BlueStacks App Player is a free program which allows users to run Android apps on their Windows PC.

The player essentially gives you a virtual Android tablet on your desktop. Sign in with your regular Google account (or create a new one), browse the Play Store as usual, and download or play whatever you like.

Well, almost - not everything works. But that's hardly surprising, when some apps won't even run on specific Android tablets, and overall BlueStacks claims 96% compatibility with apps in general, 86% with games.

All supported apps work with your PC's mouse, camera, webcam and microphone, and BlueStacks also supports multi-touch and has integrated sensors.

The free version downloads sponsored apps from time to time, but if that's a problem you can upgrade to BlueStacks Premium for $24/ year.

Version 4.0 brings a browser-like tabbed interface. Every time you launch an app, it opens in a new tab, making it easier to switch between them.

There's a Back button, too, just like a regular browser.

A new toolbar has options to take a screenshot, set your location, simulate a device shake, install an APK, transfer files from Windows, copy/ paste to and from the local clipboard, and more.

Storage capacity has been doubled to 32GB (16GB internal storage, 16GB SD card), although this only works with new installations - not upgrades.

And apparently there are "lots of improvements and bug fixes allowing many apps to run seamlessly".

BlueStacks App Player is a free program which allows users to run Android apps on their Windows PC.

The player essentially gives you a virtual Android tablet on your desktop. Sign in with your regular Google account (or create a new one), browse the Play Store as usual, and download or play whatever you like.

Well, almost - not everything works. But that's hardly surprising, when some apps won't even run on specific Android tablets, and overall BlueStacks claims 96% compatibility with apps in general, 86% with games.

All supported apps work with your PC's mouse, camera, webcam and microphone, and BlueStacks also supports multi-touch and has integrated sensors.

The free version downloads sponsored apps from time to time, but if that's a problem you can upgrade to BlueStacks Premium for $24/ year.

Version 4.0 brings a browser-like tabbed interface. Every time you launch an app, it opens in a new tab, making it easier to switch between them.

There's a Back button, too, just like a regular browser.

A new toolbar has options to take a screenshot, set your location, simulate a device shake, install an APK, transfer files from Windows, copy/ paste to and from the local clipboard, and more.

Storage capacity has been doubled to 32GB (16GB internal storage, 16GB SD card), although this only works with new installations - not upgrades.

And apparently there are "lots of improvements and bug fixes allowing many apps to run seamlessly".

The speed at which some programs update can be frightening. While some may alert you every time an update becomes available, quickly and (relatively) effortlessly installing the new version for you, others remain stubbornly outdated. Who knows what bug fixes, performance improvements and new features you might be missing out on?

You can, of course, stay up to date by regularly trawling this very site for your favourite software, but why put yourself through all that hassle when this app exists to make the task of updating your software that much easier?

The Downloadcrew UpdateScanner – as its name implies – will scan all of the software installed on your PC and compare it with our database. If there’s an updated version of your software on the site, you’ll be alerted to the fact.

You can either review updates manually, click “Download them now” to view them all in a single, convenient window or report unrecognised applications to us for further investigation. You can then update the ones that interest you and, hey presto, job done.

The app will then continue to monitor your system, alerting you to new updates as well as free software giveaways on the site, so you’ll never miss out on a full, free commercial app giveaway again.

You’ll need a free Downloadcrew account to use the service – click here to register.

Version 2 of the UpdateScanner features an "App Store" (name change forthcoming), alerting you to the latest and most popular downloads on the site, news and tips from sister site Softwarecrew and a selection of great savings to be made on software purchases.

Important: note that the UpdateScanner does not support betas and unreleased versions. If you install an alpha, beta or newer version than we have on Downloadcrew, then you'll receive a notification than the installed version is newer than the latest version! Also, if a developer gives their software an obscure version number (Paragon Software products are good examples), then these are also unsupported.

Build 2.2.0.0 is a minor maintenance release which includes these improvements/fixes:

- Rearranged user-interface with emphasis on 'Your Updates'

Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit is a rebranded and improved beta version of ZeroVulnerabilityLabs' ExploitShield, an easy-to-use tool which protects popular applications from zero-day exploits, web-based vulnerability exploits and more.

The full list of shielded apps includes browsers (Firefox, Chrome, IE, Opera), Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Media Players (Windows Media Player, VLC, Winamp, QuickTime), PDF-related tools (Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader, Adobe Acrobat) and more (Java, Windows Script Host, Windows Help).

Better still, no special configuration or setup is required to make this happen. Just install and launch it, and Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit will immediately go to work.

Under normal circumstances, the program should then run entirely in the background, without you ever noticing anything at all (certainly, it's 3MB RAM use isn't going to present much of a problem for even the most basic of hardware.)

If you want to know more, though, right-clicking the Anti-Exploit system tray icon and selecting "Show Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit" will reveal a few details. You can see how many exploits have been blocked, for instance, or view the program's logs for more details.

The other key option is the ability to stop and restart protection, which could be useful if you notice any odd behaviour after installing Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit. If you notice any problems, right-click its system tray icon and select Stop Protection; right-click the icon and select Start Protection to restore normal operations.

Note that Anti-Exploit technology is now included in Malwarebytes Premium, but this Beta version is supported for testing purposes.

What's new in the latest build 137?

- New Updated Protection for Chrome and Edge Browsers
- Fixed False positives with Leawo Blu-ray Player
- Fixed False positives with ViewRight plugin
- Fixed alert notification issues

PicPick is a screen capture tool that comes with a host of useful options and extras.

The program supports many different capture types, for instance: full-screen, active window, a window control, a scrolling window, a region on the screen, freehand captures and more. These all have their own hotkeys, which by default are variations on the usual PrtSc options (so a freehand capture is Shift+Ctrl+Alt+PrtSc), but you can alter them to whatever works for you.

Once you've captured something, PicPick can send the image to several destinations. It can upload your picture to Facebook, Twitter or an FTP server; send the image via email; output it to Word, PowerPoint or Excel; print the image, save it to a file, or copy it to the clipboard, amongst other options.

The default destination, though, is PicPick's own image editor, which is just as feature-packed as the rest of the program. So once it's opened your grab, then you can crop, resize or rotate it, customise it with the painting and drawing tools, add text captions, tweak colour and brightness, add frames and apply some useful special effects.

And just in case you need more, bonus tools include a colour picker, screen magnifier, a pixel ruler, screen protractor and crosshair, even a whiteboard for assistance during presentations.

Despite all this power, PicPick consumes very few system resources, a mere 7MB of RAM (private working set) when running in the background on our test PC. And it makes no use of your Registry, so can easily be made portable: just copy the PicPick folder to a USB drive and you can run it on any convenient system.

Version 5.0.3:

- Added more icons on Quick Access Toolbar
- Fixed occasional access violation error
- Language updates
- Other minor bug fixes

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is a quick and easy tool to uncover and eliminate malware from your system. Just choose the type of scan you need - quick (takes a few minutes), full (takes ages, usually) or custom (scan only the areas you specify) - then leave the program to check your hard drive for threats, and remove any that it finds.

While useful, this is no substitute for an antivirus package. The Malicious Software Removal Tool has no real-time detection features, for instance, so it can't stop you getting infected in the first place. And it only checks for some of the most common malware (see the full list here), currently around 150 specimens in total) - a good antivirus tool will detect hundreds of thousands of threats.

Still, if you think your PC might be infected by something, but your current antivirus suite hasn't raised the alarm, then you can always try the Malicious Software Removal Tool for a quick second opinion (it won't clash with any existing security tools).

And because the program doesn't require installation, it's ideal for including on a USB flash drive as a part of your portable troubleshooting toolkit. Then, if a friend's PC seems to be having virus troubles, you can pull out the Malicious Software Removal Tool and give their system a speedy health check.