Free Software

Every time you run a Microsoft Office application it'll also launch a host of add-ins, which are often almost entirely useless -- and you might not even know you’ve installed.

These extensions can be viewed and managed from within each Office app, but if you'd just like a quick overview then it’s much easier to use NirSoft’s classic OfficeIns.

Image steganography is a clever technique for hiding files inside JPEGs, so that the contents appear unchanged, but anyone who knows the secret can easily extract its contents.

Free File Camouflage isn’t so clever -- in fact, it uses the most basic approach we’ve ever seen -- but there are still a few reasons why you might want to give it a try.

If you need to transcribe a media file then you could just open it, click Play, launch Notepad and start typing.

That’ll work well, too, for about five seconds, until you have to start hitting Play/ Pause, stepping backwards or forwards, and generally spending more time switching between the apps than transcribing.

It’s easy enough to size or position windows with the mouse, but keyboard shortcuts can be quicker and more convenient.

On Windows 7 and later, pressing Win+Left or Win+Right snaps the current window to the left or right half of the screen.

When we first looked at Bulk Crap Uninstaller (BCU) back in April, it was a simple free tool which did little more than uninstall multiple Windows programs in one operation.

Intensive development means that’s all changed, though, and BCU is now a very capable manager and uninstaller for all your Windows software.

Powerful open-source screenshot tool ShareX has been updated to 10.3 with new scrolling support, enabling the capture of full web pages or anything else larger than your screen.

The technique works much like many similar tools: select the "Scrolling capture" type, choose the window and wait as ShareX grabs it for you.

AVG has announced updates for its consumer product range, including AVG Protection and AVG Performance.

All editions of AVG AntiVirus -- including AVG FREE -- use new cloud detection technology to spot malware outbreaks in real time.

Many businesses are put off making use of big data by the costs and complexity of the software and infrastructure involved.

Enterprise data management specialist Solix Technologies is aiming to break down this barrier by making the Standard Edition of its Solix Big Data Suite available free of charge.

With so many productivity apps around, time management should be easy. But the reality can be very different, as key areas of your life -- email, calendar, lists -- are often split across several tools.

Handle is a free Chrome extension and iOS app which takes a different approach, combining gMail, to-dos and your calendar in a single view.

The latest version of OS X -- El Capitan -- is just days away now, and the excitement is building. But before you plunge in and install it, what happens if something goes horribly wrong with the new install? You might be able to roll things back with Time Machine, but Belight Software has an alternative.

Belight wants you to start using its three-pronged backup solution Get Backup Pro instead -- and to tempt you into switching, it’s offering a free license for the Pro version, worth $19.95 -- but hurry, you’ve only got around 48 hours left to grab it!

Smart PC Utilities has released PC Tasks Optimizer, a quick and easy way to manage your core Windows scheduled tasks.

There’s no technical talk about "events" or "triggers", as instead the program just displays a list of statements about how you use your computer: "I do not connect any devices via Bluetooth", "I do not use Microsoft Active Directory", "I do not want Windows to routinely defrag my hard disk", "I do not share my media library", "I have disabled Windows Remote Assistance", and a whole lot more.

Piriform Software has released CCleaner 5.10 and CCleaner 5.10 Portable for Windows PCs, along with CCleaner for Mac 1.10.

Both builds focus on browser improvements, while PC users gain faster start-up times and improvements to the program’s support for window and DPI resizing.

SecurityXPloded has shipped Windows Spy Keylogger, a simple PC activity monitor for Windows XP and later.

The package is very easy to use, launching on demand or when Windows starts, and recording any keypresses to a log file in a configurable location.

Microsoft’s Garage division has released Snip, a simple tool for capturing, annotating and sharing screenshots.

There are plenty of similar tools around, and Snip doesn’t begin to compete with the best of breed freeware, but it still has a few features you might find very interesting.

IObit has released IObit Driver Booster 3, the latest edition of its one-stop driver updater for Windows XP and later.

A larger database -- 200,000 drivers and counting -- means the program can handle even more hardware.