When considering laptops, performance is far less of a concern than with desktop. Most people are looking for a machine that can be used for as long as possible without the need to track down a power supply. As such, laptops that offer the longest battery life tend to be the most popular, and BatteryCare is a free tool that can be used to look after your battery and help to improve its longevity.

For older batteries, one of the most useful things it was possible to do to your laptop battery is to let is completely discharge and then recharge from time to time. This helped to maintain the performance of the battery and ensures that it is used efficiently and last for as long as possible between charges.

BatteryCare can be used to perform a full discharge of your battery, not necessarily to help improve performance, but more to calibrate the battery so that time estimates can be more accurately reported. The program also provides a great deal of information about the battery you have installed, so should you ever need to buy a replacement, you will have all of the relevant details to hand.

BatteryCare will also provide information about precisely how long your battery will power your laptop – this is a useful feature as many machines will only reported the percentage of charge that is remaining. Extra options include the ability to monitor hard drive and CPU temperatures as well as a simple means of switching between power profiles depending on the power source that is in use.

Version 0.9.30 (changelog):

- Added user defined CPU and HDD temperature alarms.

When considering laptops, performance is far less of a concern than with desktop. Most people are looking for a machine that can be used for as long as possible without the need to track down a power supply. As such, laptops that offer the longest battery life tend to be the most popular, and BatteryCare is a free tool that can be used to look after your battery and help to improve its longevity.

For older batteries, one of the most useful things it was possible to do to your laptop battery is to let is completely discharge and then recharge from time to time. This helped to maintain the performance of the battery and ensures that it is used efficiently and last for as long as possible between charges.

BatteryCare can be used to perform a full discharge of your battery, not necessarily to help improve performance, but more to calibrate the battery so that time estimates can be more accurately reported. The program also provides a great deal of information about the battery you have installed, so should you ever need to buy a replacement, you will have all of the relevant details to hand.

BatteryCare will also provide information about precisely how long your battery will power your laptop – this is a useful feature as many machines will only reported the percentage of charge that is remaining. Extra options include the ability to monitor hard drive and CPU temperatures as well as a simple means of switching between power profiles depending on the power source that is in use.

Version 0.9.30 (changelog):

- Added user defined CPU and HDD temperature alarms.

DisableWinTracking is an open-source application designed to disable various Windows 10 tracking and telemetry features.

The program can turn off a couple of services, disable some Windows Defender features, turn off WifiSense, uninstall OneDrive, block some telemetry, and stop other tracking dead by adding known tracking domains to your HOSTS file.

This can be dangerous, and might break some Windows features. You shouldn't use the program unless you're sure you can recover from any disaster. But the developer has at least tried to protect users by turning all options off by default. For example, it won't disable WifiSense until you check the box to its left.

Run the program as an administrator to try it out. Consider making a system restore point before you make any changes, and if you're curious exactly what a particular option does, check out the project page for more information.

GraphicsGale is a versatile tool for creating and editing pixel art, sprites, and in the $14 Pro version, animated GIFs (the free build can't load or save GIFs).

The program has been around for more than ten years, and you can see that in the interface: it's more Windows 95 than Windows 10. But the core edit, draw and paint operations are familiar and easy to use. They're also far more advanced than you might expect, including multiple selection tools, spline curves, anti-aliasing, layer support and more.

Animation features include onion skinning, allowing you to see the previous and next frames as you draw.

The animation can be automatically played in a preview window as you work, enabling you to see the results immediately.

The program can output animation frames onto a single sprite sheet, output each frame to its own image file, or (in the Pro version) export the entire animation as a single .gif file.

Lunascape is the world's most versatile browser, combining the engines from Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer into a single application.

This gives you an immediate compatibility advantage. If a site doesn't seem to display properly when you view it with the IE engine, say, then you can redisplay it with the Firefox engine in a couple of clicks. Or, if you're at a JavaScript-heavy site, then choose Chrome and benefit from its extra performance.

Lunascape works with most Firefox addons and IE plugins, too. A simple wizard will import your existing favourites and add-ons, then you can install more as you like.

The program isn't just about IE, Firefox and Chrome, though - it has many interesting features of its own. Lunascape comes with many bookmarklets, supports scripts for more advanced automation tasks, includes mouse gestures, a pop-up blocker and built-in RSS reader, allows you to set the user agent string, and is generally very configurable.

And yet, despite all the extras, Lunascape still performs very well. The core of the program requires little in the way of memory or system resources, and the browser remained snappy and responsive throughout all our tests.

What's new in 6.15.1 (see changelog for more)?

- Updated the Gecko engine version to 45.9.0.

The K-Lite Codec Tweak Tool is a portable utility that can detect and fix a lengthy list of PC video problems.

By default it will detect and remove (with your permission) broken codecs, small programs that are used for encoding or decoding audio or video streams. If your PC used to play a particular video file type, but doesn't any more, then this may help.

The program can also help you reset default codec settings, or configure them in more detail. Having problems with Xvid videos, say? Check "DirectShow filter configuration", click Next, and, if it's present, click the Xvid Decoder button. Here you can set values like Brightness or Aspect Ratio that will affect how all Xvid videos will be rendered in future.

You're able to apply similar configuration tweaks for other filters. It's easy to list all your installed codecs and filters, which could be useful if, say, a video plays on one of your PCs but not another (run the tweak tool on both, look at the installed filters and note any differences). And you can also back up your codec and filter settings for easy restoration later.

And the Tweak Tool can even access some little known Windows Explorer settings. Would you like Explorer to generate thumbnails for all the videos you can play, for instance? Check "Thumbnail settings for Windows Explorer", select the appropriate file changes and you should be able to see the change right away.