Free Software

Eassos PartitionGuru Free is an easy-to-use hard drive manager which can create, resize, split, extend, clone or recover partitions. The latest edition can also format multiple USB keys simultaneously and automatically, without any user intervention at all.

Making it so easy to wipe storage devices could be a little dangerous, of course, but fortunately the program only wipes empty drives by default.

Blisk is a Chromium-based browser optimized for web developers.

Point the program at your site and it’s displayed in both regular desktop and a mobile device view.

Monitor Power Saver is a lightweight tool which can disable monitors automatically or on demand, saving energy and extending battery life. The surprisingly small download -- barely 100KB -- unzips to a single executable which runs on Windows XP or later.

Double-clicking its system tray icon displays a simple tabbed interface with various options.

File Converter is a lightweight tool for converting video, audio and image files from Explorer’s right-click menu. There’s no system tray icon to get in your way, no bulky interface to navigate. Just right-click your selected files in Explorer, click File Converter > To… (destination format) and watch as the files are converted.

File format support isn’t as wide as many other tools, but the program covers all the basics, and a little more (video > animated GIF).

If you’re regularly fixing other people’s PCs then you could spend an age researching the best problem-solving freeware, building up your own portable troubleshooting toolkit, and then keeping it up-to-date.

Or you could avoid all that time and effort and download a copy of Windows Repair Toolbox, instead. Launch the program and its Tools tab lists troubleshooting essentials like Autoruns, Process Explorer, Geek Uninstaller, Ninite, PatchMyPC and many more.

Pint is a simple package manager which can download, install, and update the portable editions of VLC, LibreOffice, 7-Zip, SumatraPDF and many other popular Windows applications. It’s a familiar idea, but what’s different about Pint is that it’s all done in a single PowerShell script.

This makes for an ultra-lightweight download (under 18KB), and "installation" should be as simple as unzipping the core files.

Avira Phantom VPN is a fast virtual private network for Windows and Android. Once running, the program encrypts all your internet traffic, keeping you safe even when using insecure wireless hotspots.

Avira Phantom VPN can also help you bypass geographical restrictions on websites by assigning you an IP address from another country. Options include Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Netherland, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA.

Phrozen Software has released Winja, a one-stop VirusTotal uploader and system investigator. A simple opening menu allows scanning of individual files, downloads or running processes with VirusTotal.

The "malware" score ("5/58") appears in a separate notification, and you can view a breakdown of verdicts by antivirus engine with a click. Winja also provides four extra system security tools of its own.

ConsoleZ is a feature-packed enhancement for the Windows command line, an updated and extended fork of the open-source Console 2.

There’s no installation, and ConsoleZ won’t interfere with your existing command line. Just run Console.exe and it opens its own window.

Photon is a free PC screen capture tool for Windows Vista and later. The program’s core capture engine is basic, but good sharing support and some unusual processing options make it worth a closer look.

Install Photon, press PrtSc, and you’re prompted to draw a freehand rectangle. There’s no full screen capture type, no "active window", no ellipses or anything advanced, unfortunately (like we said, it’s basic).

Once upon a time, not so long ago, just about every PC optimization suite included a module to "speed up your internet connection".

They’re not so common these days because Windows’ own settings generally give good results, but if you’d like to try one for yourself then there are still some useful programs around. SpeedGuide.net TCP Optimizer has been around for years, and is very convenient to use: there’s no installation required, and it runs on everything from Windows XP up.

Video sharing social network Vine has released its first app for Windows 10. In a click -- or a tap -- you’re able to explore channels like Music, Sport and Comedy, or follow individual creators, even if you don’t have a Vine account.

Videos play back-to-back by default, as with the mobile apps, but you can loop them with a mouseover or touch.

Opera Software has released Opera 37 FINAL, a major new release of its desktop web browser for Windows, Mac and Linux PCs. The latest release contains two new major features of note: built-in ad-blocking and support for video pop-outs.

The ad-block feature has also been added to the brand new release of Opera Mini for Android 16.0, also out today.

Passcape Software has shipped Passcape ISO Burner 2.1 with a new option to format high capacity (>32GB) USB sticks to FAT32.

Windows can’t do this, but the developer explains "the program now uses its own code to format some USB sticks".

LastAudit is a free Windows security and vulnerability scanner, IT audit and forensic tool.

The program aims to detect and list configuration issues, weak permissions, browsing history, sensitive metadata, previous wifi connections, network resources, and Active Directory OUs, users, servers, shares and services.