Free Software

ImWatcher is a free Windows application for monitoring and recording webcams. The program is simple, straightforward and easy to use, but it also has one or two more advanced features that we really weren’t expecting.

The good news starts on launch, when you can point the program at any connected webcams, IP cameras, as many as you have.

Every network adapter has a MAC address, a unique value used to identify devices at the physical network layer. Normally this address stays the same forever, which may allow networks to recognize and track you.

This isn’t always a bad thing -- a network could use a MAC address to allow device access without authentication -- but if you’re concerned, most MAC addresses can be changed in a few seconds. Windows 10 comes with MAC randomization built in. Click the network icon in your taskbar, then select Network Settings to begin.

Glam Software has released Outlinely Express 2.0, a free version of its popular Mac outliner, Outlinely.

The new edition has all the same outlining features as its commercial cousin, with no annoying restrictions or limitations.

Phishing sites that use domain names similar to a legitimate company’s, along with cybersquatting are a major problem. Open DNS recently claimed that cyber squatters have become more active during the US election campaign.

Web security solutions company High-Tech Bridge is launching a new, free, online service that will allow anyone to instantly detect typosquatted, cybersquatted or phishing domains targeting their domain or brand name.

Feedbro is a versatile feed reading Chrome extension which keeps you up-to-date with RSS/ Atom/ RDF sources, blogs, Twitter, Instagram and more.

The extension is stand-alone, rather than being a front-end for a website, which means there’s no need to sign up, create accounts, log in or anything else.

If you regularly investigate raw databases, executables or other binary files then you might sometimes find "dates" that seem to be random numbers, like 12883423549317375.

This probably means the date is encoded, but there are many different formats, and no obvious way to detect which one has been used.

BlueLife KeyFreeze is a freeware Windows tool which can selectively lock your mouse and/ or keyboard, without hiding the screen.

This is ideal if you’re leaving your toddler to watch a cartoon on your laptop, for example– even if they decide to bash the keyboard or click the mouse, it won’t do any harm.

VirtualBox is a great tool for trying out some new Linux distro, but you’ll usually have to spend a while finding a download and setting up your VM and operating system, first.

OSBoxes.org makes life easier by providing 40+ prebuilt VirtualBox (VDI) and VMware images for Android x86, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD, Gentoo, Linux Mint, Remix OS, Ubuntu and many more.

Desktop screenshot tools support many capture types, and sometimes this includes taking an image of a full web page, even when it doesn't fit on the screen.

Sounds great, but it's extremely difficult for a third-party tool to make this happen consistently with all browsers and web pages, and often it just won’t work.

Let’s be frank: there are too many chat services in the world, and it can take a stack of background processes and open browser tabs to manage them all.

Franz is a free Windows, Mac and Linux application which makes your life easier by supporting them all.

UPDATE: Evernote has unveiled Evernote 6.0.4, a major update of its desktop client for Windows users.

The new release sees another user interface revamp, plus focuses on refining existing tools rather than introducing major new features. Version 6.0.4 opens with support for High DPI displays, and rolls out various improvements to the Assisted Search tool. This includes moving the Search bar to the top of the note list, providing more detailed descriptions of the search results and the extension of the tool to cover the user’s entire account, with options for expanding the search to include recently deleted notes as well as general refinements.

Windows 10 brought a host of overdue command line improvements -- like selection, resize and copy/ paste tools which actually work as you expect -- but there’s plenty of scope for more.

Terminal Wings extends the console further with Chrome-style tabs, new color and wallpaper options, transparency settings, "minimize to tray", and more.

ClickMonitorDDC is a tiny free tool which allows adjusting the brightness and contrast of DDC-compatible monitors (and that’s most of them, if you’re unsure).

You could do this anyway with the monitor buttons, maybe opening the Display Control Panel applet, but ClickMonitorDDC will often be much more convenient.

Hain is an open-source keyboard-oriented launcher, desktop search and productivity tool for 64-bit Windows.

The program is convenient to use. Unzip the download, run Hain.exe, it adds an icon to your system tray and pressing Alt+Space (customizable) launches the interface when required.

SoftMaker Software has released SoftMaker FreeOffice 2016, a brand new version of its office suite for Windows and Linux that’s free for both personal and commercial use.

The new release comes with the promise of improved performance as well as better compatibility with Microsoft Office documents. It also includes a number of new features and tweaks, confined largely to the suite’s presentation and spreadsheet components.