BCUninstaller (Bulk Crap Uninstaller) is a free portable tool which makes it easier to remove large numbers of programs from your PC.

The program offers a detailed view of your installed software. As well as the basics - program name, install date, version, size - you'll see its "About" URL, whether it's 32 or 64-bit, its storage folder, Registry key, uninstaller type, product code, uninstall commands and more.

Colour-coding tells you more, like: is the uninstaller file missing? If present, is it a Windows component? Does it have a valid certificate?

Right-clicking an application displays options to open its web page, view its storage location, launch its "Configure" dialog and more.

If you'd like to uninstall one or more programs, then just select as many as you like. When you're ready, click "Uninstall" to remove them as normal, "Quietly uninstall" to remove them without seeing any further uninstaller prompts, or "Manually" to allow BCU to uninstall the program itself.

This manual installation process worked well when we tried it. The program scanned for relevant files and Registry keys, and gave us a full list, complete with a "confidence level" for each one. You can choose what to keep and what to remove, and BCU asks if you'd like to create a Registry backup before it goes to work.

What's new in 4.9 (see changelog for more)?

- Added support for scripts (custom user-created list entries
- Added Tweak filtering
- Added Custom rules, Scripts and Tweaks section to readme

BCUninstaller (Bulk Crap Uninstaller) is a free portable tool which makes it easier to remove large numbers of programs from your PC.

The program offers a detailed view of your installed software. As well as the basics - program name, install date, version, size - you'll see its "About" URL, whether it's 32 or 64-bit, its storage folder, Registry key, uninstaller type, product code, uninstall commands and more.

Colour-coding tells you more, like: is the uninstaller file missing? If present, is it a Windows component? Does it have a valid certificate?

Right-clicking an application displays options to open its web page, view its storage location, launch its "Configure" dialog and more.

If you'd like to uninstall one or more programs, then just select as many as you like. When you're ready, click "Uninstall" to remove them as normal, "Quietly uninstall" to remove them without seeing any further uninstaller prompts, or "Manually" to allow BCU to uninstall the program itself.

This manual installation process worked well when we tried it. The program scanned for relevant files and Registry keys, and gave us a full list, complete with a "confidence level" for each one. You can choose what to keep and what to remove, and BCU asks if you'd like to create a Registry backup before it goes to work.

What's new in 4.9 (see changelog for more)?

- Added support for scripts (custom user-created list entries
- Added Tweak filtering
- Added Custom rules, Scripts and Tweaks section to readme

Imagine the scenario: you've got dozens of photos scattered across your hard drive, all in a variety of sizes and file formats. You want to place them all in the same folder, in the same format and perhaps even rename them for good measure. Perhaps they all need to be the same size, or you'd like to add a watermark. What are you going to do? You could open each file individually and perform the same repetitive actions on each, or you could go looking for a tool to do the hard work for you.

FastStone Image Viewer is - as the name suggests - a tool for viewing images, but that does it a massive disservice. It features some nifty editing tools, plus has a contact sheet builder, enabling you to quickly and easily print out thumbnail previews of a collection of images. But where the program really stands apart is with its batch-processing capabilities. It enables you to quickly convert a group of selected images from one format to another. You can save them all to a different folder, and rename them too.

Tick the Advanced options box, and you open up a whole wealth of options: resize, rotate, crop, change colour depth and DPI, adjust lighting and colours, add a border, and watermark your images with text or an image. Once you've set things up, click Convert and watch the program do in seconds what would take you minutes or even hours to achieve on your own.

What's new in v6.6 (history)?

- Improved: Load images faster
- Improved: Open big folders faster
- Improved: Copy / Move files faster
- Improved: Process embedded ICC profiles faster. Now embedded ICC profile support is enabled by default
- Added a new mouse gesture to image magnifier. When the mouse is in a magnifier shape:
- Added a date range filter to photo importer
- Enhanced internal Video Player
- Enhanced the batch convert/rename tool.
- Added Swap Colors under the Colors menu
- Fixed a DPI related bug in Contact Sheet Builder
- Other minor improvements and bug fixes

NTLite is a commercial tool (with a free-for-personal-use version) which allows you to build a customised Windows 7-10 installation disc from your existing Windows disc, or an image (ISO, ESD or WIM, including the WIM file on your current installation).

You can slim down Windows by leaving out components you don't need. The free NTLite can remove items like Active Directory's Directory Services, the BranchCache Client, HomeGroups, Remote Desktop Client/ Server, BitLocker, Hyper-V, MobilePC and Parental Controls.

Upgrade to a paid version and you can also drop most of the accessories, unwanted drivers, language packs, Windows Firewall, Windows Defender, even low-level components like SuperFetch or Windows Search.

You're also able to add items to your installation, including Windows updates, service packs, language packs and drivers.

There are options to tweak various Windows settings, for example customising the startup state of various Windows services.

You're able to define the answers for every step of the installation process, ensuring it runs unattended, with no prompts. And there's an option to run defined programs, scripts or .REG files post-installation to apply any remaining tweaks.

Upgrading to NTLite Home ($45) gets you the ability to remove many more Windows components, has better hardware and device driver support, can clean up the WinSxS cache for you, and is able to apply all its tweaks to the live installation.

Once you've finished, all the editions will create a bootable ISO file from them, as long as the normal image folders (\Boot, \Sources etc) are present.

Version 1.7.0.6510 brings (see full changelog) these new features:

- Source: Win10 RS5 (1809) Build 17763 support (also many existing components were not detected)
- Source: Win10 Preview Build 18237 support
- Components: ‘Remote Desktop Licensing’

Many people are happy to stick with the default browser set up when they fire up their computer for the first time, which means Internet Explorer if you’re a Windows user and Safari if you’re on an Apple Mac. Both browsers have improved massively in recent years, but part of that improvement is down to the growth in rival browsers like Google’s open-source alternative.

Chrome is no longer the young upstart it once was, and its pioneering spirit is often forgotten in the mists of time. It was Chrome’s sleek tab-driven interface with minimal real estate that was adopted by Firefox and the recent IE9. Chrome was the first to provide a resource-friendly browser that loaded quickly and didn’t suck the life out of your system, although again the competition has now caught up – and in some cases – surpassed its achievements.

Oh, Chrome was also the first to adopt a rapid release cycle, so if you’re fed up with a new browser number appearing in the About menu every few months, you can thank Google for that too.

Chrome may no longer look like the dazzling young starlet, but it more than holds its own against the competition. It’s still quick to load, quick to perform and easy to use. It bundles the Flash plug-in so you don’t have to download it separately and the browser sync function makes it easy to back up and sync your settings across multiple computers. While the competition has definitely caught up, Chrome has enough going for it to keep existing users happy supporting the browser that has led to so many improvements in the way we view and access the web.

What's new in Chrome 69?

- The brand new 'Material Design' improvements are here

Xplorer2 is an alternative file manager for Windows that comes packed with Explorer-beating features.

The program opens with a standard Explorer-like interface, for instance, so you'll feel at home right away. But you can also use tabs, just as in browsers, allowing you to have multiple folders open at the same time and switch between any of them at a click.

When you're viewing a folder, Xplorer2's filters allow you to display only files of interest. If you're just interested in JPG and PNG files, say, then add the appropriate filter and that's all you'll see - much more straightforward.

You can select files just as easily, according to their file name, extension, size, whether they contain particular text, or more, and all from a dialog - no need for tedious Ctrl+clicking (although that works as well, if you prefer to use it). The program allows you to combine particular files from many folders, so you can work on them all at once. And there are a host of thoughtful features, like "Sticky Selection": this keeps your selected files highlighted, and won't remove the selection if you accidentally click or press elsewhere.

Of course the program also displays previews of most file types, so you can check them without opening their parent application.

Xplorer2 gives you full access to metadata in JPGs, MP3s and other file types.

What's new in 4.1.0.0 (see release notes for more)?

- Easy UI command macros for everyone
- Tab color tagging
- Run macro on startup
- Programmable column