Free Software

The superb freeware image viewer IrfanView has hit version 4.44 with a pile of tweaks and additions. A much-improved histogram is now modeless, and offers curves, RGB and other viewing selections.

The Batch Scan dialog supports scanning multiple pages to PDF files.

Oculus Rift may be a powerful and well-designed VR system, but its file and application management abilities aren’t so smart. Early versions would only install on your system drive, games and apps are always installed to a library in the same location, and if you uninstall Oculus then all your software disappears as well.

AOMEI vrBackupper is a 64-bit Windows 10 program which can back up, restore or migrate your Oculus Rift installation or just your installed games and applications.

If you own a Raspberry Pi, you’re probably familiar with PIXEL. The desktop environment is included in the Raspbian OS.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation describes PIXEL as the "GNU/Linux we would want to use" and understandably so. It offers a smart, clean interface, a decent selection of software, the Chromium web browser with plug-ins, and more -- and from today it’s available for PC and Mac.

Cybereason has released RansomFree, a free anti-ransomware tool for Windows. The program uses behavior monitoring to watch your system for ransomware-like actions, detecting and suspending any malicious process once encryption starts.

RansomFree is exceptionally easy to install and use. There are no setup options, no scheduling tools, no lists of drives or folders: you just install the program and leave it to do its work.

WordPress is a fabulous website builder, and it’s very easy to learn the basics. Just sign up for a free blog at WordPress.com and start to play.

If you’re a serious developer, though, you might prefer to run WordPress locally. There’s no data transfer delays, no waiting for connections, and you can be sure that no-one else will ever be able to see your work-in-progress. This can take a little preparation. WordPress needs a server, for instance. PHP. MySQL. Setting these up on a PC or Mac usually requires a lot of web experience -- but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Ellp is a free tool which delivers very simple, script-free automation of common PC and other tasks. There are no menus, no complex dialog boxes, no command-line arguments, nothing to learn at all. You can get started in seconds and leave Ellp to do all the real work.

The program opens by displaying these ten cards, each representing a task you’d like to automate.

Installing any good antivirus program will protect you from known keyloggers, but you’ll still be vulnerable to the very latest threats.

Specialist anti-keyloggers such as SpyShelter take a very different approach. Instead of trying to detect and remove malware, they focus on preventing anything intercepting your keypresses.

AOMEI has released AOMEI Backupper Standard 4.0, the second major update of its freeware Windows backup, imaging and cloning tool in 2016.

Version 4.0 adds an additional arrow to the tool’s bow -- the ability to sync file changes in real-time. There’s also added support for a number of popular cloud storage devices as well as a number of more minor improvements.

Vectr is a well-designed cross-platform vector editor with a strong focus on sharing and collaboration. The simple interface may look basic, at least initially: a few basic shapes, pen, pencil and text tools and not much else.

A bonus "More Shapes" panel is just one click away, though, giving you arrows, stars, lightning bolts, image and calendar icons, and assorted other clipart-type designs.

Hot on the heels of Opera’s final release of the year comes Vivaldi 1.6, a new version of the world’s most flexible web browser from Opera co-founder Jon S von Tetzhner.

Version 1.6 -- available for Mac, Windows and Linux -- debuts three new features, all revolving around the browser’s flexible tab management system. The highlight of these is the new tab notification feature.

Popular network tool Angry IP Scanner has hit version 3.5 with new support for high DPI displays on Windows and Linux (Mac Retina displays were supported already).

There are visual improvements for everyone, whatever your hardware, thanks to redesigned high DPI versions of all icons.

What’s the collective noun for all those windows cluttering up your desktop? A clutter of windows, maybe, or perhaps even a chaos of windows? If you’re wondering how to bring some semblance of logical organization back to your Windows desktop, you need TidyTabs 1.2.

TidyTabs gives away what it does with its name. It takes inspiration from the web browser revolution that saw dozens of separate, unmanageable website windows gathered together into a single, multi-tabbed window and takes it to the next level.

AVAST has announced betas of AVG Free Antivirus 15 (32-bit here) and AVG Internet Security 17 (32-bit here).

The releases follow AVAST’s acquisition of AVG earlier this year, and aim to combine the best technologies from both companies: AVAST’s core engine with AVG’s behavior analysis.

Freeware Registry editor and search tool Registry Finder has been updated with regular expression support.

You’re now able to use regex in both the Find and Replace dialog. Just check "Use regular expressions" and go to work.

At first glance, QOwnNotes doesn’t seem like the most interesting of apps. An "open source plain-text file notepad"? Aren’t there enough of those already?

Download and try the program, though, and you might be surprised at how much more it can do.