Piriform Software has released CCleaner 5.19 and CCleaner 5.19 Portable for Windows PCs. Once again, it’s a minor release, focusing on improvements, optimizations and some small bug fixes.

The new release has no new features or supported applications, instead focusing on tweaking existing cleaning routines and improving the System Monitoring tool on the Professional edition.

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Wordaizer is an intriguing tool for creating Wordle-like word clouds, gorgeous works of art where text is organized and arranged to fill a shape.

We have some simple examples below, but the idea gets more interesting when you add some personal meaning, for example celebrating someone’s 100th birthday by filling a tree shape with the names of all their family.

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You’ve downloaded what looks like an interesting program, but it’s not working. Is it for 32, or 64-bit Windows? Maybe it needs a different Windows version? There’s no built-in way to find out. ExeProperties is a tiny free Explorer extension which displays an EXE or DLL’s minimum requirements in a couple of clicks.

The program has no interface, doesn’t add any background processes or system tray icons. Install it and there’s no immediate sign that anything has changed at all.

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Windows 10 saw Microsoft replace the old-style Solitaire with a Windows app which pesters you with ads every time it runs.

This could be much worse -- the ads are only at launch, not while you’re playing -- but if you’re looking for an alternative anyway, here are three fun competitors for Windows XP/ Vista and later.

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Windows package managers like Npackd provide a single interface where you can find, install, update or remove hundreds of popular PC applications.

Sounds great, but there can be complications. PowerShell dependencies, a GUI to explore, command line switches to learn, repositories to browse– not so easy, after all.

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Khan Academy is a great learning resource which provides free video-based courses on everything from math to history, science to music, computing, economics and more.

Most users access Khan Academy content via their website, but if you've limited bandwidth that might not always be possible.

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Acronis International has released the first public beta of Acronis True Image 2017, its popular backup and file sync suite. The new edition adds support for wirelessly backing up iOS and Android devices to your desktop.

An Archiving module moves large or old files to an external drive, or the Acronis cloud. They may now be protected with 256-bit AES encryption.

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Constantly in the headlines, ransomware is the menace of the moment, and even the best antivirus engines can’t guarantee to keep you safe. NoVirusThanks File System Protector can help by restricting access to particular folders and file types, ensuring only trusted applications gets to open or modify your files.

You could create a rule which blocks any process from accessing the C:\Locked folder, for instance. Or you might just stop processes modifying all files in that location, or perhaps a specific file type.

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JDisc Discovery is an industrial-strength network scanning, inventory and reporting tool. The program quickly checks your entire network (up to 25 devices with a free license), identifies hardware and devices, and collects details on hardware, software and device configuration.

JDisc Discovery is aimed at big business and network geeks, but its core features aren’t difficult to access. To launch your first scan, all you have to do is click a "Play" icon and watch as JDisc scans its way across your local network.

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Flamory is a free-for-personal-use research tool which allows recording and searching web pages and local files. This starts with a simple screenshot function. When you’re viewing an interesting website or document, press Ctrl+Alt+A to take a screenshot, and it’s saved locally.

Open the viewer later and you’re able to browse captures and annotate them with a pen, shapes, pointers or text captions.

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Powerful batch image processor ImBatch has reached version 4.90 with the addition of some handy transparency tools. A new Stroke feature outlines your image with transparency, using a customizable width and color.

ImBatch can now replace transparency with a white color when saving to an image which doesn’t support transparency (PNG > JPG, say).

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Would you like a faster PC? One standard tip is to run a memory optimizer, which supposedly cleans, tunes and defragments your RAM, fixes memory leaks and more. Most of these claims are utter garbage, but the technology may help a little in a few situations, and Reduce Memory offers a quick and easy way to try this out for yourself.

The program is very simple. There’s no installation, no adware, no interface, no extra startup or system tray program -- it’s just a tiny executable which you run as necessary.

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Open-source password-management tool KeePass 2.34 has been released for Windows. The new release’s headline feature is a digitally signed version information file, which is used to check for updates.

The feature was unveiled after a potential vulnerability was discovered whereby hackers could dupe KeePass users into downloading malware through the online update check.

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AudioShell is a Windows Explorer extension which enables viewing and editing of ID3 and other tags. You may be able to do some of this already, depending on your Windows version and other software you might have installed, but AudioShell takes the idea further in several ways.

The first benefit is additional support for many more formats, covering both audio and some video formats.

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Windows hasn’t been able to run old DOS programs for a very long time. Double-click and you’re simply told "this app can’t run on your PC". MS-DOS Player for Win32-x64 is a tiny DOS emulator which enables running simple commands and programs (not full games) with the absolute minimum of hassle.

MS-DOS Player arrives with 8 binaries, each one emulating a separate processor and supporting 32, 64 or both types of Windows. If you don’t know which you need, just head straight for the i86_x86 folder where you’ll find a single msdos.exe file.

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