Nick Peers

ToolWiz has released Time Freeze 2014, a major new update to its system protection tool for Windows. The new build -- version 2.2 -- promises better stability with a brand new kernel and engine, plus adds a few minor features.

New additions include a desktop floating toolbar allowing users to easily see whether the tool is switched on or off, plus the ability to select folders and files for exclusion from the protection feature.

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Plex hits the big screen with the first official release of its media browsing and playback tool. Plex Home Theater 1.0 is the client-side version of Plex’s media suite for Windows and Mac users, and has been 11 months in the making, during which time 15 separate builds were released exclusively to PlexPass subscribers.

Plex Home Theater replaces Plex Media Center, and gives users access to media stored on a computer running Plex Media Server, both over their local network and -- via the MyPlex web service -- wider internet.

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Online backup and sharing provider Dropbox has released Dropbox for iOS 3.0, a major update to its app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users. Version 3.0 debuts a new design, AirDrop support and streamlines the iPad user experience.

It also comes with improved sharing and exporting tools, promises faster performance and squashes a number of bugs, hopefully reducing the number of times the app crashes.

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Google has merged two of its reading apps into one with the release of Google Play Newsstand 3.0. The app brings together the magazine subscriptions from its old Google Play Magazines app with the news-aggregating Currents app, retiring both in the process.

The new app aims to provide a one-stop shop not just for magazines and newspapers -- over 1,900 different publications are currently supported -- but also allows users to add their own news sources too using RSS feeds.

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Budapest-based FinalWire Ltd has launched AIDA64 Extreme Edition 4.00 and AIDA64 Business Edition 4.00, major new builds of its diagnostic and benchmarking tools for Windows PCs.

The new release updates support for the latest CPU, GPU and SSD models, adds a new OpenCL GPGPU  benchmark suite and expands its business offering to provide a new dedicated Network Audit tool (users should complete this form to test-drive this new product).

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Hot on the heels of the recently released Uninstaller 3, IObit has launched the first public pre-release version of its forthcoming commercial system and security suite, IObit Advanced SystemCare Ultimate 7 Beta 1. The new build adds official support for Windows 8, 8.1 and Internet Explorer 11, but also bundles a new anti-virus engine with real-time protection.

The update also debuts a revamped user interface similar to found in IObit Uninstaller (and in Advanced SystemCare 7 Free), and throws in some potentially useful new tools along with performance improvements.

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IObit has released IObit Uninstaller 3.0, a major, redesigned update of its application uninstall utility. Application uninstallers have never had much of a reputation for thoroughly cleaning up after the programs they’re supposed to remove, which is where the likes of IObit Uninstaller come into their own, hunting down leftover files and Registry entries to offer a more complete removal.

Version 3.0 debuts a redesigned and simplified user interface, adds full support for Windows 8/8.1 and now incorporates browser plug-in removal functionality too alongside a number of more minor tweaks.

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Evernote Corporation has released Evernote for Android 5.5, a major update to the mobile client for accessing its online note-taking service, which users can access through the browser or via a range of dedicated apps.

Version 5.5 ships with improved notebook picker and Page Camera tools for all users, while premium users gain the ability to annotate PDFs from within the app as well as customise the homescreen.

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Romanian privacy developer East-Tec has released Eraser 2014 v11.0, a major new update (with facelift) of its online privacy protection tool for Windows.

The app, which promises to securely delete all Internet and computer activity via a series of modules, gets a major new Windows 8-friendly facelift, and promises to be simpler for beginners to use while offering more configurability, power and performance.

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Google has updated its messaging tool for Android users with the release of Google Hangouts 2.0. The tool, which replaced Google Talk and Google+ Messenger as the de facto messaging service for Google users, gains support for SMS and -- on Android 4.0 and up -- MMS messaging, along with animated GIFs, location and mood status sharing.

The service, also available on iOS and computer via a Chrome browser extension, supports group video and voice calls as well as more traditional text-based chats and offline messaging. Version 2.0′s features were first mooted weeks ago, but have only now become publicly available to Android users for the first time.

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Microsoft has officially released the final version of Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7. The latest iteration of its evergreen web browser ships with a firm focus on performance, with the promise of a 9 percent improvement over IE10.

There’s little visible difference between Internet Explorer 11 and its immediate predecessor for Windows 7 users -- none of the added functionally in the Windows 8.1 release has found its way into this build.

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jAlbum AB has released jAlbum 11.6, a performance-oriented update of its cross-platform web album builder that’s free for personal use. In addition to improving performance, version 11.6 adds a few minor changes and includes a number of notable bug fixes.

The main highlight of version 11.6 comes with vastly improved performance when editing videos, both when selecting a representing thumbnail and starting or stopping editing. Also notable is an improvement to the user interface, which is now more responsive when managing images that lack cached thumbnails.

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Online password manager LastPass has updated its range of browser-based extensions with the release of LastPass 3.0 for Windows, Mac and Linux. The manager, which supports all major web browsers, comes with a fresh new design and changes to the way users interact with web forms.

Also updated are the company’s premium-only mobile apps, LastPass 2.5.2 for Android, and LastPass for Windows 8, while LastPass 2.0.6 for iOS will be updated once it’s passed Apple’s store approval process.

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Open-source password manager KeePass 2.24 has been released for Windows. The tool, which allows users to manage a variety of online and offline passwords via a secure, encrypted container, boasts a number of minor new features to go with an impressive list of changes and improvements for such an incremental release.

First, KeePass 2.24 adds support for importing passwords from Norton Identity Safe 2013 CSV files. It also now supports tags when using either the generic CSV importer or Mozilla Bookmarks import options.

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 Mozilla has followed on from the recent release of Firefox 25.0 FINAL with the update of its two pre-release channels to Firefox 26.0 Beta 1 and Firefox Aurora 27.0a2 respectively.

Like version 25, version 26 has little in the way of visible new features other than that all plug-ins now default to "click to play" mode. Version 27 has no brand new features either, although some features -- notably optimized Windows 8 support -- remain exclusive to this build.

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