Free Software

It’s easy to browse the images on a Twitter account. Saving them is more of a challenge. Even the right-click menu may not have a "Save Image As" option.

DhIMG Twitter is a tiny free tool for Windows which avoids all these hassles by directly downloading the images (but not the videos) for a named account.

Acronis has unveiled the first public beta of Acronis True Image 2016 for Windows XP+ and Mac.

The headline addition this time is continuous mobile cloud backup for up to 10 iOS or Android devices.

NTFS permissions are a great way to control exactly what users can access on your system, at least in theory. So it’s a shame that their standard Windows interface is so complex and tedious, yet still doesn’t give you access to all the features you might need,

NTFS Permissions Tools is a free portable utility which makes it easier to perform some common security tasks, and adds a few expert-level bonus features as well.

Digital comics often arrive in comic book archive files, with extensions like cbz, cbr, cbt, cb7 or cba. These aren’t commonly used outside the comic world and it may not be immediately obvious how to view them. Fortunately, it’s quite easy, and you might be able to do it right away. These are just regular archives and something like 7-Zip can extract their contents just like anything else (right-click > 7-Zip > Extract…). Every page will be saved as a separate image. If that doesn’t work, rename the file to have its standard archive extension -- cbz > zip, cbr > rar, cbt > tar, cb7 > 7z, cba > ace -- and try again.

Another option is to convert the comic into something that’s more commonly supported. CBR and CBZ to PDF is a simple free example which does exactly what its name suggests, TEBookConverter takes the idea further with a host of extra eBook formats. Of course if you’re a real comic fan then it’s far better to install a suitable viewer, and there are plenty of capable free options available.

The promise of surface computing for businesses seems to have been around for ages, remember all those cool videos of interactive coffee tables and screens from around three years ago? Yet so far there hasn't been a great deal of practical application.

That could be about to change as Microsoft makes its Surface Hub available for businesses to order in 24 markets -- including Australia, North America, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the UK -- from July 1.

Capture.NET started life more than ten years ago as a simple screen capture tool. But then the developer began to expand it, with a clock, timer, calendar tools, text notes, program launcher, magnifier, screen ruler, backup tool and more.

That’s not bad, especially as the end result is portable, ultra-lightweight (a single 1.4MB executable) and free for personal use. But can this kind of all-in-one tool really replace more specialist programs? We took a look.

Bandisoft has unveiled Honeycam, a versatile animated GIF creator for Windows available in both a commercial ($26) and a limited free version.

The program includes an easy-to-use screen recorder. Place a rectangle around the area you’d like to record -- like a video player -- and you can capture up to 10 seconds of activity with the free build, 30 for the full version.

Reinstalling Windows is tedious, especially if you need to do it on a regular basis. It’s not just a matter of grinding your way through Windows Setup, it’s everything you have to do afterwards to set the system up properly.

NTLite can save you a stack of time by allowing you to build your own Windows 7/ 8/ 8.1/ 10 custom setup disc, which leaves out the Windows components you don’t need, installs the drivers or service packs you do, and generally sets up the PC to suit your needs.

Scripts, applets, analytics and ads: the web has a wide range of content which might compromize your privacy. And normally there’s not a great deal you can do about it.

Policeman is a Firefox add-on which helps you fight back, by giving complete control over which content you’d like to access, and which should be blocked.

There are many ways to share a link with someone: Twitter, Facebook, IM, email and more.

But if your friend is close by then you could just broadcast it via specially encoded audio tones.

If you've used one or two video slideshow builders then you'll know they tend to work in a very similar way. Open a set of pictures or videos; drag or drop to rearrange them; optionally add transitions, titles or a soundtrack, then export the results as a movie.

Install the free ffDiaporama, and you might start in much the same way. The results aren't bad, either, with a reasonable set of transitions and plenty of video export options (MP4, FLV, 3GP, AVI, MKV, MPEG, WEBM, OGV).

Mozilla has unveiled Firefox 38.0.5 FINAL for desktop and Firefox 38.0.5 for Android, the second time the browser has released a major interim update since switching to a rapid-release cycle back in 2013.

The new desktop build contains three major items of interest: a new Reader View, integration with the Pocket offline reading service, and improvements to Firefox’s Hello chat tool.

The standard Windows Ping and Traceroute tools are capable enough, but their console interface is, well, basic, and GUI versions aren’t necessarily much better. All too often you’ll need to wade through tables to find the data you need.

PingPlotter Free makes life easier by taking a graphical view of network performance, giving all the essential core data at a glance.

ERightSoft’s veteran encoder SUPER has been updated to build 65 with new support for playing and encoding HEVC/H.265 4K video streams.

There’s no extra work involved to make this happen. Just choose an Output Video Codec as usual, and HEVC/H.265 appears in the "may not play on QuickTime" list for any appropriate container.

You’ve found a strange file. Maybe it has no extension. Perhaps it’s an unexpected email attachment. Could it be malware? You’d like to see what it contains. Sounds like a case for Binary Viewer.

This free program is a tiny download, with no installation required, and if you’ve ever used a hex editor you’ll immediately feel at home. Open your target file, it’s displayed in the usual Hex/ ASCII views, and you can browse the contents as required.