Articles about Free Software

Paragon Software GmbH has released Paragon Backup & Recovery 17 Free 64-bit (also available for 32-bit), a brand-new version of its free (for personal use) backup and restore tool for Windows PCs.

Version 17 sees the program gain support for incremental and differential backups for more faster backups and more efficient use of available drive space. It also unveils a brand-new user interface with slick, user-friendly modern UI. This has made certain aspects of the program -- restoring selected parts of a backup, for example -- trickier to find.

Continue reading →

Popular open-source image-editing tool GIMP 2.10.4 has been released by the GIMP Development Team. The latest version of the popular cross-platform image editor adds a new Simple Horizon Straightening tool to its feature complement.

Performance is improved thanks to asynchronous loading of fonts on startup, while macOS users can rejoice: official builds for OS X have been restored.

Continue reading →

People are worried about their personal security. Who do you trust? Facebook recently admitted it tracks just about everything you do whilst using its network, whereas one of the biggest technology companies in the UK, Dixons Carphone, announced a huge data loss.

You have to ask yourself, if a technology company can’t safeguard your data, who can you trust? On top, do you trust your web browser? What’s it storing, what information does it pass to the manufacturer and to the website you are browsing?

Continue reading →

Protecting your personal information has made big headlines in 2018, and will continue to do so as hackers continue to outwit even the biggest firms. This is what makes our new software giveaway so essential: a year’s license for Sticky Password Premium.

Sticky Password is a suite of products for mobile and desktop that allow you to store your online passwords, form fills and credit card information securely -- our giveaway will give you access to all its Premium features across all supported devices, including Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

Continue reading →

Antibody-Software has released WizFile 2.0, a major update to its freeware Windows file-searching tool. The program -- also available in portable form -- provides users with lightning quick filename-based searches of their entire computer.

Version 2.0 adds support for non-NTFS hard drives, allows users to specify individual folders or network shares for more targeted searches and

Continue reading →

Everybody needs a backup -- with ransomware added to the list of threats to your data, now is the perfect time to take full advantage of our first BetaNews full software giveaway: O&O DiskImage 11 Professional, worth $49.95, this Thursday (June 7).

What makes O&O DiskImage 11 special is that it enables you to back up both individual files and folders as well as take a full drive image, so you can protect key data alongside your fail-safe drive image covering your entire Windows installation -- all from one application.
The program is simple to use -- the main user interface is a series of tabs allowing you to jump between different parts of the program, while a start screen makes it easy to get started with taking a drive image or choosing which folders to back up.

Continue reading →

How many people backup their data? A decreasing number. The new standard is to upload our data to the cloud, storing our most important files and documents in a remote location and then synchronizing those files across our various devices.

Backing up our data is old-school, right?  There’s certainly an element of truth to this. These days, along with the cloud, if you have a password manager, retrieving your important data now takes minutes, not hours. Gone are the days when your system would crash and you’d have to start recovering your entire drive to get access to your system.

Continue reading →

Why pay a monthly subscription for Office software? SoftMaker FreeOffice 2018 has just been released, promising full compatibility with the latest Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats and debuting a new optional ribbon interface for those switching from Office 2007 or later.

FreeOffice comprises word processor TextMaker 2018, spreadsheets package PlanMaker 2018 and presentation tool Presentations 2018.

Continue reading →

When traveling, we like to take as little as possible. We don’t want to be dragging a huge 15" laptop on the road, but we still need access to our files, data and even our favorite apps.

With this in mind, often we carry around a small USB stick with our most important data. Simply plug the USB stick into any computer and you have full and secure access to your files, without having to worry about copying them to the temporary PC.

Continue reading →

Irish security developer Safer Networking has released Spybot -- Search & Destroy 2.7, a new version of its Windows free and paid-for anti-malware tool.

The major new feature in this release is the addition of an additional Start Center screen giving users access to frequently used functions. It also promises a number of improvements -- including Secure Boot support -- and better reliability.

Continue reading →

German email back-up company MailStore Software GmbH has released MailStore Home 11.0 for PCs running Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. The tool makes it easy to create archives and backups of POP3, IMAP and internet mailboxes, including Gmail and Yahoo!

The program, which also works with Outlook, Thunderbird and the now-depreciated Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail, gains a faster archive search tool with this new release. It also introduces a more robust recovery tool.

Continue reading →

Following the release of Linux kernel 4.16, Linus Torvalds has said that the next kernel will be version 5.0. Or maybe it won't, because version numbers are meaningless.

The announcement -- of sorts -- came in Torvalds' message over the weekend about the first release candidate for version 4.17. He warns that it is not "shaping up to be a particularly big release" and questions whether it even matters what version number is slapped on the final release.

Continue reading →

Popular cross-platform, open-source video transcoder Handbrake 1.1.0 has been released, and despite the version number increment is actually a major update. Handbrake allows users to convert video from a wide variety of formats -- including DVD and Blu-ray -- into MP4 or MKV files with support for a wide range of codecs, including x264, x265, VP8/9 and both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4.

Handbrake 1.1.0 provides a major update to its user interface to provide a more logical and easy to follow workflow. It also adds new presets, filters and improves 4K and x265 support.

Continue reading →

Cast your mind back several years and you'll remember Windows 3.0 and earlier. This was when Microsoft started to bring home computing to the masses, and for anyone raised on modern Windows, the lack of Start menu, taskbar and other components makes the operating system seem antiquated and unusable.

But use it we did! Back then, there was no File Explorer, but File Manager instead -- and it's something that people sometimes feel nostalgic about. A couple of days ago, Microsoft open sourced the File Manager code, and a Windows 10 version has been released.

Continue reading →

AgileBits has released beta versions of its upcoming 1Password 7.0 Beta for Mac and 1Password 7.0 Beta for Windows clients. 1Password offers secure form-filling and password management tools and is also available on iOS and Android.

The beta showcases several major new features, with Windows gaining a handy new sidebar view to ape the Mac version, which sees its own sidebar improved along with a host of other new additions and feature improvements.

Continue reading →