Betternet is a simple, free and unlimited free VPN.

The system works much like any of the competition. Click a "Connect" button, and within a few seconds you're allocated a new IP address, improving anonymity and maybe allowing you access to sites you couldn't otherwise reach.

This worked well for us. We were connected quickly, there were no DNS or other privacy leaks that we could see, and browsing speeds weren't noticeably different.

We also found that torrents weren't blocked, though beware: if you try to download gigabytes of data then we wouldn't be surprised if the company cuts you off part way through, or maybe throttles your connection to help other users.

One very obvious down side is that there's a very limited choice of servers on the mobile apps, and our Windows client gave us no choice at all. We connected many times over two days and always got a Swiss IP.

Betternet needs to pay for this somehow, so of course there are ads. Our Windows client opened a new browser window to display ads whenever we clicked Connect, and the mobile apps offer apps to install, or videos to watch. But you're not forced to do that, and overall the package is much less intrusive than it might have been.

Betternet is a simple, free and unlimited free VPN.

The system works much like any of the competition. Click a "Connect" button, and within a few seconds you're allocated a new IP address, improving anonymity and maybe allowing you access to sites you couldn't otherwise reach.

This worked well for us. We were connected quickly, there were no DNS or other privacy leaks that we could see, and browsing speeds weren't noticeably different.

We also found that torrents weren't blocked, though beware: if you try to download gigabytes of data then we wouldn't be surprised if the company cuts you off part way through, or maybe throttles your connection to help other users.

One very obvious down side is that there's a very limited choice of servers on the mobile apps, and our Windows client gave us no choice at all. We connected many times over two days and always got a Swiss IP.

Betternet needs to pay for this somehow, so of course there are ads. Our Windows client opened a new browser window to display ads whenever we clicked Connect, and the mobile apps offer apps to install, or videos to watch. But you're not forced to do that, and overall the package is much less intrusive than it might have been.

Was it so long ago that partitioning your hard drive involved either losing all the data on it, or investing a hefty sum in specialist partition software? These days, you can resize partitions without data loss within Windows itself, so what’s the need for a specialist tool?

Take one look at MiniTool Partition Wizard and you’ll see your answer: first, it makes partitioning much simpler and friendlier than the Windows tool. Second, it’s much more flexible than Windows’ rather basic tool.

First, you’re not restricted by any fragmented or unmovable files on your drive when it comes to resizing an existing partition. You can also easily resize, move, extend and split partitions, allowing you to revamp your drive just about any way you please without having to rip it all up and start again.

You’ll find other handy tools too – copy partitions and entire disks to another drive (great when upgrading your drive due to a lack of space), plus switch partitions from primary to logical to bypass the partition table limits (you can also convert in the other direction too). You can even align a partition for better performance if it’s required.

You can also hide partitions, change their serial number and perform all the key tasks – assigning drive letters or deleting partitions – offered by Windows own Disk Management tool. There’s even a tool for wiping a partition securely, allowing you more thoroughly delete the data from it.

A lot of this functionality can be found in other free partition tools too, but Partition Wizard keeps adding new features to its free version to keep it ahead of the opposition – you can now convert back from NTFS to FAT, plus convert drives between GPT and MBR. It’s even possible to copy dynamic disk volumes too.

And before you come up for air, you’ll even find Partition Wizard is capable of recovering lost and accidentally deleted partitions too – perfect for cleaning up after another tool’s mistakes, or giving you a fall-back option should Partition Wizard itself fail to perform the tasks at hand.

All of this functionality is accessible from Windows, but you may find some operations won’t work until you reboot your machine. We’d also recommend you obtain the free bootable CD version (click the Bootable CD link in the program itself), which will give you access to all its functions (via the same user-friendly interface) even if Windows refuses to boot.

For most people, the free version has all the functionality you’ll ever need, but there are a number of paid-for editions too with additional features such as merging partitions or changing a drive’s cluster size without data loss.

What's new in version 11.0.1 (see upgrade history for more)?

- Bug fix for MiniTool Partition Wizard failed to lock memory in native mode.

Avira Free AntiVirus is a reliable antivirus engine which does a great job of keeping your PC malware-free.

Installation is simple and straightforward. Unlike the competition, there are no demands to remove competing products: we had Norton Internet Security installed on the test PC, and were able to run both packages alongside each other without problems.

Once the program is running it provides all the features you'd expect: files you access are checked for threats in real time, you can carry out on-demand antivirus scans on any part of your system whenever you like, and a capable scheduler allows you to set up regular scans to run automatically and unattended.

This elease adds new installation options. Avira Browser Safety keeps you safe online, Avira SafeSearch prevents you from reaching malicious sites, and there's a chance to install Dropbox, too (all can be bypassed if you're not interested).

Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a powerful tool which makes it easy to sync and store your files online.

The new system offers 7GB of online storage space, a big drop from the previous 25GB. However, you can now synchronise the full 7GB; the desktop app allows you to work with files up to 2GB in size (the web version and other apps restrict file sizes to 300MB); and the whole syncing system is now much easier to use.

Essentially the program takes a Dropbox-type approach, adding a custom OneDrive folder to your PC, Mac or device. If you copy files to the folder, they'll be synchronised. Rename a file on your phone and the change will appear on your PC and Mac, too. Delete a file on the OneDrive.com web interface and it'll similarly disappear from the folder, immediately.

Another useful feature is being able to selectively choose which folders to sync with which computer, allowing you to parcel off separate portions of your storage for different PCs and Macs.

There's even a new Fetch feature, which means that if you've gone somewhere and realised you've forgotten an important file on your home PC, then you can access it through OneDrive.com.

And if you need more than the standard 7GB storage, then don't worry. Even if you didn't qualify for the free 25GB accounts that were on offer to existing users before April 2012, you can now earn up to an additional 8GB: 3GB for using the new camera backup tool on your mobile, and 5GB for referring up to 10 friends or family (500MB per referral). And if all else fails then you can purchase one of their paid plans, which seem fairly reasonably priced (+50GB for $25 per year, +100GB for $50, +200GB for $100).

This latest release follows on from Microsoft's rebranding of its SkyDrive service to OneDrive. Aside from the name change (which is reflected in the fact your SkyDrive folder is now called OneDrive), little else has changed from the previous release.

What's new in 19.033.0218.0013  (see release notes for more)?

- Bug fix to improve the reliability of the client

Balabolka is a free and powerful text-to-speech program which can read the text from Office documents, PDF files, web pages and more. It uses Microsoft's Speech Platform and requires at least one Microsoft voice, but this shouldn't be a problem for most PCs. (If in doubt, launch Narrator.exe, or look for Narrator options in Control Panel's "Ease of Access Centre"; if Narrator can read text, Balabolka should be able to do so as well.)

At its simplest, you can just use the program to open and read a file. Supported formats include PDF, DOC, DOCX, AZW, AZW3, MOBI, PRC, DJVU, EPUB, HTML, TXT, RTF, RAR, ZIP and more. You're also able to tweak the narration speed, pitch and volume.

Just as with any other text-to-speech software, Balabolka regularly makes pronunciation errors. But unlike most of the competition, it also provides a way to fix them.

Click the "Panel of Dictionaries" toolbar button, and check "default_dic". Highlight any word which isn't pronounced correctly, right-click it and select "Pronunciation". Change the spelling in the "Like this" box to something which helps the program say that word correctly - replace Philadelphia with Phillaadellphia, say - and click "Add and Save". That word should now be spoken correctly.

Once everything is set up as you like, click File > Save Audio File to save the document as an MP3 or WAV.

Alternatively, click File > ID3 Tags, check "Set ID3 tags" and click Text > Add Text to MP3 Tags. The spoken text will be saved as tags within the MP3 file, then appear on playback, synchronised with the speech (just like song lyrics) as long as your media player supports that.