Articles about Software

The number of software vulnerabilities has increased over the last year, but the majority of them are in non-Microsoft products.

This is a key finding of the latest Vulnerability Review from Flexera Software, which in 2015 recorded 6,081 vulnerabilities in 2,484 products from 263 vendors. This compares to 2014's figures of 15,698 vulnerabilities in 3,907 products from 514 vendors.

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According to Google's Consumer Barometer Report 53 percent of people compare products, prices and features online before buying.

This is even more true of B2B buyers, with 89 percent saying they use the web as part of their research process.

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Smart PC Utilities has shipped Game Fire 5, the latest edition of its PC gaming performance booster.

This release brings official support for Windows 10 -- both 32 and 64-bit editions -- but finally sees Windows XP support dropped.
A new optimization engine can examine and tweak even more components, including services, processes, scheduled tasks and Registry settings (only some of these are available in the free build).

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The slogan "there is no cloud, it’s just someone else’s computer", accompanied by an image of a worried looking cloud, has been doing the rounds for some time now. It’s overly simplistic but it neatly sums up the mistrust that some computer users have about cloud technology.

The inference being that people who trust the cloud and believe the hype are in some way naïve. The extension of which is that, if you’re giving your data to someone else, how can you be sure it’s safe? This is why cloud security needs to be part of the software development lifecycle.

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Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) involves the virtualization of all hardware resources, combined with elastic scaling and management automation, server virtualization is usually the starting point for SDI, but additional approaches have emerged in recent years, including software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined storage (SDS).

Whatever the route taken SDI is growing in popularity. According to the latest data from 451 Research, 67 percent of enterprises will increase their SDI spending this year.

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Standard Windows uninstallers often leave your PC cluttered with unwanted files, orphaned Registry keys and assorted other leftovers. You could try to avoid this issue with a third-party uninstaller, which scans your system to find and remove everything the regular uninstaller has missed. There’s just one problem. How do you know your uninstaller works? Is it really as thorough as it claims, or could it be missing important files or Registry keys, too?

We decided to find out, by building our own test application. Something that would install various files, folders and Registry keys in known, common locations, making it easier to evaluate uninstaller performance later.

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Rogue Amoeba has released Airfoil for Windows 5.0 and Airfoil for Mac 5.0, a major new version of its tool for streaming audio from computers to supported networked devices, including AirPlay hardware such as Apple TV and AirPort Express.

Version 5 adds support for Bluetooth devices, plus introduces a new free tool -- Airfoil Satellite -- that turns other PCs, Macs and iOS devices into clients for the main Airfoil tool.

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A security specialist has discovered a flaw in Sparkle, a third-party framework that Mac apps use to receive updates, which makes a man in the middle attack possible when unencrypted HTTP connections are used.

If the attacker has the ability to intercept the unencrypted data stream for example on a public Wi-Fi hotspot they could possibly inject malicious code.

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Likely just about everyone has installed software from SourceForge at some point in their computing history. In 2013, the software repository enabled a feature called DevShare which developers could opt-in to. This wrapped developer software in SourceForge’s own installer, which also, unfortunately, came with bundled junk  -- something many users might breeze right past during an installation.

But last month Sourceforge, along with Slashdot, was sold to BIZX and some changes are going to take place under the new ownership, and that means no more DevShare.

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ConeXware has released PowerArchiver 2016, a major new release of its trialware archiving tool for Windows. The new release is the first version of the program to be developed using IDE, a process that began over two years ago.

Version 2016 adds 4K resolution and touch-screen support, a major new user interface and the splitting of key features into separate, fully independent apps.

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Iterate GmBh has shipped Mountain Duck 1.0, a smart tool which mounts remote volumes as local drives in Windows Explorer and the Mac’s Finder.

Based on the developer’s Cyberduck technology, Mountain Duck connects to FTP and SFTP servers, WebDAV, Amazon S3, Azure and OpenStack Swift storage.

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No matter how much money your company spends on software, it’s likely to spend less if your boss reads this article.

A new survey by American software company Flexera Software suggests that most companies are wasting their software budget, and the software they buy is often either underused or overused.

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Password management provider Dashlane has unveiled Dashlane 4.0 for Windows and Mac alongside Dashlane for iOS 4.0 and Dashlane for Android 4.0. The new release -- available in free and a paid-for Premium package -- shows off a brand new interface.

The new design -- which Dashlane claims has been "enhanced and optimized for convenience" shows off menu upgrades, improved search, wider support for its automatic password changer tool and support for five more languages.

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Continuum is one of the novel features that Microsoft has baked into Windows 10 Mobile. This enables users to essentially turn their smartphone into a more basic PC, using a Display Dock to connect the usual pieces of hardware -- a mouse, keyboard and monitor.

I say "more basic" because the device is severely limited in the number of apps it can display at the same time, as well as the type of apps that it can run: proper Windows software is out of the question with current hardware, only apps designed for Windows 10 Mobile are supported. But, now that Microsoft has introduced Continuum support in the Remote Desktop client preview, this feature is much more useful, and offers a more compelling argument for giving Windows 10 Mobile a chance.

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AgileBits has released 1Password for Mac 6 a major new update for its Mac password manager client. The app, which works in conjunction with 1Password for iOS 6.2 as well Windows and Android apps, features a number of new and improved features.

The new release kicks off with a brand new All Vaults view. It enables users to view all items in both the main app and 1Password mini view without having to move between vaults.

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