in exhaustive detail.

Let's use the two aforementioned models as an example. All you do is type the names of the two phones you want to compare. PhoneRocket then gives you a quick summary of each one followed by a "winner" based on various ratings and criteria.

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Mgentry2 asked the Windows forum to recommend password managers that can " keep track of both online passwords and desktop application passwords (Outlook, Quicken, etc.)."

The safest passwords are long, seemingly random strings of letters, numbers, and punctuation--and you need a different one for each Web site and application. Unless you have a photographic memory, you need a program where you can securely store your passwords. That way, you only need to remember the one password that will give you access to all the others.

You need a password manager, which is essentially an encrypted password database. There's no reason why a good password manager it can't work for Web sites and applications.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

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Reader Tammy wrote in with this hassle:

"Whenever I try to print a page from the Internet, the size of the print and the photos is extremely small and difficult to read. I do not have this problem with Word documents."

Tammy says she uses Windows 8, but neglected to specify which browser--so I'm going to assume Internet Explorer.

Let me be the first to note that Internet Explorer can be terrible when it comes to printing. On my Windows 8 system, for example, I went to any number of pages on Microsoft's MSN (the default site for IE), then loaded Print Preview. The result every single time: several pages of little more than links, with none of the actual text of the story I was viewing.

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Rommel asked the Utilities forum for advice on cleaning files off a hard drive so that they can never be restored.

When you delete a file, it doesn't actually go away--even after you've emptied the Recycle Bin. The actual bits remain written on the drive until some other disk activity writes over them. Even when you format a drive, the files are still there for those who want and know how to read them.

If you want to truly and securely delete a file, or the contents of an entire drive, you need software that will overwrite the space where the file(s) once sat. Fortunately, several free programs can do this.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

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Reader Larry wrote me regarding his new Asus machine, which came without any kind of recovery disks (which would be used to restore Windows in the event of a major system meltdown).

That's not uncommon these days. Even on systems that have optical drives (which are increasingly rare), computer vendors opt to save money by skipping the Windows restore/recover disks that were once common.

Fortunately, Windows 8 makes this much less of a problem. For starters, the OS includes two new features, Reset and Refresh, that can help overcome the kinds of problems that would normally require recovery media.

Refresh effectively reinstalls Windows while retaining all your programs, settings, and data—a great way to troubleshoot a system that's gone flaky on you. Reset, on the other hand, does a system wipe and reinstall, giving you the equivalent of a factory-new installation. Neither option requires any kind extra media.

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Duplicate-file-finding programs expect you to manually check each file for deletion. That's not practical for Edward Derbyshire, who has "121,000 duplicates" to delete.

Before I tell you how to delete all of your duplicate files automatically--without checking each one first--let me give you a warning: Doing so requires you to let software make decisions best left to you. Are the files really duplicates? Is there a good reason for that file to be in two different locations? And if not, in what folder should the file reside?

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

So before you go the automated route, consider a safer option: Set your duplicate file finder to ignore files smaller than 20MB. That way, you'll have far fewer files to worry about, yet still free up a lot of space.

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Call me old-fashioned, but I like to know when my hard drive is active.

That's partly so I know when Windows has more or less finished its boot activity (which, on one aging machine, takes 7-8 minutes), and partly so I can troubleshoot problems.

For example, if my mouse is suddenly non-responsive, I can check to see if there's still drive activity--and know whether or not I need to force a shutdown.

In the old days, I could hear a drive thrashing inside my desktop. Indeed, that was one sure-fire way to diagnose the insidious "click of death." But now that I'm mostly on laptops, which incorporate much quieter drives (or, in the case of SSDs, totally silent drives), I have to rely on LEDs.

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Recently I spent a full week in a hotel, where I grudgingly paid for Wi-Fi so I could get some work done. Unfortunately, it was a per-device purchase: Only my laptop could get online. If I wanted Internet access on my phone (which had a weak indoor signal) and tablet (Wi-Fi only), I'd have to pay again. And again.

Hey, wait a minute, doesn't Windows let you set up a Wi-Fi hotspot to share its connection with other devices? It did, in Windows 7; it doesn't in Windows 8. Actually, the capability is still there, but enabling it requires some serious command-line tinkering.

Fortunately, I found Virtual Router Plus, a free utility that adds Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities to Windows 8. It works, but with a few important caveats.

First, be really careful during setup. The price of "free" here is that the installer comes packed with junkware. It's easy enough to bypass if you pay attention, but potentially troublesome if you don't.

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Thursday afternoon, a bombshell dropped: Two leading reports claimed that the U.S. government has been spying on emails, searches, Skype calls, and other electronic communications used by Americans for the last several years, via a program known as Prism.

According to the reports, the Web’s largest names—AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Skype, PalTalk, Yahoo, and YouTube—participated, perhaps unwittingly. (Dropbox will reportedly be added as well.) The report claims that the National Security Agency had “direct access” to servers owned by those companies. Most, if not all, of those companies have denied participating in Prism, although it’s unclear whether they were unaware of the NSA’s spying, or simply turned a blind eye.

According to The Guardian and The Washington Post, the data covered included: “email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP chats, file transfers, social networking details, and more.”

If nothing else, however, the Prism disclosure is worrying and deeply shocking. If the report is accurate, the government may simply listen in on virtually any electronic communication you’ve made, in the interests of national security. Is this something that should be encouraged to fight domestic terrorism, or is this sort of government intrusion something that should be deeply distrusted? For the purposes of this story, we’re going to err on the side of the latter; whether you take advantage of our advice is up to you.

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Gamersim17's laptop was "getting intensely hot." He turned to the Laptops forum for advice.

A hot computer is a bad computer. Excess heat can cause malfunctions and crashes, and permanently damage your hardware. And although laptops generally put out less heat than desktops (energy efficiency is a higher design priority), they have their own unique problems. They're rarely as well ventilated as a desktop, and much more difficult to clean.

 [Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

Keeping a laptop cool is all about ventilation. If the hot air can't escape, you're going to have a problem.

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Despite Microsoft's endless attempts to crush my enthusiasm, I continue to be a fan of Windows Media Center. At least, I'm trying to be: It's not included with Windows 8. I'd literally have to spend $100 to get it as part of Microsoft's Pro Pack. (Windows 8 Pro users can buy WMC for $9.99, a slap in the face to the rest of us.)

Thankfully, I still run Windows 7 on my tuner-equipped media-center PC, and therefore still get to enjoy the benefits of the software.

Especially the add-ons. WMC is nothing if not customizable, and one of my all-time-favorite additions is My Channel Logos. The latest version, My Channel Logos XL, is the best one yet.

True to its name, My Channel Logos adds TV-network logos to the program guide in Windows Media Center. That may not sound like a big deal, but it really enhances the look of the guide, while at the same time making your favorite channels easier to spot at a glance.

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It’s official: Intel’s fourth-generation Core processors, code-named Haswell, are loose in the market. Like the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge microarchitectures that preceded it, Haswell is a big step forward for Intel’s Core family, simultaneously maximizing CPU and GPU performance while consuming less power.

Who needs Haswell

Haswell isn’t for everyone. For now, older Sandy Bridge-E Core i7 processors that use Intel’s LGA 2011 socket remain Intel’s flagship products for hardcore PC gamers. But the fourth generation of Intel Core CPUs are where it’s at for mainstream power users who crave Intel’s most advanced technology.

Unfortunately, unlike second-gen Sandy Bridge and third-gen Ivy Bridge processors—which use the same LGA 1155 socket and hence play well with a broad range of new and existing motherboards—Haswell-based processors use a new socket, LGA 1150, and thus require motherboards built around Intel’s 8-series chipsets. But that problem is also an opportunity: Since you can’t just drop a Haswell CPU into your current PC, now is the perfect time to build a new, killer Haswell-based rig. And you can do it yourself for less than a grand—if you know where to look.

Component hunting

Typically, you get the best value in desktop processors a bin or two below the top-of-the-line products. For example, a Core i7-3770 costs about $40 (or 15 percent) less than a Core i7-3770K ($289 vs. $329), but it delivers roughly 98 percent of the latter’s performance. The same holds true for most Core i5 and Core i3 processors, albeit with smaller price differentials. The only differences between a Core i7-3770 and a Core i7-3770K are a 100MHz base clock deficit on the standard 3770, and the 3770’s inability to alter multipliers freely. The more expensive “K-SKU” is fully unlocked and lets users alter the CPU multipliers for easier and more flexible overclocking.

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For me, one of the most awkward aspects of the Windows 8 Start screen (you know, the one with all the tiles) is file management.

Specifically, if I want to browse or search my files (Word documents, PDFs, etc.), it's not immediately clear how to do so. There's no file manager to speak of, at least not amidst the tiles, so anyone accustomed to an earlier version of Windows might be left thinking, "Dude, where's my data?"

As you may have learned, you can search for files the same way you can search for apps and settings: just start typing. Windows 8's dynamic search option immediately displays and filters results as you type.

Just one problem: File searches don't extend beyond what's contained in your Libraries. So if you've migrated over some folders that exist outside Libraries or prefer to organize documents and such in a different way, your searches will be fruitless--and frustrating.

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LouieB62 needs administrator-level access to his Windows PC, but he doesn't have the password. He asked the Answer Line forum for help.

Your Windows PC has at least one administrator-level account. If you can't access that account, you've got a problem--you can't install or uninstall programs, or change certain settings.

I'll tell you a way to gain this access,  but first, ask yourself if you really should be doing this. If it's unquestionably your computer and you've forgotten your password (or if the previous owner failed to give it to you), you have every right acquire or change the password. But if it's a company computer and the IT department wants to keep full administrator control to itself, this is a good way to get fired. And if it's someone else's computer, it's a good way to get arrested.

 [Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

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Before I incur the wrath of non-Gmail users, let me just note that this tip also applies to Hotmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo, and so on. But because I'm a Gmail user myself, and that's where my story begins, that's where I'm putting my focus.

When was the last time you checked your spam filter? I ask because until recently, I hadn't looked at mine for months. That's because I use Gmail, and the service is so good at keeping junk out of my inbox, I pretty much forgot spam existed.

But a few days ago, I went searching for an email that never arrived, and wondered if perhaps it had gotten caught in Google's filter.

It hadn't. However, I was surprised to discover a handful of other messages in the spam inbox that definitely weren't spam. Nothing crucial, but items I was a little bummed to have missed.

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Walter Bott asked how he could better control Windows 8's built-in Photo app--the one that usually presents a small slide show in its Start page tile.

I've discussed this app briefly before, in How to better control Windows 8 slide shows. But this time around, I want to touch on two issues I didn't cover back then: How to turn on and off the little, tile-based slideshow on the Start screen, and how to control what pictures turn up on that slideshow, and in the Photo app in general.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

First, you don’t have to run the Start page slideshow. To turn it on or off, right-click the tile (or press and hold if you're using a touchscreen). Some options will appear at the bottom of the screen. Click or tap Turn live tile off. If you change your mind, you can always click Turn live tile on.

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You work hard to protect your PC from the malicious thugs of our digital world. You keep your antivirus program up to date. You avoid questionable Web sites. You don’t open suspicious email attachments. You keep Java, Flash, and Adobe Reader up-to-date—or better yet, you learn to live without them.

But against all odds, a clever new Trojan horse slipped through the cracks, and now you’re the unhappy owner of an infected PC. Or perhaps a less-vigilant friend has begged you to clean up a plague-ridden mess.

Obviously, you need to scan the computer and remove the malware. Here’s a methodical approach that you can use to determine what the problem is, how to scan, and what to do afterward to protect the PC from future invasions.

1. Verify the infection

Is the PC in question really infected? I’ve seen people blame “another damn virus” for everything from a bad sound card to their own stupidity. The first step in restoring the system’s health is to determine whether what you’re dealing with is a virus rather than a problem with hardware, software, or user error.

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Windows 8 is here to stay, and whatever tweaks Microsoft makes in its upcoming Windows Blue release, many users find the new interface difficult to master.

That wouldn't be such a big deal if Microsoft gave you an instruction manual for learning all the new features, but, alas, I certainly didn't find one in the "box." (I bought and downloaded the upgrade several months back, so there was no box.)

Actually, there is a manual of sorts, though how anyone would ever find it is beyond me. It's called the Windows 8 End User Training Brochure, which sounds like something aimed at MIcrosoft Store salespeople, not everyday users.

That said, it's a very handy little resource, a 36-page introduction to Windows 8's interface and operation.

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Over the years, many have touted Mozilla’s Firefox as one of the most secure Web browsers. But as with other browsers, the security level offered depends on the settings. Some security features need to be manually enabled. Those turned on by default should still be double-checked.

Follow these five steps to lock down Firefox. Start with the essentials in the browser’s own settings, then choose some useful add-ons. Finally, keep track of your plug-ins so you can patch the inevitable security holes.

Enable a master password

Like other browsers, Firefox by default allows anyone who accesses your computer to log in to sites where you’ve saved the password. And as with Google Chrome, a list of the saved usernames and passwords can be viewed via the Options menu of Firefox.

Eric Geier

Fortunately, Firefox offers a master password feature that encrypts and password-protects the saved password list. When enabled, you must enter the master password the first time you use a saved password, once per browser session. Additionally, even though you enter the master password the first time, you must always enter it before you can view saved passwords via the Options menu. This is a great feature to help prevent casual snooping of your passwords. It even prevents most third-party utilities from recovering them.

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Larry wants to make a video available, via streaming, to friends and family, and only to friends and family.

Perfectly understandable. Streaming video is the obvious and easy way to share home movies, but sometimes you need to control who can jump into that stream. You may want everyone in the world to enjoy your cat videos, but humans often object when their drunken dancing turns up all over the Internet.

I'll give you privacy control settings for three free and popular streaming services.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

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Recently I splurged on a new laptop, a 13.3-inch Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook. Incredibly thin, light, and fast, it overjoyed me from the moment I unpacked it.

It wasn't long, though, before my joy turned to frustration. Although it booted with lightning speed, Internet access seemed slow. In fact, sometimes I couldn't load Web pages at all.

As usual when dealing with a mystery like this, I used the invaluable SpeedTest to help pin down the problem. Sure enough, the Samsung was having intermittent connectivity slowdowns and outages. My router wasn't to blame, and for once neither was Comcast.

But what exactly was going on? Surely a brand new computer—especially one as advanced and expensive as this—could reliably connect to the Internet.

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Commuting is tough. Working out of your car all day is tougher. From traveling salesmen to offsite service professionals to couriers, millions of people worldwide spend their nine-to-five hours behind the wheel. And they need to stay in touch—online, dialed in, and powered up—all day. That’s not easy to do when you’re constantly on the move.

Allow us to show you how to remain a useful member of the information age even when your workdays can take you on trips of dozens or hundreds of miles.

Power

Few cell phones and far fewer laptops will get you through an entire day of serious work without being plugged in and recharged at some point along the way. Fortunately, your car is a mobile electricity generator. How best to get power out of your vehicle and into the gadgets that need it?

Many of today’s automobiles feature USB ports, which are fine for recharging your phone. But if you want to charge your notebook (or even most tablets) you’ll need something with more juice. Here are two options that give you a standard A/C adapter via your 12-volt cigarette lighter socket.

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Welcome to the dawn of the SSD age. Solid-state drives now offer great performance at affordable prices, which is why more and more users are choosing them in new PCs and adding them to older ones.

I'm a big fan myself, but I want to share a cautionary tale. About six months ago, an acquaintance of mine installed an SSD in his laptop. Initially, he was delighted: the drive helped his system boot faster and run longer between trips to the wall socket.

Then, one day, out of the blue, the drive died. No clicking, no "imminent failure" message, no warning of any kind--just a dead drive.

It's under warranty, but so what? He has a laptop that won't boot and data he can't access.

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Russell Caplan still uses Office 2003, which Microsoft will stop supporting next year. He asked if he will need to upgrade to a more current version.

You probably should upgrade before next April. After that month, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates for Office 2003 (or, for that matter, Windows XP). If someone finds a new vulnerability in one of the programs, Microsoft won't make and release a patch for it. Your copy of Office will remain vulnerable.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

How dangerous is it to use old, no-longer-supported software? If the program is obscure, probably not too dangerous. But if it's something that millions use, it can become a tempting target.

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Saving a destination in Google Maps makes it easier to navigate to and also lessens the chance for error when entering or trying to remember an address.

Nick Barber

Destinations can be starred from a mobile device running Google Maps or from the Web. After searching for an address or location, click on the pin for the destination and switch on the star icon. Starred destinations will be synched across all Google accounts and devices. Starred destinations are easier to find and will type ahead on both mobile and desktop versions of Google Maps. Starring locations is a good idea for local errands and for vacations and business trips to other states and countries.

When traveling to a place with unreliable mobile data reception or expensive data rates, it’s also a good idea to save an offline version of Google Maps. Once in the application on a mobile device, press the options button and select “make available offline.” Pan and zoom the map until the area to be downloaded is highlighted. Click “done” and the map will be downloaded to the mobile device and be able to be used when mobile data isn’t available.

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Ready for an unconventional upgrade? How about this: You can turn an old, pokey external hard drive into a blazingly fast one with about 10 minutes of your time and $15 of your money.

See, most modern computers have at least one USB 3.0 port. You can plug an older, USB 2.0 drive into one, but you won't get the faster throughput afforded by the newer technology.

Thankfully, you don't need to get a new drive just to enjoy speedier file transfers; you just need a new drive enclosure.

You can buy one for around $15, give or take $5, and from there it's a fairly simply matter to transplant your old drive. Just unscrew the old enclosure, remove whatever screws are holding the drive in place, then separate the drive. Now install it in the new enclosure using the provided instructions (if you even need them; it's a pretty self-explanatory procedure).

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Alloystory asked the Laptops forum about speeding up a PC by replacing the hard drive with something faster.

Hard drives are classic bottlenecks, and they definitely slow down computers. But whether you can significantly open up that bottleneck depends on the speed of your current drive, how many available drive bays you have, how much storage space you need, and how much money you're willing to spend.

You effectively have three options (four if you include leaving things as they are). You can buy an SSD, buy a faster hard drive, or set up a RAID. I've already discussed RAIDs in Multiple hard drives working together: All about RAID setups, so I won't cover that here.

[Email your tech questions to answer@pcworld.com or post them on the PCW Answer Line forum.]

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BRR-RING! The phone rings at midnight, interrupting your sleep—or worse, your late night Steam session with your gaming clan. Is someone sick? Did a car hit your dog? Is it your pal, calling to tell you he got the munchies and discovered that, joy of joys, the McRib is back? Perplexed (and maybe a bit hungry), you pick up your handset, and hear the ominous words:

Doubling as unofficial tech support for your family and friends comes as part of the territory when you're a PC geek—and those cries for help frequently come all too often or at inopportune times. Weekends! Holidays! Nights! All gone, consumed by the fight against malware and missing Internet Explorer icons.

It doesn't have to be like this.

Rather than running around and slapping Band-Aids on all the problems, get proactive! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say, and taking the time to set your friends' and loved ones' computers up the right way can dramatically cut back on help-seeking headaches down the line. Not to sound too dramatic, but yes, these tips can help you reclaim your nights and weekends.

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Recently, the conversation turned to POW movies, which inevitably got me talking about "Stalag 17," the classic that inspired the (inferior) TV series "Hogan's Heroes."

I hadn't seen the film in years, but now, with it at the forefront of my mind, I was dying for a screening. Indeed, I thought even my kids were old enough to enjoy it, what with its great blend of humor, mystery, and suspense.

Ah, but where could I find it? I needed to know if and when it might be showing on cable, or, failing that, where I could stream it.

First stop: The TV Guide Watchlist. After you sign up for a free account and specify your local TV provider, you can add any movie to immediately find out when and where it's available: TV, streaming, DVD, etc.

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A router is the heart of your network, so it deserves to be chosen carefully. Any router will share your Internet connection amongst your computers and other networkable devices (smartphones, tablets, and so on), but better models provide features that will enhance your network and its performance. Whether you're seeking a business- or consumer-class router, here are the eight most essential features to look for.

1. Wi-Fi access point

Most routers targeted at the consumer and SMB market have a built-in Wi-Fi access point (AP) to provide wireless network connections for PCs and other devices equipped with Wi-Fi adapters. You can purchase additional APs to extend the router’s range. A stand-alone AP can also add wireless capabilities to a wired router. There are several wireless standards in use, with IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g considered to be legacy standards. IEEE 802.11n is the latest ratified standard, and 802.11ac is in "draft" mode with final ratification expected late this year or early next. There is a remote chance that devices based on this standard won't be compatible with the final standard, but most people in the industry consider that event highly unlikely.

Wireless routers operate on one of two frequency bands: 2.4GHz or 5GHz. The 2.4GHz band provides only three non-overlapping channels, so it can become crowded very quickly. There are 23 non-overlapping channels available on the 5GHz frequency band, so you'll encounter much less interference when operating a network there. Routers and access points capable of operating on both the 2.4- and the 5GHz frequency bands are described as "dual-band" products. 

If you're buying a router today, pick a model that's based on either 802.11n or the draft version of 802.11ac.

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