What's New

Microsoft is really pushing it with new builds for its Windows 10 operating system. The company released build 14971 to the Fast Ring Insider channel yesterday.

The last couple of builds have not been all that exciting in regards to new features. In fact, some introduced bugs, like the weird one that some apps, like Photos, Store or People, launch automatically after some inactivity, have still not been fixed in this build.

Halotea Free is a relaxing sounds program for Microsoft Windows that ships with a variety of nature and other relaxation sounds and themes.

The program's interface looks a bit like it is stuck in the 90s, but that should not keep you from exploring what it has to offer.

The program displays so-called themes in a sidebar on the left. A theme consists of one or multiple sounds that are played together when the theme is selected.

EncryptedRegView is a free portable program for Microsoft Windows operating systems that reveals encrypted data in the Registry.

The program is another Nirsoft application which means that you can run it from any location without installation. All you need to do is download the archive -- a version for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows is provided -- and extract it afterwards to the local system.

You may use the program to scan the local Registry for encrypted data, or point it to a Registry file in another location instead.

If you are using Windows 10 on a touch device, like a Surface 4 Pro for instance, then you may have noticed that the on-screen keyboard hides the taskbar whenever it is launched.

While this may not be a big deal at times, as you may hide the keyboard once you are finished typing, it may at other times be somewhat of an annoyance.

You cannot use the taskbar while the on-screen keyboard is open on the screen.

The last couple of weeks have not been good to Nvidia. The company released a new driver with the version 375.57 in late October that caused major issues especially on Windows 10 devices. This issue got patched relatively quickly though.

It appears that Nvidia's latest driver, version 375.86 is also causing issues for users who have updated  it on their systems since release.

Google announced yesterday that it switched the algorithm that powers its Google Translate service to Neural Machine Translations for eight language pairs, promising that more will follow over time.

Malwarebytes, maker of the popular Anti-Malware application for Windows,released a first beta version of Malwarebytes Premium 3.0 for the operating system.

Malwarebytes Premium is a new product that combines the company's Anti-Malware, Anti-Exploit and Anti-Ransomware products in a single package.

The product comes at a cost of $39.99 per computer per year. As a comparison, both Anti-Malware and Anti-Exploit are available for $24.95 per year while Anti-Ransomware is offered as a beta currently only.

Windows Tweaker is a software program for Microsoft Windows devices that you can use to fine tune various features of the operating system.

The open source program is compatible with all supported versions of Windows starting with Windows Vista and up to Windows 8.1. While Windows 10 is not mentioned, most of the tweaks work fine on the newest version of Windows as well.

While there are plenty of tweak apps out there for Windows, there is always room for one more especially if it does not just rehash what other programs already offer.

Open Hardware Monitor 0.8 is the newest version of the popular computer hardware program for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows devices.

A jump to version 0.8 is usually not something that we write about unless new features or changed are introduced that make the news interesting to the majority of readers here on this site.

What makes the release of Open Hardware Monitor 0.8 interesting is the fact that it is the first release in over two years.

Microsoft has just released preview patches for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 which interested users and administrators can download for preview testing before they are pushed out via Windows Update on the second Tuesday of December.

The company changed how updates are made available for Windows 7 and 8.1 systems recently; it switched from releasing individual updates for issues to so-called rollups which include all patches released for a given month.

Lossless Cut is a free portable cross-platform program that enables you to cut videos in an easy to use interface without quality reductions.

The program is quite the heavyweight when you consider its archive size of 80 Megabytes, but it ships with all components included that you may need to cut a video file.

The interface has been streamlined which means that it is dead easy to use. Drop a video file on the interface, select start and end positions for the cut, and click on the cut button afterwards to cut it.

FileZilla Secure FTP Client is a fork of the popular ftp program for Windows and other devices that improves security by adding master password support.

FileZilla is a great cross-platform FTP client that is offered as a client and server version. The software is open source, and provides you with an impressive set of features.

The program supports more than just FTP though, as you can use it for FTPS and SFTP on top of that as well.

Mozilla Firefox 50.0 was released on November 15, 2016. Mozilla postponed the release of the new stable version of the Firefox web browser to ship it with noticeable startup improvements.

Note: if you are reading this article on November 15, 2016: Mozilla will release Firefox 50.0 today. It is already available on the FTP, but the roll out of the update may not have happened yet.

Firefox will block the automatic audio playback of content in non-active tabs starting with version 51 of the web browser.

There are two types of background audio in browsers: first audio playback initiated by the user, for instance by starting playback on a site and then switching to another tab. Second, audio playback that starts to play in the background without user interaction.

Dot11expert is a WLAN troubleshooting tool for Windows devices that displays detailed information about adapters, networks, access points and other wireless networking related information.

Information that the program displays is useful for troubleshooting, but also for getting an overview of available access points and connections.

You can start the program right after you have downloaded its package and extracted it to a location on your device.

Wireless information is sorted into adapter, network and access point groups in the interface.