jAlbum AB has put out another minor update of its cross-platform web media album builder with the launch of jAlbum 11.3. The app, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, simplifies the task of building both picture and video galleries for displaying online in the form of web pages.

Version 11.3 attempts to provide a better showcase of the program’s capabilities by preloading a Sample Portfolio project that demonstrates how to make a full portfolio site by using sub-folders and custom Contact and About pages. Users can then use this as a template or a tutorial for building such sites using the app.

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Replacing a few of the standard Windows and application icons can be a great way to give your PC a fresh new look. Creating new icons can be more of a challenge, though, as the ICO format isn’t widely supported by graphics software.

There is an easy solution to this problem, though, and it’s called Quick Any2Ico. Point this compact free program at an image or executable file and it’ll convert or extract the required icon for you with a click.

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Bitdefender has released its 2014 products, including new versions of Antivirus Plus, Internet Security and Total Security.

All editions now include Bitdefender’s new Photon technology, which it’s claimed "tailor-fits to each user’s computer for fast scanning, a quicker boot time, smooth interaction with apps and the same award-winning detection rate".

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Hot on the heels of the release of Firefox 22.0 FINAL, Mozilla has released Firefox 23.0 Beta 1, a preview version of the next release that will ship in around six week’s time.

Version 23.0 implements mixed-content blocking for greater security, plus allows plugins to be evoked only when specific websites require them. New consolidated search default preferences have also been implemented that could prove controversial.

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Piriform has updated its free Windows cleaning tool with the release of CCleaner 4.03. The new build, also available in portable form, concentrates its improvements on the four major browsers: Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Opera.

Version 4.03 also improves cleaning for Office 2013 users, extends support to five new programs (including three Windows 8 apps) and also promises new and improved features for paid-for Pro users too.

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Mozilla has released Firefox 22.0 FINAL for Windows, Mac and Linux. The update includes some platform-specific improvements -- Firefox following display scaling options in Windows, and providing download progress indicators in its dock application icon in OS X -- plus a number of other tweaks and improvements.

Other new features include the ability for users to now manage their social API plug-ins via the Add-ons menu (select Services in the left-hand menu to do so), while users can now adjust the playback rate of HTML5 audio and video files (right-click the playback screen and choose Play Speed to do so).

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Open-source image editor GIMP 2.8.6 FINAL has been released for Windows and Linux. This popular -- and powerful -- image manipulation tool, which is also available for Mac, is primarily a maintenance release, but does include some interesting feature tweaks, many of which improve the program’s single-window mode that was introduced in version 2.8.

Chief among these changes is the increase in the supported maximum size of clipboard brushes and patterns to 1,024×1,024 pixels. Also improved is how users switch focus back to the canvas screen in single-window mode, with the [Escape] key now used for that task.

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While there are plenty of weather monitoring apps around, most of them are, well, just a little dull. They’ll tell you it might be windy later, and that there’s a chance of rain tomorrow, but that’s about as exciting as it gets.

Earth Alerts is different. It can give you details on the locations you define -- current conditions, maps, forecasts and so on -- but what it’s really about is tracking more severe events. Earthquakes alerts, tsunami warnings, forest fires, landslides, cyclones, they’re all detailed here.

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Giorgio Tani has revealed PeaZip 5.0, the latest version of his popular and powerful file archive tool, which he says "brings a major code and design cleanup".

In practical terms this means a stack of interface enhancements, making the program even easier to use. A new History menu lists recently used paths and archives, for instance; the Bookmarks section now opens maximized by default, with useful system locations helping you get started right away; and the Settings dialog has been completely reorganized and simplified.

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Time-lapse images can be a great way to capture movement in the sky, countryside, cities and more. But if they have a small issue, it’s that your usual viewpoint is always entirely static: the camera is fixed, while the world moves around it.

Panolapse is a free (for personal use) tool which can change all this, by adding motion through custom panning and zoom effects. This isn’t the simple flat movement you might get with a video editor, either: Panolapse uses perspective correction to produce far more realistic results, so that it actually looks as though your camera is moving around within the scene.

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Malwarebytes has released the first public beta of Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit, a rebranded and improved version of ZeroVulnerabilityLabs’ ExploitShield. And just as in its previous incarnation, Anti-Exploit is an extremely easy-to-use tool which protects popular applications from zero-day exploits, web-based vulnerability exploits and more.

The full list of shielded apps includes browsers (Firefox, Chrome, IE, Opera), Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Media Players (Windows Media Player, VLC, Winamp, QuickTime), PDF-related tools (Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, Adobe Acrobat) and more (Java, Windows Script Host, Windows Help).

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Symantec has unveiled the first public betas for Norton AntiVirus 21, Norton Internet Security 21 and Norton 360 21.

As we write the company hasn’t provided any information on new features. A first look shows the core interface remains almost entirely unchanged, though -- with the exception of a revamped and extended Identity Safe -- so if you’re already familiar with the previous editions then navigating the new builds should be straightforward.

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Maxthon has released a major new update for its self-titled browser. Maxthon 4.1 and Maxthon Portable 4.1 both aim to provide Windows users with a performance-enhanced browser that retains compatibility with Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.

Version 4.1 continues in this vein, delivering a number of performance-related improvements alongside a handful of new and enhanced features, including the support for customising global blocking rules.

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When Windows is misbehaving then a quick look at Task Manager will sometimes help. It might show you a program which is using too much RAM or CPU time, for instance, as well as allowing you to terminate the problem process and restore order.

Most of the time, though, Task Manager just won’t have what it takes to help you troubleshoot your system. You’ll need a more capable third-party tool to take you a little further. And they don’t come much more capable than the portable PowerTool.

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If I were a realist I would assume you use BitTorrent to download Game of Thrones episodes and other illegal media, but I am a trusting soul, and so I expect you use the protocol as a way of getting your hands on legitimate content -- and there's honestly plenty of it available. Heck, every Friday the company makes legal media available to users, such as these free concerts.

Now the developer announces that 25 million users are getting their torrents through the mobile app versions of BitTorrent and µTorrent.

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