Articles about Software

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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Earlier today we wrote about the sudden appearance of a new LibreOffice app in the Microsoft Store. There were a couple of peculiarities about the app -- not only was it made by an unknown developer, but it came with a price tag.

Now The Document Foundation -- the organization behind the LibreOffice office suite -- has spoken up to say that the app is not official and to point out that it is not getting any money from it.

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According to a new study, 80 percent of IT decision makers and IT security professionals believe software supply chain attacks have the potential to become one of the biggest cyber threats over the next three years.

The survey by Vanson Bourne for endpoint security company CrowdStrike  finds two-thirds of the surveyed organizations experienced a software supply chain attack in the past 12 months.

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British firm Micro Focus International is selling its open source SUSE software to the Swedish group EQT Partners. The $2.535 billion deal boosted shares by 6 percent.

SUSE Linux has been in the hands of Micro Focus International since 2014 and it has been running it as a largely independent division, competing directly with the likes of Ubuntu and Red Hat. The acquisition by EQT Partners means that more developers and engineers will be hired to work on the product.

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Almost four years after the last major release, German developer Ashampoo has unveiled Photo Optimizer 7 for PCs running Windows 7 or later. The commercial tool offers a variety of quick and easy fixes, including various one-click optimizations tools.

Highlights include a complete user interface redesign -- including new dark theme look to accompany the growing number of apps sporting the eye-friendly look, "greatly improved" optimization tools and various other tweaks and improvements.

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Protecting your personal information has made big headlines in 2018, and will continue to do so as hackers continue to outwit even the biggest firms. This is what makes our new software giveaway so essential: a year’s license for Sticky Password Premium.

Sticky Password is a suite of products for mobile and desktop that allow you to store your online passwords, form fills and credit card information securely -- our giveaway will give you access to all its Premium features across all supported devices, including Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

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Everybody needs a backup -- with ransomware added to the list of threats to your data, now is the perfect time to take full advantage of our first BetaNews full software giveaway: O&O DiskImage 11 Professional, worth $49.95, this Thursday (June 7).

What makes O&O DiskImage 11 special is that it enables you to back up both individual files and folders as well as take a full drive image, so you can protect key data alongside your fail-safe drive image covering your entire Windows installation -- all from one application.
The program is simple to use -- the main user interface is a series of tabs allowing you to jump between different parts of the program, while a start screen makes it easy to get started with taking a drive image or choosing which folders to back up.

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In his weekly message to the Linux community on Sunday, Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 4.17. The release comes a couple of months after the first release candidate, and in his message Torvalds also talks about version 5.0 of the Linux kernel.

Having previously said that Linux kernel v5.0 "should be meaningless", he said that this next major numerical milestone will come around "in the not too distance future". For now, though, it's version 4.17 -- or Merciless Moray, if you prefer -- that's of interest.

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WinStep Software Technologies has updated its flagship products, WinStep Nexus Dock and WinStep Extreme, to version 18.5. Despite the point release, WinStep is billing this as a "massive release".

Docks are now accessible through NextSTART while the Media Player’s internal command gains enhanced features for unobtrusive music playback. There are also numerous improvements and features added to the Nexus Dock component.

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