Software : Round up: The best free antivirus 2016

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• Round up: The best free antivirus 2016
• Download guide: Download these free apps and publish your first novel in a month
• Round up: The best free office software 2016

Round up: The best free antivirus 2016 Posted: Download the best free antivirus software Free protection from online threats Whenever your PC is connected to the internet, your data and privacy are at risk. Malicious file downloads are still the most common way for viruses, trojans and malware to sneak in, but unpatched security vulnerabilities in your operating system and other software can also leave you exposed. There's a wealth of free antivirus software to protect you from such disasters, but not all free antivirus packages are created equal. We've rounded the best free downloads to keep you safe online, looking at their effectiveness, speed and ease of use. Have we missed your favourite? Let us know in the comments below. How to get a year of premium antivirus protection absolutely free 1. Avira Free Antivirus Fast, friendly and effective, with added online tracking protection Fancy benefiting from the experience of 477 million people? That's the number of times Avira Free Antivirus has been installed, and its cloud-based security pools their history of virus exposure: if a user on the other side of the planet encounters a new nasty, all of Avira's users get the ability to detect it. It's fast, friendly, doesn't give you too many prompts and alerts, can identify unwanted apps inside legitimate applications and most importantly of all, achieved 100 per cent malware detection in tests - a score shared with BitDefender and Kaspersky, but significantly ahead of many of its rivals. It also comes with an optional browser extension that can prevent sites from tracking you online. This impressive set of functions makes Avira Free Antivirus our top-rated free security program. Read on to discover eight more of the best free antivirus tools available right now. Have we missed your favorite? Let us know in the comments below. 2. Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition One of the best free antivirus tools around, offering fast, discreet protection Some antivirus programs want to know all about you and pop up excitedly to tell you about new updates or every potential threat they've stopped. Not BitDefender Antivirus Free Edition. It's the ninja of antivirus software, lurking silently until it needs to unleash its skills. It's ad-free and nag-free, maintenance-free and lightweight in operation: it doesn't slow down your PC or interrupt your working day for no good reason. If you like to fiddle then you might find other apps more to your liking, but for those of us who prefer a little peace and quiet BitDefender is hard to beat. 3. AVG AntiVirus Free 2016 Feature-packed, with a user-friendly interface and remote-activated scans We've been using AVG AntiVirus Free for years, and it's a very good antivirus program - albeit a little too keen to inform us about things we don't really need to know. The dashboard is user-friendly, the scanner checks links as well as downloaded files, and there's a clever tool that enables you to scan your PC from your mobile phone if you think it's become infected. The paid-for versions attempt to lure you with promises even more robust download protection, data encryption and firewalls to make online threats redundant, but the standard free edition of AVG offers a great deal of protection for no money. 4. Avast Free Anti-Virus 2016 Malware and virus protection, with added security for your home network Avast Free Anti-Virus 2016 is an impressive offering. It protects against malware and viruses, can identify weaknesses in your home Wi-Fi and includes a well-implemented password manager to keep your complex login details safe and easy to access. As with most free products you get even more features if you're willing to pay - there's no anti-phishing protection or spam filtering in Avast Free - but it's nonetheless perfectly respectable and keeps you safe from the most common online attacks. 5. Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ A comprehensive online security toolkit that covers all the essentials As the name suggests, Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+ started life as an anti-adware program, and it was a very good one. Over the years it's evolved to address more threats, so today it's a fully-fledged security suite that scans downloaded files, keeps an eye out for spyware, enables you to compare web addresses against known offenders and won't interrupt you when you're playing a game. It doesn't have the features of its paid-for siblings - if you want anti-phishing email protection, parental controls and file destruction you'll need to pay for it - but the core product covers the essentials very well. 6. 360 Total Security 2016 Combines four antivirus tools in one, but not the fastest package around Why take one virus detection engine onto the internet when you can take four? 360 Total Security 2016 from Qihoo combines Avira, BitDefender, 360 Cloud Scan Engine and 360 QVMII AI Engine, so in theory it should probably detect threats before they've even been invented, let alone released. But can you trust it? In some circles Qihoo is seen as the Volkswagen of security software, tweaking its programs to gain artificially inflated scores in tests - and the BitDefender engine is switched by default, so you aren't getting quite the protection you might think until you adjust some settings. It's powerful if a little slow, but lingering trust issues aren't great when you're deciding which firm can keep your stuff safe. 7. Panda 2016 Free Antivirus Antivirus that uses cloud processing power to take the weight off your PC Panda Free Antivirus has headed for the clouds with this version, which does all the heavy lifting on Panda's servers to reduce the load on your PC. As we've come to expect from free programs there are lots of optional features that you only get if you pay - Wi-Fi scanning, password management, file encryption and parental controls - but the basics are covered well and Panda scores well in independent virus detection tests. It isn't quite up there with Avast, AVG or BitDefender, but it's still very good. 8. Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender Microsoft's tools are easy to use, but not as effective as third-party software Who better to protect your PC than the company whose operating system facilitated all the security issues in the first place? We kid, of course - Windows is more secure than it's ever been, and Microsoft has invested massive sums in system protection in the form of Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows 7 and Vista, and Windows Defender, which is built into Windows 8 and 10. The result, as you'd expect, integrates very well with Windows, but it consistently lagged behind the likes of BitDefender in independent testing. While the 2015 version was pretty hopeless in detection tests, the 2016 one is a vast improvement - but Microsoft is still on the back foot and rival programs offer better protection. It's much, much better than nothing, but it's not the best. 9. Your bank Find out what services your bank offers to keep online transactions secure To keep your account details safe online, many banks offer free licences for antivirus software you'd normally expect to pay for. McAfee subscriptions are free to MBNA card and HSBC bank customers, saving you £40 (about US$57, AU$79), while users of Barclays online banking can get a free 12-month subscription to Kaspersky Internet Security worth £30 (about US$43, AU$59).

Download guide: Download these free apps and publish your first novel in a month Posted: Write and publish a novel in a month Free apps for aspiring novelists Writing a novel appears on many a bucket list, and thanks to free software and digital publishing it's possible to get your work on the virtual shelf in a matter of weeks. Writing a book in 30 days is a challenge attempted by thousands of people during National Novel Writing Month, and the event organisers have prepared a guide to help you overcome the anxiety that comes with that first blank page. Ultimately, the most important things are to set time aside every day for your writing, maintain self-discipline, and have faith in your own ability. You can do this. Plan The first step is research, and Evernote is an excellent tool for the job. It's cross-platform, so you can use it on any device (ideal for getting away from your desk to stimulate creativity), and is remarkably flexible. Your virtual notebooks can hold snippets from websites, useful notes about people and locations, photos, sketches and more. The basic edition gives you 60MB of space for new ideas per month, and lets you sync your notes across two devices. There are also Plus and Premium plans, but most of their features are more business-oriented so the free edition is probably all you need. Microsoft OneNote is similar, and may suit you better if you're invested in Microsoft's ecosystem. It lets you sync across an unlimited number of devices using your Microsoft account. It uses your OneDrive cloud storage to store notes and images (5GB by default), so bear this in mind if you're already using some of that space for Office documents. Write Once you've gathered your thoughts, your next step is to prepare an outline, from which you can write a first draft. The Guardian offers a 30-day schedule for fleshing out your ideas. The outline will give your work direction, and can be as simple or detailed as you like – from a list of points to something that's practically a first draft in its own right. One of the most popular writing apps for novelists is, unsurprisingly, Microsoft Word. "In my book, quite literally, writing is enough of a crazed mental vortex as it is, without throwing some complicated app into the mix," says Jason Arnopp, author of The Last Days of Jack Sparks. "I've tried Scrivener a couple of times, but just find it too fiddly. So here's me, using good old dependable, simple(ish) Microsoft Word. Sometimes I'll break the novel down into five different docs: that's about as fancy as my method gets. Word might be dull, but dammit, it gets the job done." If you'd rather not fork out for Microsoft's app, LibreOffice Writer is a very similar program that offers almost exactly the same experience. It's open source, so it's completely free to use (even for commercial purposes) and is updated regularly by a team of noble volunteer coders. It can save documents in Microsoft's .doc format, as well as HTML (preferred by Kindle Direct Publishing – more on that later). LibreOffice is an offshoot of Apache OpenOffice, which is also available to download and use completely free. The main differences are that LibreOffice receives more regular updates (it aims for two major releases a year), and offers better compatibility with Microsoft file formats, making it our free office suite of choice. If you just want to write a first draft as quickly as possible, take a look at FocusWriter. It strips away any interface elements that aren't absolutely essential to writing (no more cluttered Microsoft Office ribbon) and includes handy tools like alarms when you've been writing for a certain length of time, or have hit a particular word count. Once you've finished the bare bones, however, you'll need a tool like LibreOffice Writer for re-drafting, editing and exporting in DOC format. Publish Traditional publishing routes are require a great deal of time and patience – some publishers still run their own slush pile, where unpublished authors can send their work for consideration, but most new writers approach a literary agent who specialises in their genre. Agents receive a huge number of unsolicited manuscripts, so rejection is to be expected. It's a time-consuming and trying process that can take months, if not years, and is far from guaranteed to yield results. In stark contrast, work submitted to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing can go on sale in less than a day. Amazon provides its own guidance on formatting your work in a way that will transfer well to its own MOBI format. The directions are written for authors using Microsoft Word, but will work equally well with OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Have you written and published your own novel? Have any tips for aspiring authors? Share them in the comments below.

Round up: The best free office software 2016 Posted: The best free Microsoft Office alternatives 2016 The best free Microsoft Office alternatives With Office 2016, Microsoft has made several enhancements to security and productivity, including a much-needed overhaul of Excel. However, at £120 (US$120, AU$179) for the home edition it's a substantial investment - especially if you're unlikely to use its more advanced features regularly. Microsoft's cloud-based Office 365 has a lower entry price of £8 (US$10, AU$12) per month or £80 (US$90, AU$119) per year for the home version, but again, it's a substantial expense for a set of tools that might be overpowered for your needs. If you work with people who use Office and rely on its collaborative functions every day, the convenience of using those programs yourself may well justify the price. For the rest of us, there are lots of excellent free alternatives to consider. Here are our picks of the best free office apps in 2016. Have we missed your preferred suite? Let us know in the comments below. Remember, when you install any of these office suites you'll be asked if you want to associate particular file formats with the newly installed programs. We recommend deselecting these options at first, then changing your defaults once you're satisfied that you'll be using the new suite in the long term. 1. LibreOffice Comprehensive and updated regularly - the only office suite you'll ever need LibreOffice is a fork of the OpenOffice.org project, and it's available for Windows, OS X and Linux (it's the office suite you'll find on most popular Linux distros). The main draw is that it's OpenOffice but fast-tracked, with far more frequent updates than its parent suite. Like OpenOffice, LibreOffice is designed around the standard Open Document Format with Microsoft Office importing and exporting, and its six apps cover just about everything you could need from a productivity suite: Writer (word processing Calc (spreadsheets) Impress (presentations) Draw (diagrams and vector graphics) Math (mathematical formulae) Base (databases) Unlike Microsoft Office there's no email client - likely because there are so many excellent options already available, developing another would be redundant. See our guide to the best free email clients 2016. LibreOffice's apps have a clear format reminiscent of older versions of Microsoft Office. It's not as sleek as Office 2016 or 365, but features are represented by large, clear icons rather than being hidden behind menus and ribbons. See our guide to getting started with LibreOffice. If its standard offering isn't enough, the LibreOffice community has created hundreds of templates and extensions to add new features and improve existing ones - all available to download and use completely free. There's also a portable version that can be run from a USB stick. 2. Apache OpenOffice Less frequent updates than LibreOffice, but greater stability If LibreOffice does everything Apache OpenOffice does and gets updates more quickly, why would you consider its less action-packed parent? The short answer is stability: a faster update cycle can mean the potential to introduce new bugs. OpenOffice contains the same six core apps as LibreOffice (Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base) and its interface is very similar. It lacks some of the features of LibreOffice (such as live word counts in Writer), but the two suites share so much of the same code, such differences are few and far between. Again, a portable version is available for use from a removable USB device or cloud storage service. 3. SoftMaker FreeOffice Excellent compatibility with Microsoft Office documents SoftMaker FreeOffice is available for Windows and Linux (and there's a companion app for Android) and offers effortless editing of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. It can also export files in EPUB and PDF export. FreeOffice contains three apps delivering the familiar combination of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. While the feature set isn't quite as extensive as LibreOffice - it lacks mail merging, and the spreadsheet charts aren't as spectacular - it's faster, can open password-protected Office and WordPerfect documents (provided you know the password) and covers the basics very well. As with LibreOffice and OpenOffice, SoftMaker provides a portable version of FreeOffice for Linux and Windows. 4. WPS Office 2016 Microsoft-style good looks, but the free edition has limitations WPS Office 2016, also known as Kingsoft Office, is one of the best Microsoft Office-a-likes, but the free version does include some important caveats. The free version for Windows begins with a 30-day trial of the Premium version (it reverts to the free version if you don't open your wallet at the end of the month) and printed documents are watermarked. It's available for Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, and includes apps for word processing, presentations and spreadsheets (hence the name WPS). It borrows the ribbon interface from newer versions of Office, so you'll be up and running in no time, but the drawbacks of the free edition might be enough to put you off. 5. Google Docs Take your document creation to the cloud for easy collaboration If you're looking for a serious Office rival, Google Docs should be towards the top of your list. What started life as a free but basic cloud-based Office suite has evolved into something that's deceptively powerful, and even the weakest app, PowerPoint alternative Slides, is rather good these days. Google Docs is particularly good for teamwork, with excellent multi-user support and change tracking, and the companion mobile apps cover iOS as well as Android. If you're in the kind of environment where documents, spreadsheets or presentations are pinged back and forth, with comments and tracked changes, Google Docs will make your life simpler. 6. Zoho Docs A credible alternative to Google Docs and well worth investigating Zoho Docs is used by the likes of the BBC, Coca-Cola and ITV, and its free service gives up to 25 users 5GB of storage each. It includes three cloud-based apps - the usual spread of word processing, spreadsheet and presentations - as well as document versioning and desktop syncing. There are companion apps for iOS and Android, as well as integration with other services such as Dropbox and Google Drive. That makes it particularly attractive to small businesses, although it's important to note that some of the more advanced features such as password-protected sharing aren't available in the free version. Don't plump for Google Docs without checking out Zoho first.

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