Download of the Week

Rufus 4.8 now uses wimlib for all WIM image operations, significantly accelerating tasks such as image analysis when opening Windows ISOs and creating Windows To Go drives. The update also addresses FAT32 file size limitations by automatically splitting files larger than 4 GB.

Playnite is a free, open-source game library manager and launcher for Windows. It consolidates games from various platforms, such as Steam, Epic, GOG, Origin, Battle.net, and emulators into a single, unified interface.

Joplin is a free, open-source note-taking app that supports end-to-end encryption, letting you securely create and sync notes across all your devices. The latest version improves accessibility, adds voice typing, and features a redesigned "New Note" menu.

Heroic is a free, open-source game launcher that allows you to play games from the Epic Store and GOG on Linux, Windows, and macOS – without needing the official launchers. It includes a built-in version of Wine to run Windows games on non-Windows systems.

RawTherapee is a powerful and free RAW photo editor, offering a compelling alternative to Adobe Lightroom. It features an advanced suite of tools designed to help users produce stunning images. While its interface may seem complex at first, RawTherapee is a favorite among photography enthusiasts and pros.

Unreal Engine 5.6 brings significant upgrades that empower developers to create high-fidelity open worlds. Key enhancements include smoother 60 FPS gameplay, optimized Lumen global illumination, a new fast geometry streaming plugin, upgraded animation tools, and full in-engine MetaHuman creation.

The latest update to the Nvidia app introduces support for light/dark modes, and Windows Narrator support, allowing on-screen content to be read aloud. The update also brings optimal settings for 12 new titles, including Clair Obscur, Oblivion Remastered, Elden Ring: Nightreign, GTA V Enhanced, and Half-Life 2 RTX.

While the Snipping Tool has improved over time and remains a simple option, ShareX is a more powerful screen capture utility, ideal if you need more advanced features like screen recording, OCR functionality, and, as of version 17, QR code scanning support.

To mark its 10th anniversary and a milestone of over 1 billion users, Google Photos has received a revamped photo editor, adding more AI editing suggestions and enabling instant album sharing through QR codes.

WhatsApp has finally launched a dedicated version for iPads, featuring video and audio calls with up to 32 participants, iPadOS multitasking, and more. The app also supports the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil.

Miss the satisfying clack of Space Cadet Pinball? The iconic 3D Pinball game bundled with Windows 95 through XP is back, now on Android. This port is the result of a reverse-engineered open-source project, and it's completely free with no ads.

Space Sniffer is one of our favorite Windows disk space analyzers. It's recently received an overhaul for improved graphics, code stability, x64 support, and more improvements.

FxSound is a free, open source audio booster with automatic corrections to increase volume without sacrificing quality. The latest beta introduces several improvements, including support for Windows on Arm.

If you're a tech-savvy Windows user who often works across macOS environments, TransMac is one of those rare utilities that earns its keep. It unlock access to Mac-formatted drives (HFS+, APFS) directly from Windows, letting you create macOS bootable USBs, DMG files, or recovering data from otherwise unreadable Apple drives.

DSL 2024 is a revived version of the lightweight Linux distribution, designed for older, low-spec x86 PCs. Returning after a 12-year hiatus, it's now based on antiX and Debian, featuring lightweight apps like Firefox-ESR, AbiWord, and Gnumeric.

Vivaldi 7.4 introduces customizable keyboard shortcuts for individual websites, a revamped and more functional address bar, and a new profile switcher. This version also features visual refreshes to the Windows and History panels and stability improvements.

A new security update for Chrome addresses multiple vulnerabilities, including one actively exploited in the wild. The critical flaw could allow unauthorized code execution or data leaks through malicious HTML. Users are advised to update their browsers immediately.

Adobe Photoshop Express is a simplified photo editing app built for quick fixes and social media-ready images. Available for free on Windows, iOS and Android, it offers one-touch tools for cropping, filters, retouching, and more.

AnyDesk is a simple, yet free, option for secure remote access or screen sharing. This portable app is lightweight, and all data is encrypted using TLS 1.2 and 256-bit AES.

Popular image viewer IrfanView has been updated with multithreading support for batch conversion, a new "Fit to Window" zoom option, a stained glass effect, additional slideshow hotkeys, and various other enhancements.

Sound Booster amplifies all audio before it reaches your sound card, allowing you to set a volume level beyond maximum. Hard to hear dialogue? Try Sound Booster. It works seamlessly with media players, browsers, games, and more.

If you rely on Windows search but are constantly frustrated by slow, inconsistent results and a cluttered UX filled with Bing results and ads, check out Everything. The lean utility delivers lightning-fast results from your file indexes with zero bloat.

Spotify's latest update simplifies and extends the Queue options allowing for a more personalized playlist experience. A new "30-day snooze" feature has been added, along with other music-curation tools.

AMD's latest Radeon GPU drivers not only bring optimizations for Doom: The Dark Ages and F1 25, but introduce FSR 4 support for more than a dozen games including Ghost of Tsushima, Frostpunk 2 and GTA V Enhanced.

Dopamine is an elegant audio player designed to make organizing and listening to music as simple as possible. The team has just released a new preview of version 3 for Windows, macOS, and Linux. New features include a mini player, gapless playback, and more.