I'm not looking to learn a new skill; how do I make my knives better at cutting? I am a reasonably proficient casual kitchen user and I have a set of kitchen knives I bought from a (British) supermarket a few years ago. Recently I've noticed they've become less good at cutting things than they were before.
(I am purposely avoiding words like 'sharp', 'dull', 'sharpen' and 'hone' in this question because I don't want to accidentally misuse them.)
There are plenty of questions on this site from people who are interested in acquiring the equipment and developing the skills to maintain their knives – good for them! But this is a skill set I'm not particularly fussed about developing, and my knives are not high-quality enough to warrant paying someone to do something to them.
Instead, I would like to know the simplest thing I can do to make my knives better at cutting, preferably with equipment that's not too expensive and is easy to get hold of.
For example, I could get this 'knife sharpener', or this 'sharpening steel' at my local large supermarkets. But having seen the number of people on this website who seem to regularly damage/ruin their knives by doing the wrong thing, I'd like a little guidance that I'm on the right track before I start.
Yes, you can keep an everyday  useful kitchen knife serviceable with the Anysharp you linked.  For the majority of non-serrated knives sold in a supermarket it will be fine. I've got one, and use it on my Ikea, Sainsburys and Victorinox knives.  I can get a better edge with stones, but only once I've got my hand back in, so I don't bother.  I've got some better knives that it doesn't work on because the angle is different - so I end up not using those as much.  It's a bit aggressive really, so probably wouldn't be ideal on a quality knife even of the right angle, except for restoring a chipped blade.  It's not quite foolproof, but nearly.  The suction cup needs a good surface on something heavy to stick to, end you need to be careful to hold the blade square to the grinders.
That steel is OK for finishing the job if you can be bothered, but it's optional (I've got almost the same one, and only really use it before carving meat, which I do about once a year).
This will seems almost heretical to some people here, but if you just want to cook and eat, and not play with knives, that's fine.  But in that case don't waste your money on posh knives either.