Nick Peers

If there’s one silver lining to the cloud cast over Mac users by the recent revelation that the Flashback/Flashfake Trojan has infected over 600,000 Macs worldwide, it’s surely the end to the myth that Macs are invulnerable to viruses and other malware. Seasoned Mac users will have never claimed anything different, but now there’s no excuse for any Mac users to run without protection of some form or other.

Of course, before you can bolt the barn door, you need to make sure no horses have escaped, which is where Kaspersky’s free Flashfake Removal Tool comes in. As the name implies, it’s designed to remove any specific Flashback/Flashfake infection from your Mac; it’ll quickly scan for infection, inform you of the result and then take steps, if necessary, to nullify the infection.

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Malwarebytes Corporation has updated its anti-malware tool, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to version 1.61. The latest build promises 25 percent faster quick scans on Windows 64-bit, plus a number of usability enhancements, greater stability and bug fixes.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.61, which comes in both free and paid-for versions, is designed to be safely installed alongside existing anti-virus and anti-spyware software, providing a second opinion or safety net to add additional layers of protection to the user’s computer.

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Trend Micro has launched DirectPass 1.0, an online password management tool for Windows. Trend Micro DirectPass, which also comes as a free app for iPhone and iPad and Android, includes online password manager, automatic form filling, secure notes taker and built-in secure browser for accessing sensitive websites securely.

Trend Micro DirectPass enters a crowded market, with established tools like Lastpass and KeePass being joined by the likes of Norton Identity Safe Beta. While Symantec’s offering is free, DirectPass will require an annual subscription for unlimited password storage.

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These days, more and more of us watch video in a variety of different ways. The ease and versatility of modern media can leave you looking at your old collection of videos and DVDs with some annoyance. While you can play DVDs on your notebook or desktop, you can’t insert them into your smartphone or tablet, and what happens if they get scratched or damaged?

Never fear, because we’ve put together a list of useful tools, many of which are completely free to use, to help you not just rip and capture video from archaic sources, but to access it from other devices, too. You should carefully check your own country’s copyright laws before following this tutorial because even with Blu-rays, DVDs and videos you legally own, you may find you’re prohibited from making personal copies, even for backup purposes.

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Gavrila Martau has released version 6 of his Windows programs removal tool, Total Uninstall. The program is capable of completely uninstalling applications using one of two techniques: the first allows it to detect and analyze existing installations to build an installer log file that can be used to remove the program even when the original installer is missing or corrupt. The second method sees Total Uninstall monitor all changes made by a setup program when installing a new application, allowing the user to remove the program more thoroughly than the supplied installer., which allows users to remove applications even when the original program uninstaller is missing.

Total Uninstall 6.0  adds a number of new features to its three modules -- monitored programs, installed programs and cleaner -- while also introducing various performance improvements, including native support for 64-bit versions of Windows.

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Smart Projects has updated its shareware data recovery tool, ISOBuster, to version 3.0. Previously limited to examining and recovering data from optical discs such as DVD, CD and Blu-ray, ISOBuster 3.0 now extends support to a wide array of disk formats, including hard disks, memory cards, USB thumb drives and even Zip, Jaz and floppy disks, adding support for the NTFS filing system at the same time.

Past versions of ISOBuster were renowned for being able to recover data from corrupt and even physically damaged optical discs, and the functionality will be similar for newly supported drive and file system formats too.

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Today, cloud-storage provider Box updated its iPad and iPhone app to include support for the newly-launched Box OneCloud. The service is Box.com’s pitch to the enterprise and business market for the “post-PC era”, providing users with a means of using their iPad to directly edit documents that can be stored online, collaborated on and shared with other users as well as accessed via desktop.

Box for iPhone and iPad 2.7.1 is a free-for-personal use app that allows users to access the contents of their Box accounts via their iOS device. The app also allows users to upload files back to the service as well as edit them using supported apps on the mobile.

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Adobe Flash Player 11.2 and AIR 3.2, major updates to its browser plug-in and runtime environments, are now available. Flash Player, which is built into Chrome and available as a separate download for Internet Explorer, was until the advent of HTML5 the de facto standard for accessing rich, multimedia content on the web.

Both updates are aimed very much at repositioning Flash as a rival gaming platform to consoles, focusing on providing developers with tools to produce immersive, graphically rich games across all supported platforms.

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Piriform Software has released CCleaner 3.17, the latest monthly update of its immensely popular Windows cleaning tool. Version 3.17 adds wildcard support when cookie cleaning, the ability to clean the Hosts history in Firefox Aurora and Shortcuts history cleaning in Google Chrome Canary.

Version 3.17 also improves various cleanup tools and applications, plus widens its support to cover three new applications: CyberLink PhotoDirector 10, DivX Player and Snagit 11 in addition to the dozens of applications and system settings, including the Registry, already covered by CCleaner.

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Popular, open-source text editor Notepad++ 6.0.0 is now available . This landmark release doesn’t contain many notably new, but is merely the latest step in a product’s evolution that is constant and ongoing.

Version 6.0.0 does add one feature -- a Document Map panel that can be toggled on or off via the View menu -- and also promises improved performance when loading large files into memory.

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WinStep Software Technologies has updated its flagship products,WinStep Nexus and WinStep Extreme, to version 12.20. Despite the relatively minor version number, WinStep claims this is a “monster release”.

There are numerous new features in both releases, but one major improvement is performance, with WinStep promising vastly increased rendering times, including animated icons (20-30 times faster), resulting in acceptable performance even on slower systems.

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If you’re looking for a video-editing suite that combines a powerful feature set with user-friendly features while taking full advantage of your computer’s hardware to deliver blistering performance, then Cyberlink PowerDirector 9 Ultra64 fits the bill perfectly. While it’s been superseded to some extent by version 10, it’s still an excellent video-editing tool in its own right.

If you’re looking for a fast, powerful and reliable video editor for a price that won’t break the bank, you’ve come to the right place. You can pick up a full version of Cyberlink PowerDirector9 Ultra64 for just $29.95 -- that’s less than a third of its MSRP! But hurry the offer ends at 23:59 Central European Time tonight. That's 6:59 pm EDT, Americans.

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Less than three weeks after launching jAlbum 10.4, an update that "perhaps should have been labelled jAlbum 11", according to its makers, the Swedish web album creation tool has been updated again with a number of improvements and feature tweaks.

jAlbum 10.5 claims to improve album downloading by up to eight times, plus adds the ability to import albums created in the desktop application as well as online. It also promises that album projects can now be moved and copied without breaking. jAlbum 10.5 is in fact the fourth update of the program since version 10.4 was released on March 2, with three minor updates appearing in a 48-hour period from March 7-9.

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When it comes to keeping your hard drive defragged, Windows built-in tools do an okay job, but if you’re looking to push the performance envelope further you want a trusted, reliable third-party solution like Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro 4.

Also available as a cut-down free version, Auslogics Disk Defrag optimizes your hard drive in a myriad of different ways, and the great news is you can order a copy of the full Pro version for just $9.95, a saving of 67 percent on its retail price.

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One month after open-source media player VLC reached its landmark 2.0 release, the VideoLAN Organization has released VLC 2.0.1 FINAL. The brand new update of this popular cross-platform media player divided opinion, particularly among Mac users, when version 2.0 shipped, and this latest release aims to fix many bugs and annoyances reported over the intervening period.

Version 2.0.1 also tweaks the revamped Mac OS X user interface further, plus adds support for MxPEG files and streams as well as limited support for Blu-ray disc menus. It also improves support for multi-tracked MKV video files and removes version 2.0’s “flawed” auto-detection of ALSA audio channels. There are also a number of security updates.

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