Software : Round up: The best free PDF editor 2016

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• Round up: The best free PDF editor 2016
• Round up: The best free screen recorder 2016
• Chrome's next trick aims to make the web a safer place to shop

Round up: The best free PDF editor 2016 Posted: Free PDF editors The best PDF editor Adobe describes PDF as "three letters that changed the world", and it has a point: the Portable Document Format, to give it its Sunday name, was invented by Adobe to make it easy to share electronic documents. It's now an open standard used in everything from publishing to public bodies, and there are stacks of tools to create, edit, annotate and organise PDFs. But which is the best? We've sorted through the options and picked out the very best PDF editor you can download. If you're a Mac user, don't forget about the Preview app - it's a very useful PDF editor in its own right, although some other programs can do even more. 1. Foxit Reader Flexible and powerful, Foxit Reader is the best free PDF editor around Of all the free PDF tools available for Windows, Foxit Reader is our favorite. It looks and feels rather like Microsoft Office so it's instantly familiar, it has a tabbed interface for working on multiple PDFs simultaneously, and it enables you to complete forms and annotate documents. It also includes security tools for protecting your PDFs. It's expandable via a bunch of add-ons and if you find yourself needing even more power its paid-for sibling, PhantomPDF, has extensive organisation, sharing and document tracking features for a very reasonable US$109 (about £80, AU$140). 2. Adobe Reader Adobe's cross-platform PDF editor is superb for marking up documents Yes, Adobe Reader on the desktop has a reputation for being overly complex and overly needy - but the iOS and Android editions haven't inherited its flaws and stand on their own virtual feet as fast, flexible and lightweight PDF editors. Some of the best features require an Acrobat Pro subscription, so for example editing text isn't possible without Pro, but you can sign and fill forms and export Office documents to PDF. There's support for Dropbox too. 3. PDF24 Creator A printer driver with added editing features for perfect conversions One of the simplest ways to create PDFs in Windows is to install a PDF printer driver. Windows sees it as a printer driver, but instead of controlling hardware it actually converts documents to PDFs. That's what PDF24 Creator offers, but it also adds its own Assistant that can split or merge PDF files, adjust document properties, re-order pages, password protect PDFs and add digital watermarks or signatures. It's hardly the prettiest PDF editor around but it gets on with the job and doesn't require loads of system resources. 4. Adobe Acrobat DC (trial) Edit text, replace and tweak images, add signatures and much more besides The DC stands for Document Cloud, and Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is designed to cover every eventuality - for a price. You can try out the software for free, but the license is an annual subscription that works out at £11.42 (about US$15, AU$20) per month for the Standard editor and £13.33 (about US$18, AU$20) per month for Pro. The Standard edition gives you online access via Adobe's Document Cloud, the ability to create PDFs from almost any source, to work on PDFs via the mobile apps and to electronically sign documents. Going Pro adds multimedia support, the ability to edit scanned documents and the option to request electronic signatures. 5. Nitro PDF Reader Surprisingly powerful, with support for both image and text editing Here's another free PDF editor that looks awfully like Microsoft Office, and once again that's no bad thing. Nitro PDF Reader has a feature set that shames some paid-for apps: despite a price tag of zero it offers document to PDF conversion, annotation and highlighting, image extraction, text editing and e-signatures. It's definitely one to try before you consider paying for a PDF app. 6. PDF-XChange Editor A free PDF editor with OCR for converting image-based PDFs Tracker's PDF-XChange Editor comes in three and a half flavors: a free Lite version for non-commercial use, two paid-for versions at US$43.50 (about £30, AU$60) and US$54.50 (about £40, AU$70) respectively, and stripped-down version of the less expensive premium edition. The free version is quite limited - it's a print-to-PDF app to create searchable PDFs from pretty much any Windows app - but it also has has OCR scanning, Google Drive and Office 365 support, commenting and annotation, markup and file conversion. Paying for a license adds the ability to create forms, more advanced organizational tools and more extensive editing options. 7. SlimPDF Reader A tiny tool that's lacking features, but won't stress underpowered PCs The name should set expectations here: SlimPDF Reader promises to be "10% of the size of Adobe Reader but views 100% of PDFs". It's microscopic by app standards - just 1.43MB - and that's largely because it doesn't really do anything other than view PDFs. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though: its tiny footprint means it doesn't drag your system down like more advanced PDF editord often do, and it's ridiculously fast on even the most modest PCs. 8. Icecream PDF Converter Split hefty documents into manageable sections before conversion Icecream PDF Converter comes from the same developer as the useful Icecream Ebook Reader (which also doubles as a good-looking PDF viewer). This PDF editor and reader is all about the file formats, though. You can drag and drop PDFs onto the app and convert them to JPG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, GIF, EPS, HTML or WMF format, and you can also convert ebooks and Microsoft Office documents to PDF. It can also run batch conversions and partial conversions for when you only need a few pages of a huge document. That's the good news. The bad news is that you're limited to 10 page PDFs when you export and five files per conversion to PDF unless you buy the Pro version for £14.95 (about US$20, AU$30). 9. AbleWord Convert documents from text format to PDF, and vice versa Here's a blast from the past: AbleWord looks very like an old version of Microsoft Word or a recent OpenOffice app. It works like those apps too, but the unique selling point here is that it supports PDF files as well as the usual DOC, DOCX and RTF formats, and that means it's a handy PDF editor for anybody who needs to create documents in PDF format or convert between Word and PDF formats. OpenOffice can export text documents in PDF format too, but reading them requires installing an extension. AbleWord, by contrast, has PDF import built-in. 10. PDFsam Basic A versatile tool for merging and splitting PDFs in multiple configurations PDFsam is an acronym of PDF Split and Merge, so you can probably guess what it does. Yep, it splits and merges PDFs. You can use this free PDF editor to combine multiple documents or break a single document into multiples, you can merge alternate pages - handy if you're trying to turn single-sided scans of double-sided documents into something readable - and you can split by size, which is useful if you're splitting a huge document across USB drives or other small storage options. There's also a handy tool for rotating pages across multiple documents.

Round up: The best free screen recorder 2016 Posted: Screen recorders The best free screen recorder Fancy becoming the next PewDiePie, showing other people how to play big name games on YouTube? Would you like to make demos to show off your apps, or to teach others how to use specific software? Then you need a screen recorder. The simplest screen recorders simply capture what's on your screen and save it in AVI format, but the more advanced free tools also offer editing, additional audio, picture-in-picture and on-screen drawing. These are our favorites. 1. CamStudio An open source screen recorder more flexible than most paid-for tools Many free screen recorders are very limited in what they do, because they're intended as adverts for paid-for products. Not CamStudio. This open source software is completely free to download and use for whatever purpose you see fit. CamStudio is designed to record in AVI format, which you can also convert to Flash video, and you can adjust the video quality and choose between capturing the entire screen or just part of it. The app also offers picture-in-picture video and anti-aliased captions. This flexibility and absence of watermarks or time restrictions makes CamStudio the best free screen recorder around. 2. FRAPS With high-resolution recording, FRAPS is the go-to choice for gamers Designed specifically for recording games, FRAPS is free to use if you don't need your clips to be longer than 30 seconds. That's not enough for a Minecraft tutorial, of course, but it's fine for shorter clips - and with a maximum possible resolution of 7,680 x 4,800 it's capable of recording even cutting-edge graphics. It's the most popular screen recorders for Let's Play videos, but its developers recommend using Windows Live Movie Maker to convert your clips into a web-friendly format, which is an extra step we'd rather avoid. 3. Bandicam Another recorder targeted at gamers, with hardware acceleration built in Another screen recorder aimed primarily at gamers, Bandicam boasts an interface reminiscent of 2001 A Space Odyssey's HAL and is packed with features including hardware acceleration and an optional overlay showing frames per second. It's a shame that the free version can only record 10 minutes of footage at a time and the resulting recordings are watermarked. Bandicam is otherwise superb and you'd be hard pressed to find a superior screen capture tool for games. A worthy rival to FRAPS. 4. ezvid Record, annotate and upload directly to YouTube without leaving the app The marketing for this screen recorder is a bit excitable - it compares ezvid's video editing tools to expensive paid-for packages without mentioning that free apps like Avidemux boast the same options - but if you're looking for a straightforward screen recorder then ezvid is very easy to use. It enables you to edit your recordings, add slides, change the speed and upload directly to YouTube, and you can draw on screen or turn typed text into spoken audio. This screen recorder is particularly popular with Minecraft players. 5. Rylstim Screen Recorder Not ideal for gamers, but a great screen recorder for software tutorials Screen recording doesn't get much simpler than this: launch Rylstim Screen Recorder, click 'Start record', and press F9 when you're done. It's not one for would-be games vloggers - there's no support for sound recording - and it doesn't include any editing tools, but there's a good range of export formats and you can always add audio later in another free app. Rylstim Screen Recorder is ad-funded, but the advertisements are just small ones at the bottom of the options window. 6. FlashBack Express Capture what you want, when you want with scheduled recording FlashBack Express is free to use, but you need to request a registration key from its developer to download it. Scheduled recording is the main attraction here, enabling you to start capturing your screen at a certain time or (more usefully) when you open a particular program. It doesn't restrict on the amount of footage you can capture at once, but you can set your own maximum time or file size to avoid creating huge, unwieldy videos. You can also break a long video into manageable chunks. Not all of FlashBack's features are included in the main screen recorder – its batch converter and player are bundled in the same download as standalone apps. 7. Icecream Screen Recorder Save your recordings in a format of your choice, or upload to YouTube Like all of its developer's free software, Icecream Screen Recorder is beautifully designed and a piece of cake to use. You can record footage from a webcam as well as your screen, add annotations and doodles, and upload the resulting videos directly to YouTube. Some functions (like the ability to record the area immediately around the mouse pointer) are only available in the premium version, but there's more than enough in the free edition for most purposes. It's a shame that the premium-only features aren't highlighted in the interface – you only find out they're restricted when you try to select one and are presented with a nag screen. 8. eLecta Screen Recorder Put yourself in the frame with eLecta's picture-in-picture recording eLecta Screen Recorder's killer feature is picture-in-picture recording, enabling you to capture your jumps and screams as you make your way through the latest survival horror title, or calmly walk new users through your newly developed personal finance app. You can also watermark your recordings with a custom image, and choose whether to include the cursor and taskbar. eLecta's only drawback is its shortage of export settings; you can only use AVI format and there's no choice of encoding options. If you want a different format, you'll need to convert it using a video editing app like Handbrake. 9. TinyTake Easy to use for quick and simple screen recording tasks TinyTake is a little screen recorder that makes some big promises: not only is it free, it claims to be the best of its breed. It enables you to capture the whole screen or just a region for up to 120 minutes, to annotate the video and to share the results online - provided you have a MangoApps account. It's a well crafted app, but it's best suited to educational and business use where the lack of export options isn't an issue. 10. HyperCam An older version of a premium screen recorder, now yours free HyperCam 4.0 is a premium product, but its developer has generously decided to make HyperCam 2.9 available to download free. The older edition is a simple little screen recorder much like eLecta, which captures the action from your screen and saves it in AVI format. Unlike eLecta, however, picture-in-picture recording isn't an option. Version 4.0 can be downloaded as a free 21-day trial. It has a more modern interface than its predecessor, neatly minimizing itself to the taskbar while it's active, and supports input from your PC's microphone. It's not aimed at gamers, but works well for software tutorials thanks to its support for text annotations and on-screen doodles.

Chrome's next trick aims to make the web a safer place to shop Posted: Google is busy upping its game with Chrome in various different ways – most recently improving its efficiency so the browser doesn't drain laptop batteries so swiftly – and another fresh initiative is a move to tighten things on the security front by clearly showing when the likes of online shopping sites are failing to use HTTPS. HTTPS connections are secure and encrypted to protect any data transferred – which is obviously vital when that's the likes of your credit card details, or account passwords – whereas plain HTTP connections don't offer that security and leave users potentially open to exploits. Currently with Chrome, if you're visiting a site which uses HTTPS, that fact is highlighted clearly by a green lock icon next to the URL in the address bar. Sites which use HTTP are simply marked with a neutral icon (although if you click it, this will inform you that 'your connection to this site is not private'). Risky business However, starting with Chrome 56 (due to arrive at the beginning of next year), Google will actually flag sites which use HTTP and transmit financial/card details or passwords as 'Not secure'. Thus letting users see more clearly that they're taking something of a risk. In a blog post spotted by CNET, Emily Schechter of the Chrome Security Team observed that this was part of a "long-term plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure". So while this might just be a measure for websites dealing with sensitive data when it first arrives with Chrome 56, eventually it will apply to every site across the web – and such sites will be clearly marked with a red triangle warning icon. This is, essentially, Google's not-so-subtle nudge to website developers to get their skates on transferring over to use HTTPS. How many websites in total now use HTTPS? According to Google's stats drawn from its browser, just over half of Chrome desktop page loads are completed over HTTPS. Also check out how Google wants to make Chrome 'unbreakable'

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