Articles about Software

Vine may have closed down a couple of years ago, but it has certainly not been forgotten. There has been eager anticipation of its replacement, and disappointment when this was delayed earlier in the year.

Originally said to be named V2, the successor to Vine has now been revealed to be called Byte. Vine co-creator Dom Hofmann made the revelation on Twitter, adding that Byte is due to launch in the first half of 2019.

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We’re constantly reminding users to backup their data. It’s not until you hear of a severe malware attack, where a business is being ransomed over their important documents, do you realize you wish you’d stored securely them in another location.

And that’s the important point of backing up your data. It offers an additional safeguard. In the case of ransomware, the easiest solution is to simply wipe your drive and restore a cloned version of your system and you’d be back up and running within minutes.

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Improving your system productivity is essential for getting work done more swiftly. With this in mind, many of us turn to all-in-one maintenance tools so we can optimise our computer, clean junk and fully remove installed applications. It’s just easier to own one tool to perform all your key tasks.

Parallels recently launched Toolbox for Mac which offered a number of system tools from a handy drop-down menu. Frankly, when the first Toolbox was released, it offered little more than what was already available in macOS. You could quickly take a screengrab, record your screen, create an archive and more.

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Microsoft has embraced Linux more and more over the years, and the latest demonstration of this is the company's decision to port the free Sysinternals utilities to work on the platform.

The first tool to make its way to Linux is ProcDump, which can be used to create crash dumps. While not as feature-rich as the Windows version, the Linux port is still a valuable tool. And, importantly, there are more Systinternals tools making their way to Linux.

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Adlice Software has released RogueKiller Anti-Malware 13.0.3 alongside RogueKiller Portable 13.0.3 and RogueKillerCMD 13.0.3, a major new release of its anti-malware protection tool.

RogueKiller, which comes as a cut-down free scan-and-removal tool as well as a paid-for version offering additional features such as CLI support and automatic updates, unveils several new scanners, an overhauled scan engine and redesigned user interface, with several advanced tools and features stripped out and moved to a separate application.

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WinStep Software Technologies has announced a $5-10 price rise across its entire range, the first since the company launched in 1999. This follows on from the company’s recent updates to its flagship products with the releases of WinStep Nexus 18.10 and WinStep Xtreme 18.10.

Despite the point release, version 18.10 unveils another raft of significant tweaks and updates, including the unveiling of a new Office theme for productivity-focused desktops.

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Security developer Avira has released Avira Internet Security Suite 2019, a brand new version of its flagship security tool for Windows.

Version 2019 brings together all the vendor’s tools under one roof, and adds one new component to the mix: Password Manager. This comes with a Security Status feature that will alert users to global account, website and password breaches.

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We’ve worked for years with potential eye strain and it’s only recently we’re taking it seriously. The first step was Apple adding a warmer edge to the desktop panel, so by the end of the day you wouldn’t be looking at an LCD displaying sharp blue light.

Mojave introduced Dynamic Desktop, which will transition your wallpaper, so it matches both the time of day, your location and the ever-changing sunrise/sunset. Dynamic Desktop will show a bright wallpaper middle of the day, but by 10pm you’ll be seeing a nighttime scene.

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Using a virtual operating system has its merits.  For developers, it’s the ideal tool for sandboxing your computer so you can test software for bugs before it’s released to beta testing. You can also install your software across a range of operating systems for compatibility.

As a consumer, there are valid reasons why you may want to consider a virtual system. You may need to use a Windows computer for work but would like to experiment with a Linux installation. A virtual OS enables you to test new bleeding-edge software or tools where you are wary of the source. Problem? Simply revert back to a previous snapshot.

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Plex continues to evolve, and the latest addition to the media player is the ability to download subtitles from within the software. This will come as great news for anyone who has battled with subtitle websites, and greatly simplifies the process of adding them to your media collection.

But as well as adding this option, Plex has also announced that it is sunsetting three features -- namely Watch Later, Cloud Sync and (perhaps surprisingly) support for plugins.

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It wasn’t so long ago, you bought a brand new computer, installed your favorite applications, only to find a few months later it was clearly operating more sluggishly.

There were various reasons for this, but the primary reason was a defragmented hard drive. The more you write data to the drive, the more scattered the contents and the physical head spent far longer retrieving the data. We know people who would systematically simply wipe their drive and start again just to regain the speed of their original PC.

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We handle a lot of support inquiries and one of the most common questions is how do people fully remove installed software, especially a security suite.

Problem is, most people do not realize that the software is often in use when they start their computer. This makes it really tricky for Windows to fully remove in-use software from your PC. In theory, next time you boot the uninstall process should continue and remove the rest of the application, but this often fails to execute.

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Who do you trust in 2018? We often get asked for our security recommendations and it’s a struggle to come up with a definitive answer. We won’t go in to detail in public, but there are reasons why we might avoid recommending a well-known security suite and it’s not just due to recent issues involving potential backdoors either.

There is a general consensus that you can trust solid German engineering (VW/Audi issues emissions issues aside) and this same theory should apply to security software. You know your data is secure, your privacy intact and it will perform a solid job looking after your PC.

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Acronis has launched Acronis True Image 2019 for Windows and Mac, a major new release of its popular local and cloud backup tool.

The 2019 version is dubbed the 15-year Anniversary Edition, celebrating the milestone release. New features added include a dedicated survival toolkit, ability to manually clean backup files and widened anti-ransomware protection.

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Although some of us are keen Mac users, most of our work is produced for the Windows operating system. We manage to achieve this via Parallels running on an iMac or MacBook Pro and, frankly, it’s so fast you really do not need to run Bootcamp.

It never used to be this way. Back in the late 90s, when Apple still used PPC chips, Windows emulation was dire. Beyond dire. Almost unusable. Even for basic tasks. It made far more sense to use Bootcamp when it was released, even after the migration to the Intel chips, if you needed native-like performance for using Windows. Luckily, not now.

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