Best Free Software
Faststone Image Viewer 6.6
Digital cameras and smartphones can now shoot hundreds of photos a minute and store umpteen gigabytes of video, so we’ve all become rather snap happy - and photo software has struggled to keep up. Most programs take a few seconds to display each JPEG as you cycle through the day’s snaps, then grind to a halt when you try moving video files around.
Faststone is a merciful exception. Its new version focuses on letting you handle photos, videos and folders as quickly as possible. Large ‘batch’ operations – that let you convert, move or rename multiple files in one go – are now significantly faster than in other photo-management software, including Adobe’s pricey Lightroom.
There are visible changes too, notably in the overhauled full-screen video player. The playback-control bar now hides automatically until you next move your mouse, similar to VLC. You can now set a video to play on a loop or play the next file automatically; use mouse gestures to fast-forward 10 seconds within a video or skip to the next video; and remember playback position. Meanwhile, in the program’s browser view, you’ll find a new ‘Specify date range’ field to help you control those unwieldy import sessions.
As ever, Faststone incorporates a nimble photo editor that lets you crop, resize and straighten photos; tag and watermark your images; adjust colour and exposure; create slideshows; configure print jobs, and even remove blemishes. You can’t yet edit videos, even though the video player contains editing buttons - a minor confusion that needs to be ironed out.
That aside, Faststone Image Viewer is a superb program that punches above its 16MB weight and free price tag. To get it, click the first ‘download’ button on the link above and then run the installer. It takes seconds and there’s no junk to dodge. In XP and Vista, click ‘download’ under ‘portable’.
QI’d like to send emails in total secrecy using my ipad. I’m aware of Whatsapp and Signal, but if I use these encrypted apps, how does my recipient decrypt my messages? Peter Hesketh
AYou can set your ipad’s built-in IOS Mail app to encrypt your emails, but the process is a headache. So we recommend using a special encrypted email app instead.
Protonmail ( https://protonmail.com, pictured), free for IOS, Android and the web, automatically secures all your emails using end-to-end encryption. They’re scrambled into unintelligible chunks of data as they’re sent, so no one, not even Protonmail, can read them. To decrypt one of your emails, all someone has to do is be your recipient – and open the email.
Do remember that once the email is decrypted, it’s potentially visible to all and sundry, so Protonmail lets you set messages to self-destruct after a certain length of time. The message vanishes completely, leaving no trace on any servers, and preventing your recipient sharing it deliberately or accidentally.
You’ll need to create a new ‘@protonmail.com’ address to use the service. Your recipient won’t, but messages sent to non-protonmail addresses self-destruct after 28 days by default (find out more: www.snipca.com/29312).
You might actually find it easier to use Whatsapp ( www.whatsapp.com), which works on IOS, Android, Windows and the web. It lets you send encrypted messages (plus attachments, and make voice and video calls), all for free. To decrypt your messages, all your recipient needs to do is use Whatsapp. The same goes for Signal ( https://signal.org), which is used by far fewer people than Whatsapp but does let you set your encrypted messages to self-destruct. Signal is free for all major platforms.