DOWNLOAD FREE SOFTWARE
1 WPS Office
Libreoffice ( www.libreoffice.org) is still one of our favourite free programs. But in 2018, as the line between PCS, tablets and phones continues to blur, we think you’ll need an office suite that you can use across all your devices and operating systems. WPS Office ( www.wps.com/office-free, see screenshot right) fits the bill. It’s a free office suite that looks and works much like modern versions of Microsoft Office, and runs on Windows, IOS and Android.
It gives you 1GB free online storage to share and sync files between your devices, though you can also use other services like Dropbox and Onedrive. Currently, this works with Windows and IOS only, but WPS has promised to make it available for Android users soon.
Free use of WPS Office is supported by adverts, but these are rarely intrusive and it’s a small price to pay for such a brilliant multi-device office suite.
2 Easeus Todo Backup Free and Google Backup and Sync
Crashplan ( www. crashplan.com), one of the best free backup tools, is closing its home-user services in October 2018 to refocus on business customers. This is a massive shame, because it provided a useful way to back up your files securely to an external hard drive, as well as to someone else’s computer over the internet, without having to pay a sausage. This meant you always had local (on your PC) and off-site (someone else’s computer or online) copies of your files. It’s a good way to protect yourself against ransomware, theft, fire, hardware failure - almost anything in fact, except a meteor strike.
Currently, there’s no direct free equivalent. Crashplan recommends switching to Carbonite ( www.carbonite. com), but this costs a minimum of £45 per year. Instead, you can use a combination of free tools to achieve a similar level of protection. We recommend using Easeus Todo Backup Free ( www.snipca.com/26368) for your local backups. Just make sure you untick the option to install any additional tools when you run the installer.
Crucially, Easeus Todo Backup Free supports file versioning, which keeps previous versions of saved files, giving you a lifeline if attacked by ransomware. Click File Backup, ‘Image-reserve strategy’, then tick ‘Enable image reserve strategy’ and enter the number of backups you want to preserve (‘4’ in the screenshot below left). For your off-site backup, we’d recommend using Backup and Sync ( www.snipca.com/26369), Google’s new, simple tool for syncing files with Google Drive. Also consider Veeam Agent (see page 58).
3 Mediamonkey
Microsoft’s Groove Music app leaves a lot to be desired. Its interface is simplistic, awkward to navigate and – amazingly – lacks even basic features, like the ability to rip music from CDS. Sadly, Microsoft shows no sign of improving it. In fact, on 31 December Microsoft will remove its musicstreaming features and online store. Launch Groove Music and you’ll see a warning telling you to download any purchases you’ve made before that date, or you’ll lose them forever.
There are many other, much better music players available, including Mediamonkey ( www.mediamonkey. com). Packed with features, it makes browsing your collection easy, and supports dozens of audio-file formats, as well as podcasts. You can also ask it to automatically add album cover art and lyrics to your files.
Mediamonkey doesn’t have its own built-in music store, but it can sync with your phone or tablet (a recent update makes it work with Android 8 and IOS 11). This means you can shop for tunes on your mobile device and transfer them easily to your PC.
4 Stellarium
In 2003 Mars came within 34.6 million miles of Earth, closer than at any time in nearly 60,000 years. In July 2018, it will get almost as close - just 35.8 million miles away. That’s all the excuse you should need to download the outstanding astronomy program Stellarium (see screenshot below), though the launch of Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe, also in July, sounds exciting (go to www.nasa.gov/ launch schedule and scroll down to the bottom).
To get Stellarium on your PC visit http://stellarium.org/en_gb and click your operating system at the top (the download will begin automatically). You’ll then be able to explore a 3D simulation of the night sky. Stellarium was recently updated, adding moons of Saturn, Uranus and Pluto.
5 Start Menu X
Sadly, it looks like one of our favourite free tools may well be heading for that big cloud server in the sky next year. The creators of Classic Shell recently decided to stop developing it after eight years, citing lack of time and Windows 10’s frequent updates as two of the main factors. Originally built to replace the sorely missed Start menu in Windows 8, Classic Shell had continued to be popular with Windows 10 users because of its option to restore a more traditional Start menu to the operating system, as well as providing many clever ways to tweak the interface.
The source code for the last version of Classic Shell – version 4.3.1 – has been posted online in the hope that someone may continue developing it. But, ultimately, if no further updates are made available, then Classic Shell will eventually become unsafe and may stop working when Windows 10 is next updated. Startisback+ ( http://startisback.com) and Start 10 ( www.snipca.com/26434) are both good replacements, but cost money. The best free option is probably Start Menu X ( www.startmenux.com, see screenshot above right), which doesn’t have as many features but lets you choose a ‘classic’ menu style and customise its look and feel.
6 Sandboxie
One of 2017’s most successful (for the bad guys) and shocking (for the rest of us) security scares was September’s Ccleaner hack, where malware was found in the popular Pc-cleaning tool. The infected update is thought to have been installed by more than 2.27 million users. That such a respectable tool could be infiltrated highlights how difficult it is to know which programs you can trust. Hackers aren’t stupid. They’ll always look for flaws in programs used by millions.
An extreme response is to never install software again, maybe encasing your computer in concrete just to be sure. A more reasonable reaction is to use Sandboxie ( www.snipca.com/26372). This ring-fences any programs you install, preventing them from harming your PC. Instead of running them as normal, right-click the program file or shortcut and select Run Sandboxed (see screenshot below left). Sandboxie is free to use, though after 30 days you’ll be occasionally pestered to buy a licence.
7 Foxit PDF Reader or Xodo
With little fanfare (probably hoping nobody would notice) Microsoft has revealed it will be retiring Reader, its Windows 10 PDF reader app, on 15 February 2018. The company’s somewhat unhelpful advice is to switch to using Microsoft Edge for reading PDFS. Edge has a handful of Pdf-friendly tricks up
its sleeve – you can annotate documents, for example – but it’s clearly no match for a dedicated PDF tool. Instead, you could go for Foxit Reader 9.0 ( www. foxitsoftware.com/pdf-reader), which has more features than Basil Brush has ‘boom booms’. These include new keyboard shortcuts (using just one key - no need to press the Windows key), and the Reflow Mode, which reformats the text in a PDF when you zoom in.
As a downloadable program, Foxit isn’t an exact like-for-like replacement for Microsoft’s desktop app. If that’s what you want, get the free Xodo PDF Reader & Editor from the Windows Store ( www. snipca.com/26370). Its annotation tool is very easy to use (see screenshot left).