Download of the Week

PlayStation 3 Emulator RPCS3 is rolling out a major Arm64 upgrade, delivering up to 60% faster performance and 25% lower power draw on supported hardware. Demonstrated on an Ayn Odin 2 handheld, the optimizations make previously unplayable titles like Ninja Gaiden 3 run smoothly and extend across Arm64 builds on Linux, macOS, and Windows, from Apple Silicon to Snapdragon X laptops and handhelds.

Visual Studio Code 1.132 introduces multilingual on-device AI dictation powered by Nemotron 3.5, alongside new sidebar chats that let developers interact with Copilot without interrupting their workflow. VS Code is one of our Essential Apps for both Windows and macOS.

If you've ever emailed yourself a file just to get it from a Windows laptop to an Android phone, LocalSend fixes that in 10 seconds. It's a free, open-source app that beams files peer-to-peer over your local network (no cloud, no account, no caps), encrypted end-to-end so nothing leaves the room. It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS – a rare AirDrop alternative that doesn't care what device you're carrying.

VMware Workstation Pro 26H1 is the latest version of the go-to desktop hypervisor for developers and power users. Now fully free for commercial and personal use, it runs Windows, Linux, and BSD virtual machines side-by-side on a single PC – no rebooting, no repartitioning.

VirtualDJ is free for home use, giving aspiring DJs access to pro-grade mixing tools without requiring dedicated hardware. The software supports real-time stem separation, audio, video, and karaoke mixing, effects, loops, and recording.

Perplexity's Personal Computer is now available on Windows after debuting on macOS earlier this year. The new desktop experience can work across your local files, apps, Microsoft 365, and the web, allowing it to automate tasks, create documents, and streamline everyday workflows.

WhatsApp now lets you seamlessly transfer ongoing voice and video calls between phones, tablets, desktops, and the web without hanging up. The update also brings one-on-one and group voice and video calling to WhatsApp Web for the first time, alongside improvements such as waiting rooms, and background noise suppression.

GrapheneOS is a security focused mobile OS for Google Pixel phones (soon Motorola). Based on Android's open source roots, it adds extensive hardening features, stronger app sandboxing, and granular permissions while allowing users to install Google Play services as regular apps. The project has grown past 400,000 active users. Its tools recently made the headlines after prosecutors treated the OS's remote wipe feature as evidence.

Geekbench 7 overhauls the benchmarking suite with a redesigned multi-core benchmark built around real-world application behavior, refreshed CPU and GPU workloads (AV1 encoding, ML upscaling, path tracing, etc), CUDA support for Nvidia GPUs, and larger datasets for more demanding performance testing. The new release also establishes AMD's Ryzen 7 7700 as its scoring baseline.

Tails has introduced a safer shutdown process to help prevent data loss. It's also replacing GNOME Videos with the more secure Celluloid media player, updating Tor Browser, and refreshing firmware packages for improved graphics and Wi-Fi hardware support.

Firefox 153 is now the latest Extended Support Release (ESR), rolling up all improvements introduced since Firefox 140. Highlights include profile management, Split View, AI features, stronger privacy protections, web apps, PDF merging and image insertion, HDR video playback, browser-wide containers, and numerous platform and enterprise enhancements.

Microsoft has open-sourced Comic Chat, its quirky 1996 IRC client that turned text conversations into comic strips with cartoon avatars, speech bubbles, and dynamic panel layouts. Now released under the MIT License, the project can be explored, preserved, and even modernized by developers and retro computing enthusiasts.

FluentCleaner Classic swaps the WinUI 3 shell for a portable 3.5 MB WinForms build on .NET Framework 4.8, no runtime install needed. Same cleaning engine, just far less overhead than the standard app's 140 MB footprint. The result is a fast, no-frills cleaner that runs on virtually any Windows installation.

Rufus is a free utility for creating bootable USB drives from ISOs. Version 4.15 brings RISC-V 64 support to UEFI:NTFS, improves unattended Windows installations, and fixes Snapdragon X Arm64 boot crashes, and more.

LibreWolf browser removes Mozilla telemetry and enables stricter privacy and security settings by default. It remains compatible with most Firefox extensions and is typically updated shortly after new Firefox releases.

HWMonitor 1.65 can once again report hotspot temperatures on Nvidia RTX 50 series GPUs, giving users access to the hottest point on the GPU die rather than just the average core temperature. The reading is especially useful for diagnosing thermal issues, identifying uneven cooler contact, and spotting thermal throttling.

Claude now has its own take on Spotify Wrapped, only instead of exposing your questionable music taste, Reflect shows how you use AI. The beta dashboard summarizes up to 12 months of topics, activity patterns, and common tasks. Check out Reflect using the the Claude desktop app for Windows or macOS.

PeaZip adds a new F12 function picker, better keyboard shortcuts, smoother drag-and-drop, and improved file manager auto-refresh. The release also expands support to 243 file extensions, including ZIM files used for Wikipedia data dumps.

OpenAI will pull the plug on ChatGPT Atlas next month, less than a year after launch. Curious Mac users can still download it for one last look, but for an AI browser with an actual future, try Perplexity's Comet or Opera, both offer tools for summarizing pages, answering questions, and helping you navigate the web.

WhatsApp's desktop app turns your Windows or Mac into a full messaging hub. You can link up to four devices at once, make voice and video calls straight from your webcam, and type on a real keyboard instead of a phone screen. Your phone only needs to reconnect once every 14 days, so it's an easy way to stay on top of conversations while you actually get work done.

Tiny11 is built from Windows 11 25H2, but strips out Copilot, Teams, OneDrive, and Edge, cutting the install down to about 8GB, while still activating with a normal Windows 10 or 11 key. It's ideal for reviving an older laptop, running in a VM, or setting up a lightweight test machine.

Nvidia Profile Inspector lets you view and edit hidden driver profiles and settings. Version 3.0 delivers its biggest update in years with a redesigned interface, faster profile browsing, and support for newer features including DLSS overrides and RTX Dynamic Vibrance.

Popular PC stress-testing tool OCCT has been updated with a fully redesigned modular Memory Test with 16 configurable testing blocks. The release also improves memory usage and adds built-in memory test presets.

Chrome 150 is now available for Windows, macOS, and Linux with 382 security fixes, plus a number of bug fixes and stability improvements. Given the sheer volume of vulnerabilities addressed, this is an update users shouldn't put off.

WinRAR 7.23 fixes two security vulnerabilities, updates its bundled 7-Zip extraction library, and makes a few command-line tweaks. The release notes also include a playful nod to the archiver's legendary "infinite" trial, thanking users who supposedly finally bought the software. It's mostly a joke-but the security patches alone make this update worth installing.