Articles about Free Software

We all know that the internet is home to illegal software, music, movies and much more. It may seem like an impossible task to put figures to piracy levels, but a report by Ofcom, the independent regulator for the communications industries in the UK, has done just that. The Online Copyright Infringement Tracker report found that a staggering 30 percent of regular downloaders of media did so illegally.

The report looked at the period from November 2012 to January 2013 and analyzed UK consumption of online music, film, TV programmes, books, games and software. Compared to the previous three months, the percentage of web users accessing any of this type of content increased from 57 percent to 60 percent.

Continue reading →

EaseUS Software has released EaseUS Todo Backup 6.0 Free and EaseUS Todo Backup 6.0 Workstation, major new versions of its image- and file-based backup tool. Version 6.0 adds support for recovering individual files from partitions, while WorkStation users also gain tools for simplifying migration between physical and virtual machines.

The major new feature affecting all users is support for recovering selected files from image-based backups. Previously users could only recover entire partitions or disks, but now users can either recover individual files using the Recovery wizard, or mount the image as a virtual drive for browsing and extracting files.

Continue reading →

If you’d like to automatically run an antivirus scan at a particular time, or maybe defragment your hard drive, then it’s usually very easy. And that’s because security packages and defrag tools almost always include a scheduling option, which allows them to carry out some preferred action even when you’re not around.

Most programs don’t have this kind of feature, unfortunately, but automating them may still be possible, with just a little help from System Scheduler.

Continue reading →

If you find a program on your PC which you think might be malware, then checking it with an antivirus tool is a good first step -- but it’s not the only option. You could also try "static analysis", which involves examining the executable file itself to learn more about it. Most static analysis tools are aimed at developers and extremely complex, but the free PeStudio is an interesting exception: it offers plenty of low-level detail, but also has more straightforward features that just about anyone can use.

It’s easy to get started with the program. Just download and unzip it, launch PeStudio.exe, and drag and drop your suspect executable onto the PeStudio window. Wait a few seconds for the program to run its analysis, and a detailed report then appears.

Continue reading →

Opera Software has unveiled Opera Next 15, the first look at a major new direction for its cross-platform web browser. Opera Next 15 -- which installs alongside the existing stable version, Opera 12.15 -- sees the browser jump not one, but three version numbers, such is the radical nature of the new release.

The major news surrounding Opera Next 15 is the switch from its own Presto proprietary web rendering engine to Google’s open-source Chromium engine. But other changes include a revamped user interface, overhauled Speed Dial page, new Discover and Stash features, plus the dropping of all integrated email features, which will be available as a separate product, Opera Mail, also available in pre-release form.

Continue reading →

Piriform Ltd has announced the release of CCleaner 4.02, and while it’s flagged as a minor release, the build includes plenty of worthwhile improvements.

Internet Explorer 10 included several low-level changes in how the program stored its data, for instance, which meant CCleaner didn’t handle it quite as well as previous releases. But that situation was never going to last for long, and this build now includes improved IE10 history, cache and DOMStore cookie cleaning for better results all round.

Continue reading →

When you’re busy with some online research then you’ll often want to save interesting web pages for easy reference later. So it’s a pity that while every browser has some kind of “Save As” function, the end results are usually unimpressive, awkward to share with others, and may not even bear much resemblance to the original page.

This is such a fundamental requirement that you might have thought the big-name browsers would have come up with a solution already, but while we wait you can always try Mozilla Archive Format, a Firefox add-on which extends the usual "Save Page As" function in several very useful ways.

Continue reading →

When troubleshooting technical PC problems then it’s likely you’ll often come across references to Registry keys, some of which you’ll want to check out. And usually this means you’ll have to manually launch REGEDIT, before browsing multiple levels until you find the key you need.

Registry Key Jumper, however, offers a simpler route. Once the program is running in the background, you can just select the text of any Registry key, press Ctrl+Alt+X, and REGEDIT will open automatically at the appropriate location.

Continue reading →

NirSoft has announced the public availability of DNSQuerySniffer, a tiny (130KB, including a Help file) network sniffer which detects and displays your DNS traffic.

If you think this sounds just a little technical, then you’re right, but the program does have some interesting applications. Malware will often use DNS traffic to communicate with its operators, for instance, and so taking a closer look at your own system may reveal the signs of an infection (a large number of failed lookups to domains you don’t recognize, say).

Continue reading →

Over the course of the past week, Evernote Corporation has been updating its flagship Evernote client across all supported platforms. As with most Evernote updates, however, the changes implemented have not been equal, with users of Evernote for Mac 5.1.1 and Evernote for iPhone and iPad 5.2.3 getting the best deal.

The big news for Evernote users is the addition of support for reminders -- initially on Mac, iOS and the web-based platform. These can be triggered as email or in-app alarms, and are easily set via the small timer button at the top of a note.

Continue reading →

Removing malware used to be fairly easy, at least in principle. Detect the infection, kill any running processes and files, and that’s it -- finished.

These days, unfortunately, life can be more difficult. Some malware will actively try to block any attempts to remove it, perhaps preventing you from running antivirus tools, locking its files, maybe restarting itself if necessary. This can be frustratingly effective, too, but there are ways to fight back. And KillEmAll is a great place to start.

Continue reading →

Irish security firm Safer-Networking Ltd has announced the release of Spybot +AV 2.1, a major reinvention of the package which sees the addition of virus protection for the Home ($13.99) and Professional ($25.99) versions (the free build removes malware and rootkits only).

A great deal of this new release is about delivering the framework necessary to support the antivirus engine. An update mechanism delivers antivirus signature files multiple times a day, for instance. The system offers real time protection, too, although this can optionally be turned off if there’s a chance of it conflicting with something else.

Continue reading →

Google has released Chrome 27 for Windows, Mac and Linux. And while the previous build was less than exciting, this one delivers multiple improvements which see the browser’s page display time improve by 5 percent.

Much of this acceleration is down to smarter scheduling, with Chrome 27 making more intelligent decisions about what it loads, and when. Previously, for instance, the browser might tie up bandwidth downloading a vast number of images in parallel. Now it focuses on visible images, and limits parallel downloads to a maximum of 10, so the details you need should be displayed noticeably faster.

Continue reading →

Open-source multi-messaging client Instantbird 1.4 has been released for Windows, Mac and Linux. The latest version of Instantbird, which provides a central location for accessing multiple IM accounts including AIM, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and Google Talk, strengthens its Twitter integration by updating to the Twitter API v1.1, a necessary step to ensure it’s able to communicate with Twitter after June 11.

Other Twitter changes include the timeline being updated to include all people the user is currently following in the Participants list, while the character counter has also been improved to take into account automatic link shortening, making retweets easier.

Continue reading →

Most PC users could benefit from working at the command line occasionally, but the rather basic interface is enough to put most people off. You don’t have to live with the standard Windows setup, though. There are plenty of tools which claim they can help, and one of the latest, ConsoleHoster, improves on the default command window in several ways.

Getting started with the program is certainly very easy. Download, unzip and launch it (there’s no installation required), click "Project 1" and your first command session appears. The blue text on a green background is a little distracting, but otherwise it’s straightforward enough. The main part of the window is split into two panes; you enter your commands in the lower, and any output appears above it.

Continue reading →