Articles about Free Software

Microsoft has been working on a new security tool for a while now and today announces a preview build for Windows Insiders to try out, although there are some restrictions to be aware of.

The Microsoft Defender app, which is available for Windows, Android, and iOS, helps protect you and your family’s data and devices against online threats, such as malware and phishing attacks.

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Italian developer Incomedia has released its first major point release to the Website X5 2022 line.

Both Website X5 Pro 2022.1 Pro and its cut-down sibling Website X5 Pro 2022.1 Evo introduce a new personal branding tool for individuals and businesses as well as support for integrating PayPal’s Buy Now Pay Later feature into their websites’ ecommerce stores.

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Blue-screen errors can be the hardest ones of all for Windows users to troubleshoot. Usually there’s a low-lying problem -- kernel or driver corruption, or even hardware failure. But how do you go about diagnosing the problem and finding the cure?

WhoCrashed is a tool designed to help you interpret these crashes, and with the release of WhoCrashed 7.0 Home Edition, this powerful diagnostics tool just got a lot better.

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PowerToys was an essential tweaking tool for Windows 95 onwards. Microsoft brought it back as an open source release for Windows 10 three years ago, and has been bolting on additional tools ever since. If you use Windows 10 or Windows 11, then it’s definitely worth a download.

If you used the original PowerToys, then the chances are you used Tweak UI. In fact, that might have been the only tool of the suite you did use as it let you modify many of Windows’ lesser known settings without the need to hack the registry. Although today’s version of PowerToys is great, it doesn’t include a modern take on Tweak UI. In fact that tool hasn’t been seen since Windows XP.

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Just over two months after unveiling its landmark 5.0 release, Vivaldi 5.1 arrives on desktop and Android with more new features.

Version 5.1 highlights two major desktop improvements -- the introduction of horizontal tab scrolling using the mouse, plus a built-in Reading List feature. Android users benefit from better performance under heavy loads and more Theme color options.

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The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 7.3, the third major point release for its open-source, cross-platform office suite. Accompanied by the tag line, "More performance, more compatibility", the release boasts several noteworthy new features.

The key focus of this new release is better interoperability with Microsoft Office documents.

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There is an updated version of CCleaner for Mac available, complete with some major improvements and additions which help to make this essential optimization tool even more useful. There are Free and Professional versions of the software to choose from, and both have undergone major developments.

Both editions of CCleaner for Mac 2 feature an updated tool for analyzing hard drives and determining which files and apps can be safely removed to free up space. There is also an enhanced browser cleaning option to help improve your privacy, and the Professional version includes amazing new tools for cleaning out poor quality and duplicate photos.

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Rambox LLC has started the New Year by relaunching its workspace consolidation tool with the release of Rambox 2.0. Available on Windows, macOS and Linux, the new app combines paid-for and free tiers within a single program for the first time.

Rambox originally launched in 2016 as an open-source beta under a 'Community Edition' banner. In 2018, a paid-for Pro version with additional functionality was added, and now Rambox has combined the two in a single program with both free and paid-for tiers.

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Open-source painting app Krita 5.0 has been released, almost four years since the 4.x branch first saw the light of day.

The cross-platform app, available for Windows, macOS and Linux, promises vastly improved performance, better gradients, a rewritten smudge brush engine and an overhauled animation system among other things.

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For anyone making the switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11, there is quite a lot to learn, as well as a reasonable amount of stuff to unlearn. And for anyone venturing out into computing for the first time, or people making the switch from macoS or Linux to Windows, there even more to consider!

ThisIsWin11 is a free portable app that serves several purposes, one of which is introducing some of the key features of Windows 11. The app started life as a simple project to help people to become familiar with the latest version of Windows, but it has expanded to be a tweaking tool as well. And the latest incarnation introduces a completely new look.

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Hard drives may be larger and cheaper than ever, but that's no reason to fill them up with things we don't need. While you may be in the habit of uninstalling software that has outlived its use, when it comes to Windows itself there are probably many elements you not only don't use, but don't know how to get rid of.

And this is where O&O AppBuster can help. Newly updated to support Windows 11, this portable app provides an easy way to remove not only the software you have manually installed, but also the pre-installed components of Windows. In addition to supporting Windows 11, this latest version adds new features and updates the look and feel.

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The world’s most customizable browser just got a major update. Vivaldi 5.0 arrives on desktop and Android with a host of new features.

Desktop users get a brand-new Themes editor, with the ability to share custom themes with others easily, while two-level tab stacks have been added to the Android build.

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The internet remains a dangerous place to inhabit; if anything, the risks presented by viruses and other forms of malware are greater than ever. While Windows includes the Defender tool to help keep you safe, it does not offer complete protection, and this is where the newly updated IObit Malware Fighter 9.0 can help you out.

This latest version features full support for Windows 11 and an expanded protection database. IObit, however, points out that this is not just a case of "blindly increasing" the size of the database, but also optimizing it by tidying up invalid and out-of-date entries.

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We all know the importance of backing up our data, and by far the simplest way to ensure that everything is safeguarded is to create system images that back up everything at once. You could buy expensive software to do this, or you could use the newly updated Macrium Reflect 8 Free.

This powerful backup tool is free for home usage and can be used to create images of Windows systems -- even when they are running. The latest version of the free edition of this software includes a number of improvements and enhancements, starting off with the ability to create WinPE 11-base rescue media which uses the Windows 11 kernel.

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Windows 11 is here! It’s shiny, it’s new, it’s streamlined, it’s -- er -- missing some favorite features. If you’ve discovered that the new Start menu is more stop than start, and yearn for something old and familiar, then the good news is that there are options -- both paid-for and free -- to fill the gap.

Chief among these comes from renowned Windows developer Stardock. It’s just officially released Start11 v1.0. The bad news is that it’s no longer free to use now it's out of beta, but you can at least give it a trial run before deciding if $5.99 is a fair price to pay for it.

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