WHAT WENT FREE IN 2016?

WHATSAPP www.whatsapp.com

Previously, new Whatsapp customers had been offered a year-long free trial and then had to pay 69p for each year thereafter. Last January, Whatsapp dropped that subscription fee, stating: “Many Whatsapp users don’t have a debit or credit card number and they worried they’d lose access to their friends and family after their first year” ( www.snipca.com/22809).

VOPT www.snipca.com/22818

This long-standing hard-drive defragger went free in February 2016 when its creator Barry Emerson died. Vopt is widely considered one of the best tools of its type due to its speed and how it can be configured to run as your PC boots. For more on how to use it see our Workshop in Issue 484 (Page 40). At the time of writing, its website ( www.vopt.com) is offline, but you can get the program by going to the URL above then clicking the Download@majorgeeks link on the right.

NIK COLLECTION www.google.com/nikcollection

Google’s Nik, which became free in March, is a collection of plug-ins that enhances photo editors such as Paint. net and Adobe Photoshop. It adds new lighting filters and image effects that you can use to manipulate your photos and get that perfect final image. See Issue 474, page 18 for instructions on using it. SOFTPERFECT FILE ACCESS MONITOR www.snipca.com/22820 Ever wondered if anyone’s been opening your files while your back was turned? File Access Monitor provides a detailed history of who read, wrote and manipulated the files on your PC so you’ll know who did what and when. As recently as October the program cost £122, but now it’s completely free. Turn to page 40 of Issue 490 for our easy-to-follow Workshop.

LASTPASS www.lastpass.com

The password manager had been free for a while, but you were limited to one device unless you paid $1 a month. In November that restriction was lifted and now you can use it to create and store passwords and share them across all your devices. Simply install and sign into Lastpass on any PC, tablet or phone you own.

INSTAPAPER PREMIUM www.instapaper.com

All Instapaper users were upgraded to Instapaper Premium free of charge in November, as will be any newcomers to the service. This means you no longer need to pay to search for text within articles and write unlimited notes. You also get ‘digests’ of up to 50 articles on your Kindle. See our Workshop in Issue 490, page 38.