Free Software

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

ScanFS is interesting desktop search tool, easy to use but with some unexpected extras. The program starts much like any other search app. Enter a file mask, a starting folder, click Enter to view the results: simple.

Your searches can be extended by entering multiple file masks (*.mp3;*.flac), and filtering the results by size ("more than" x, "less than" y), or created and modified dates.

CyberLink has unveiled the first public beta of CyberLink PresenterLink+, a simple tool for building presentations, running them locally, or broadcasting via common video conferencing services. The program is stripped back and extremely easy to use. Import one or more PowerPoint decks (if PowerPoint is installed locally) or images, rearrange as needed, and you can be ready to go within minutes.

Presentation tools allow annotating slides, quickly jumping to other slides out of sequence, sharing and annotating your desktop, adding your webcam as a PiP overlay, and switching to a projector or another monitor.

Shotcut is a powerful open-source video editor for Windows, Linux and Mac. It’s quirky in places, not always easy to use, but spend a while learning the basics and you’ll find an array of high-end features to explore.

The program uses the popular FFmpeg to import source files, which means there’s no need to worry about format support: it’ll open just about every video variant that’s ever existed.

Aladin is an interactive sky atlas enabling users to visualize and explore a host of astronomical images and data. Or, if that sounds too complicated, you could just use it to look at gorgeous pictures of deep space. Which works for us.

As long as you have Java, there’s no setup required. Aladin is a single executable, and you can just download it and run on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Typora is a minimalist markdown editor for Windows and Mac. Markdown is a simple language which uses plain text formatting to create rich text documents, but you don’t need to understand any of that to get started.

Typora opens much like any other editor. Start typing and you can style text, copy and paste, find and replace, undo, open, print, save and more, with all the keyboard shortcuts you know already.

If you’ve ever tried creating animated GIFs, you’ll have noticed that they can get very large, especially when using complex sources like TV footage. That’s no great surprise -- the format was designed for simple animations, not full color video -- but GIF Optimizer Free may help you shrink your file sizes.

Setup is easy, because there’s no installation required -- just unzip the download and run gifoptimizer.exe.

ImgDrive is a free tool which can mount multiple disc images as virtual CD, DVD, HD-DVD or BD drives. The program works with iso, ccd, cue, isz, mds and nrg images.

Everything is controlled from the program’s system tray icon. This opens with a single drive letter, and you’re able to mount a new image, then access it in Explorer just like any other disc. If the single drive letter isn’t enough, another system tray menu option reserves up to 7.

Image to PDF or XPS is a compact tool which imports multiple image formats, saving the results to PDF or XPS files. Supported source formats include BMP, GIF, PNG, TIF, WMF, EMF, XPS, JPG, JP2 and J2K files.

Your chosen images may be imported via an "Add Files" button, or you can just drag and drop them onto the program window.

The Tor Browser team has announced the first stable release of Tor Browser 6.0. This edition adds code-signing for OS X, which should allow Mac users to install Tor without any Gatekeeper hassles.

The core Firefox build has been updated to Firefox 45-ESR, and there are similar updates for OpenSSL, HTTPS-Everywhere, Torbutton and more.

You’re running Windows 10, enjoy browsing podcasts, but really don’t want to install the bulky iTunes? Grover Podcast is a free, easy-to-use Windows 10 app which covers all the podcast basics -- and more -- and just might have everything you need.

The app opens in a "My Podcasts" area, initially empty, but it doesn’t have to stay that way for long. In a click or two you can be entering feed URLs, or maybe importing an OPML file if you’re already managing podcasts elsewhere.