Software : Mac week: 10 best macOS apps to download to your Mac today

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• Mac week: 10 best macOS apps to download to your Mac today
• Downloads: Download of the day: Foxit Reader
• Round up: The best free antivirus 2016

Mac week: 10 best macOS apps to download to your Mac today Posted: Introduction Whether you've just ordered yourself a new MacBook running the latest macOS 10.12 Sierra update or are looking to give your old Mac a new lease of life, there's plenty of useful software for Apple's platform out there. The App Store offers a convenient route to download a huge number of apps, and there's even more out there on the web. If you instead plan to grab some apps from the web, don't forget to head over to your Settings > Security & Privacy > General panel first to set 'Allow apps to download from: Anywhere'. Before changing it back afterwards, obviously. From note-taking apps to image editors, windows managers and music production suites, check out our list of the best macOS apps that you can download today. This article is part of TechRadar's Mac Week. This year marks not only the 10th anniversary of Apple's unibody MacBook, but the triumphant return of macOS. So, TechRadar looks to celebrate with a week's worth of original features delving back into the Mac's past, predicting the Mac's future and exploring the Mac as it is today. 1. Amphetamine Get it from: App Store Price: Free Sometimes you might want to save space on your desk by putting your MacBook to sleep and slipping it into a vertical holder. The problem there is that macOS automatically enters sleep mode when the lid is closed — and there's no way to prevent this from happening without a third-party app. Caffeine used to be the best solution doing the rounds, but it has been usurped by Amphetamine. Not only does Amphetamine look better in your Mac's Menu Bar (in Dark Mode, anyway) and features support for Retina displays, you can set hotkeys to turn it on and off, activate it using keyboard shortcuts, receive alerts when it deactivates (via the Notification Center) and, best of all, it's 100% ad free. It's better than that first coffee in the morning, in other words. 2. HyperDock Get it from: App Store Price: £7.99 (around $10 or AUS$14) Windows received the ability to snap windows and programs to the edges of the screen way back in Windows 7, so we're quite surprised Apple took so long to replicated it with Split view in OS X El Capitan. But it still isn't quite as full featured as Microsoft's solution. The good news is that third-party apps to fill in the gaps, with the best being HyperDock, which covers window management and Dock functionality. For windows, you can drag an app to the left or right edges of the screen (or the corners) and it'll automatically fill that space. This makes it much easier to be productive on the desktop without wasting time dragging windows from the corners. For the Dock, hovering over apps activates something similar to Windows 7's thumbnail previews, providing overviews of windows that can be accessed by a click or closed directly from the preview. Handy. 3. Parallels Desktop 12 Get it from: Parallels Price: $79.99/year (Home & Student) Around £60 or AUS$100) If you've bought a Mac and miss some of your old Windows programs, don't worry - Parallels Desktop 12 can make it happen. Instead of having to dual-boot your Mac into a Windows partition, Parallels Desktop 12 allows Windows and macOS Sierra to co-exist side-by-side, and you can even run Microsoft-only programs such as Visual Studio 2015, or the Windows versions of the company's Office 365 apps, alongside your native macOS ones. All you need is a Windows 10 license - so prepare to buy one if you haven't already. Or, alternatively, you can use Parallels to try a handful of free operating systems including Chromium (a free distribution of Chrome OS) or Linux Debian. This year's version of Parallels is the most useful yet thanks to a new addition called the Parallels Toolbox, which allows you to easily carry out common tasks — from taking a screenshot to downloading YouTube and Facebook videos, and password-protecting all of your files. 4. Duet Get it from: App Store Price: £14.99 (around $20 or AUS$25) If you're anything like us, you'll hate working with one monitor or screen. Portable monitors are still fairly expensive (and not to mention bulky), and luckily you can use an iPad instead using a nifty app called Duet. Developed by ex-Apple engineers, it works by tethering your iPad to your Mac using one of Apple's Lightning cables and firing up the app on both devices. You can then drag windows and apps onto your iPad's display just like you can a second monitor, and if you have a more recent iPad with a Retina display then you'll get the full benefit of all those pixels. Just know that the bandwidth isn't quite what you would get with a proper monitor, so it can be a bit laggy when you notch the quality up. But it's still more than usable for reading websites, typing up documents and watching videos. 5. Atom Get it from: Atom Price: Free Atom is a text editor that's primarily designed for coders, but its flexibility and customization options make it a viable option for many different types of users. That's because of two reasons: first, you can download a number of different Packages - effectively plug-ins - to make it bend to your will. It can be transformed into a Markdown editor for writing blog posts, for example, or you can hook it up to Evernote for storing notes in the cloud. There's at least 10 different word counters out there, and you can even add typewriter sound effects as you hammer out your delicious prose. Atom is also infinitely customizable on the visual side thanks to an editable back-end, allowing you to do anything from changing the font size, line height and colors to giving the caret Word 2016-like elasticity. 6. Logic Pro X Get it from: App Store Price: £149.99 (around $195 or AUS$255) Whether you're an aspiring rockstar or superstar DJ, Logic Pro X is one of the best music creation apps on the Mac. Developed by Apple itself,76 its accessible interface hides a ton of advanced functionality. The latest version comes with a slick new design, 64-bit architecture and new session drummer that will save you having to shell out for a drum machine. It also works in natural harmony with iPads, providing a touch-based alternative method of creating song structures to dragging and dropping blocks in the main visual editor. Whether you're a seasoned producer already (Sia used the app to record her hit song 'Chandelier') or are looking to upgrade from Garageband, Logic Pro X likely has what you need. 7. Wunderlist Get it from: App Store Price: Free A simple app but an important one, to-do app Wunderlist's strength lies in its cross-device functionality. It's available on Mac, PC and Android and iOS, allowing you to pick up where you left off wherever you are using macOS's Handoff feature. Once you've created a list you can schedule reminders, add notes and embed it into the macOS Notification Centre using a widget. Team-based features are unlocked by signing up to Wunderlist's Pro option for a yearly fee, and you can add files of any size without running into limits. 8. Evernote Get it from: App Store Price: Free Evernote has morphed into a mighty note-taking app over the years. While some people will say that it's too bloated, the sheer number of things that you can do with it still makes it best-in-class. You can type up notes, obviously, organizing them using a combination of folders and tags. You can even embed Google Drive documents, which are accessible in a click. There's also the ability to set reminders, share notes with friends, find information related to notes using Evernote's 'Context' feature, create lists, and favorite notes that you frequently return to. Better yet, all of your notes are synchronized using the company's servers, making them accessible on nearly any PC (through a browser or the native Evernote app) or mobile device in the world. The paid version lets you use Evernote with more than two devices while upping the amount of data you can sync each month. 9. GIMP Get it from: Website Price: Free GIMP (standing for GNU Image Manipulation) is one of the best free image editing apps out there. It's a great alternative to Adobe Photoshop and comes with a massive array of professional-quality functions that let you tweak existing images saved in a range of formats or create fresh ones from scratch. Features include layers, highly customizable brushes, automatic image-enhancing tools and filters. You can do even more with it using plug-ins, which are available to download from the GIMP Plugin Registry. 10. Ulysses Get it from: App Store Price: £34.99 (around $45/AUS$60) Ulysses is one of the best "distraction-free" markdown editors out there today, balancing features with simplicity and beautiful design. Unlike Word 2016, or even Apple's own Pages, Ulysses hardly features an interface at all. This allows you to get on with writing without being distracted by superfluous buttons and menus. The app uses its own brand of Markdown — a type of text formatting engine — that lets you highlight your writing in a way that makes organizing it simpler, and a vast number of export styles formats it in an attractive way once you're finished. There's a handy attachments bar on the right-hand side that features an attractive word counter and lets you write notes to assist you in your writing. Notes can be accessed anywhere thanks to iCloud support, so you can pick up your iPad and carry on where you left off using macOS's Handoff feature.

Downloads: Download of the day: Foxit Reader Posted: Download of the day: Foxit Reader Streamlined, fast and packed with features, FoxIt Reader is the best free PDF reader and editor around. Make PDFs from scratch or by converting existing documents, add comments, embed images and videos, and share the resulting PDFs via DropBox, OneDrive or Google Drive. Why you need it Foxit Reader works seamlessly with the software and services you already use, and integrates with Windows so perfectly you'll wonder how you ever managed without it. It supports Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint document formats, is fully compatible with all the main cloud storage services, and integrates with the right-click context menu so you don't even need to think about it. Its interface is clear and intuitive, and works much like the Ribbon system in Microsoft Office. Tabbed browsing lets you manage multiple PDFs at once, and you can create your own custom toolbars for quick access to your favorite options. Another reason to opt for Foxit Reader is security. PDFs are so common, they're a common target for malware and virus developers, so Foxit includes a safe Reader Mode that lets you disable Javascript and links embedded in PDFs. If that isn't enough, there's also a Firefox plugin to make Foxit Reader the default option for displaying PDFs in your browser, and a downloadable spellchecker plugin that checks any text you type into forms. Key features Create PDFs from scratch, or from scanned documents Convert Microsoft Office files to PDF Export PDFs to the cloud Protect against potential security risks Works on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 Price Free

Round up: The best free antivirus 2016 Posted: Download the best free antivirus software The best free antivirus software You need antivirus – that's not in question – but you don't have to pay, as this list of our top ten free antivirus packages shows. Bear in mind (and this should come as no surprise) free antivirus packages aren't just given to you out of kindness. The vast majority exist as adverts for their bigger siblings, as companies do their best to sell you upgraded versions with more features and 'enhanced' protection. However, the free packages should provide all the virus protection you actually need. The paid editions give you firewalls, additional integrations and other gimmicks, but each of the packages we've listed here will help you detect and eradicate any potential virus threats. We've used the findings of expert virus lab AV-TEST to evaluate the true effectiveness of their virus protection, but that's only half the story. These things need to be running all the time, and if they're annoying or hit your system resources too hard you'll have them uninstalled in a flash. So, on with the evaluation. 1. Avira Free Antivirus Fast, effective and free - the best antivirus software money can't buy Avira Free Antivirus took the top spot on our previous free antivirus roundup, and here it is again. Yes, AV-TEST's results show it to have a micron less protection than the likes of AVG, but it's the slickest, cleanest and least system intensive antivirus package going. It's almost as if the programmers sat down to determine exactly what users would want out of an antivirus package and somehow stumbled on the correct answer: something that isn't in your face every two seconds and doesn't slow your PC to a halt just by existing. So hooray for Avira. It doesn't even install a host of other packages (including a secure browser, VPN and safesearch plugin) by default, although they're there if you want them. It's not the glossiest package, and the install process is a bit pre-emptive, with Windows 10 repeatedly shouting at us to update Avira before it had even finished making its way onto our test machine, but we're inclined to blame Microsoft for the latter glitch. Overall, brilliant. 2. AVG AntiVirus Free Superb virus protection packaged in a super-clear interface Even though AVG Antivirus Free's virus protection is wrapped in AVG Zen – essentially a large advert designed to encourage you to install all of AVG's products on all the PCs in your home – we won't hesitate to recommend it. AV-TEST gave AVG AntiVirus a 100% rating for its protection against zero-day attacks during its May-June 2016 testing, for a start. It's reasonably quick to scan after the first initial pass, and the interface – ignoring the Zen bit of it – is super-clear and easy to use. Combine it with the mobile app and you can set it to scan and disinfect a machine without having to be close to it, which is a feature you won't know you need until it's too late. There are a few downsides. We're not super-fond, for example, of the level of permissions that AVG's Web TuneUp extension asks for – everything from 'read and change all your data on the websites you visit' to forcing your start page to AVG's own Yahoo-powered search engine – but that's an optional component. 3. Panda Free Antivirus 2016 Cloud-based protection for your PC with automatic USB vaccination Although Panda claims to be the world's lightest antivirus – offloading much of the processing work that would normally be done by your PC to the cloud – we found it to be slightly slower than Avira in our tests, and AV-TEST agreed. It's also right on the industry average in terms of virus detection, sitting at around the 98% mark for zero-day attacks and a hair under 100% for established threats. Those are good numbers, and Panda is good software – providing you remember to deny it permission to hijack your browser's home page and search facility upon installing. Its process monitor is very useful, it scans quite quickly, and it's simple enough in its presentation for even the most technophobic user to find their way around. Switch on its automatic USB vaccination to ensure you won't get a nasty infection when you insert something you shouldn't into one of your ports. 4. Comodo Free Antivirus Serious security software for Windows, Comodo pulls no punches This is among the hardest-nosed antivirus packages out there, built as it is from Comodo's serious systems administration background. Comodo Free Antivirus features a 'default deny' mode, which essentially blocks every single program that's not on its whitelist – if you let something through and your machine becomes infected, it's going to be your fault. There's cloud scanning, so it theoretically keeps up with the latest found threats and automatically updates all users based on the newest discoveries, and indeed Comodo scored a perfect 100% against AV-TEST's barrage of zero-day threats, but its historical protection lags behind somewhat at just over 97%. While Comodo has a sharp design all its own, we'd also say it was something of a mess, unleashing window upon window on your machine and not really shutting up. You certainly know when you have it installed. At least it includes a game mode, automatically dialling back on its actions when you need maximum performance from your machine. 5. Avast Free Antivirus A solid security suite, but one with a slightly tarnished record Avast is in the process of buying AVG. We're not entirely sure at this point which of the two will survive – it's possible that both will continue operation, of course – so be careful putting your eggs in either basket at this point. Avast Free Antivirus, in particular, worries us a little. Earlier in 2016 the Chromium-based browser it includes by default (Avast SafeZone) was found to have a serious security vulnerability not present in Chromium, so the supposed 'World's Most Secure Browser®' turned out to not be so hot. Avast patched the vulnerability immediately following its discovery, but that's poor form. Its actual antivirus portion isn't awful. It's cleanly presented and performed reasonably well under the stress of AV-TEST's heavy punishment, and even includes a built-in LastPass-esque password manager, which is a great extra feature. While it's heavier on the system than some, it didn't make our test machine noticeably more sluggish. Even that browser, if you trust it, is absolutely fine. But do you? 6. ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall Effective security protection from the grandfather of firewalls Back in the dark past, when computers were beige and the internet was young, ZoneAlarm was the leading free firewall. It's therefore no surprise that ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus includes a firewall by default – a rare feature among its ilk. It's a big plus, at least if you're not competent in using Windows' own firewall; it's easy to configure and offers interesting insights into the traffic coming to and from your PC. You might even find the things it deflects quite worrying. Unfortunately AV-TEST hasn't performed an evaluation of ZoneAlarm's antivirus portion – seamlessly integrated with that firewall – for over a year, meaning we can't offer any great confidence in it, though the June 2015 assessment did at least paint it in a flattering light. The antivirus signatures are being maintained and the software still updated, though, so don't discount it – if you feel the need for a tried and tested firewall alongside your virus protection, this is a competent choice. 7. Immunet AntiVirus A cloud-based supplement to your main security software Here's something of an odd one; Immunet is a tiny cloud-based AV solution that's designed to run either independently or alongside your existing antivirus software. The former option isn't, perhaps, the best one; AV-TEST offers no indication as to its effectiveness, and Immunet's reputation – while strengthening in recent years – isn't that of an AV marvel. That said, as an accompaniment to a known strong solution, we can see no reason not to at least give Immunet a shot. It's all based on collective immunity, meaning the more people use it and report back with threats, the stronger its protection becomes. Like a vaccine for your PC. There was no noticeable slowdown on our test machine when running it alongside Avira, although in real terms it's going to hammer your CPU a little when scanning. It's also, if such a thing matters to you, almost comically ugly. 8. Qihoo 360 Total Security Essentials More virus-scanning engines than its rivals, but not necessarily merrier Rolling in on a huge wave of bombast – over 52 billion threats thwarted in 2014! – comes Qihoo's 360 Total Security Essentials, which we presume is mainly getting its figures from the third-party engines it uses to scan your PC. Both Bitdefender (the default) and Avira (which should be the default) are on board, and 360 provides a couple of its own engines on top. Predictably this results in a package which eats more system resources than the rest here, which scans quite slowly, but which passes AV-TEST's 0-day and widespread virus tests with flying colours. Nonetheless we'd opt for the simplicity of Avira every time – Qihoo has, in the past, been accused of cheating AV testing to appear more powerful than it truly is, which puts a big trust-shaped cat amongst the virus pigeons. 9. Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition Still updated regularly, but no longer at the cutting edge While it comes with a strong brand behind it, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition strikes us as something of an afterthought these days – you have to look hard to find it, and the company's own site still crows about its compatibility with the brand-new Windows 8. Indeed, the core software hasn't been updated since 2013, though its virus definitions are at least kept up to speed. To its credit, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition is at least unobtrusive, tucking itself away in the system tray by default and bringing up minimal popups. It's not the fastest, however, and we don't have total faith in its ability to spot every single virus or modern threat. It's also worth looking at Bitdefender 60-Second Virus Scanner, a tiny app that's worth keeping on a USB stick. If you're foolish enough to run a machine without AV, it'll at least warn you quickly if there's something untoward on board. 10. Windows Defender Not as effective as most third-party tools, but quiet and unobtrusive Every new Windows installation includes Defender by default – if yours doesn't have it, grab Microsoft Security Essentials – so why bother installing third-party protection? A glance at AV-TEST's results regarding Windows Defender's efficacy at defending against the newest zero-day threats tells the story: the May test on its Windows 8 incarnation showed that it caught just 92.1% of nasties. That's just not high enough considering its claims of cloud-based protection, however strong it may be against widespread threats. To its credit, Defender gets on with the job and stays out of the way, protecting new installations handily. And when it comes time to install something serious, Defender ducks out gracefully – you don't need to uninstall or disable it, it just… goes. It's simple, with the clearest interface of any package here, but it's also simplistic. So while we appreciate Microsoft's efforts to secure its operating system directly, there's a reason there's still a third-party antivirus market.

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