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| PC World - 30 Jan (PC World)Scareware is a type of malware that relies on scare tactics to get you to lower your guard and unknowingly install malware or give away sensitive personal data before you realize you’re being tricked. Typically, these scare tactics are full-screen alerts that mimic antivirus warnings.
One of the most nefarious examples of scareware is the “tech support scam,” which falsely warn that your device is affected with malware and that you need to call a fake support number or install fake anti-malware software to clean it up and restore things. You may have even seen a few Microsoft IT support scam pop-ups yourself over the years.
Microsoft
Understandably, Microsoft wants to fight this — and it’s doing so with a new Scareware Blocker feature in Edge, which was first announced in November at the 2024 Ignite conference.
According to a blog post (spotted by BleepingComputer), the Scareware Blocker is currently rolling out to all Microsoft Edge Insiders. Presumably, it will roll out to the general version of Edge after it’s been tested.
“Scareware blocker adds a new, first line of defense to help protect the users exposed to a new scam if it attempts to open a full screen page.”
How does Scareware Blocker work? Using a local machine learning model, Edge compares full-screen pages with thousands of past scams that were submitted by Microsoft’s scam-fighting community. (All processing is done locally, without saving or sharing to the cloud.) When a suspicious page is detected, Edge exits full-screen mode, warns you, and lets you decide if you want to continue.
How to activate Scareware Blocker
Before you can enable Scareware Blocker, you need to install the beta version of Microsoft Edge. This version installs alongside the main release version of Edge, so you don’t have to worry about them co-mingling. If you’re on a managed system, make sure your admin allows previews.
Make sure your beta version of Edge is up to date. Then, in the browser, navigate to Settings > Privacy, search, and services to find the “Scareware blocker” feature. Toggle it on. Done!
You can also report pages to protect others. Microsoft encourages reporting of both actual scam pages and false positives to improve the accuracy of its model. You can see more in the video below: Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | PC World - 30 Jan (PC World)At a glanceExpert`s Rating
Pros
DLSS Multi Frame Generation is a game-changer in compatible titles, driving snappy new levels of smoothness by increasing frame rates fourfold, tightly paced.
Great 4K and 1440p performance
Tightly engineered Founders Edition model somehow squeezes into a fairly quiet two-slot design
Cons
Very small performance upgrade over existing RTX 4080 Super outside of DLSS 4 games with Multi Frame Generation
Much slower than RTX 4090, much less the RTX 5090
Higher power draw requires a more capable power supply
16GB memory capacity underwhelms in a $1,000 GPU
Our Verdict
The GeForce RTX 5080 offers negligible improvement over the 4080 Super’s performance, which is a massive bummer — but also offers a truly game-changing feature in DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation, which supercharges frame rates and visual smoothness. It’s sure to be controversial.
Price When Reviewed
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“Oh, so that’s why the GeForce RTX 5080 costs less than everyone expected.”
That thought struck my mind the instant I saw where Nvidia’s new $999 graphics card fell in our gaming benchmarks. The extravagant $1,999 GeForce RTX 5090 managed to use a tantalizing mix of brute force and DLSS 4 innovation to bully its way to the top of the performance charts. The still expensive, yet more attainable RTX 5080 takes a more reserved approach, and delivers disappointing performance gains as a result. It’s barely beats the 4080 Super it’s replacing, much less the still-ferocious RTX 4090.
That makes DLSS 4, the new generation of Nvidia tech that can insert up to three AI-generated frames between every traditionally rendered frame, even more crucial to the RTX 5080. It’s a truly magical feature to play around with, sending frame rates and visual smoothness soaring, but is it enough to make up for a GPU that, frankly, delivers a poor generational performance uplift?
Yes, believe it or not — DLSS 4’s new capabilities supercharge how your games feel, imbuing even janky performers with shocking speed and snappiness.
Woof. This one’s going to be complicated. Watch Adam and Will’s video below for a benchmark-by-benchmark analysis of all the tests we’ve run. Here, we’ll focus on the key details that would-be RTX 5080 buyers need to know before dropping a cool grand on Nvidia’s latest — and sure to be controversial — enthusiast graphics card.
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5080 isn’t much faster than the 4080 Super
When we analyzed the RTX 50-series’ tech specs after their reveal, I pointed out that the RTX 5080 only has about 10 percent more CUDA cores than the 4080. Architecture improvements, a higher power draw, and the move to cutting-edge GDDR7 memory could also help increase performance, but the RTX 5080 wasn’t likely to be a humongous leap forward.
Unfortunately, it only provided an awkward foot-shuffle forward in our gaming benchmarks.
Across our suite — which uses a mix of different game engines, genres, and ray tracing levels — the GeForce RTX 5080 ends up just 15 percent faster at 4K resolution than the $999 RTX 4080 Super. (The vanilla 4080 launched at $1,200 before flopping and being replaced by the cheaper Super.) That’s deeply disappointing. You hope to see a 25 to 30 percent performance improvement in a new graphics card generation.
Some games perform better or worse. In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla the uplift was only 10 percent. In Cyberpunk 2077, a game developed with deep Nvidia collaboration, the RTX 5080 ran 32 percent faster than the 4080 Super. But in general, expect to see about a 15 percent uplift in most games.
The GeForce RTX 5080’s raw performance is even more disappointing if you’re looking to pair it with a high refresh-rate 1440p monitor. At that resolution, the 5080 is just 11.5 percent faster than the 4080 Super on average.
From a raw rendering perspective, the GeForce RTX 5080 is one of the worst generational upgrades in recent memory. This graphics card is barely faster than its predecessor, and the RTX 5080 falls well behind last generation’s RTX 4090. That aging behemoth runs 15 percent faster than the 5080 at 4K.
Sigh. And because of that…
DLSS 4 will make or break the RTX 5080
Watch the Full Nerd gang discuss their DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Gen experience in the time-stamped video above.
The GeForce RTX 5080 has an ace up its sleeve, though: Nvidia’s flat-out awesome new DLSS 4 technology.
More specifically, the new Multi Frame Gen feature exclusive to GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards. It builds atop the Frame Generation feature introduced in the 40-series. While the older Frame Generation inserts a single AI-generated frame between two “traditionally” rendered frames to increase frame rate, Multi Frame Gen inserts up to three AI generated images between frames to send frame rates soaring even higher. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s mandatory-for-Frame-Gen Reflex technology helps to drive down the latency introduced by the AI frames.
It feels wonderful. Enabling MFG makes supported games (like Cyberpunk and Alan Wake 2) look and feel so much smoother. Consider this testimonial from our 5090 review:
“PCWorld contributor Will Smith, who is working on a deeper dive into DLSS 4, delivers even stronger praise: He reports that turning on DLSS 4 makes Star Wars Outlaws, a fun third-person game prone to performance concerns, feel just as good as the legendary Doom 2016, which many gamers consider the paragon of fast-action shooters. “It’s like a whole new game,” he said.”
I’ve spent time tooling around the streets of Night City with MFG active in Cyberpunk 2077. It’s astonishing how much more smooth and fast everything feels, especially in a game that runs damned smooth and fast to begin with. It’s revolutionary.
From a raw rendering perspective, the GeForce RTX 5080 is one of the worst generational upgrades in recent memory.
Multi Frame Gen isn’t free, however, as the excellent analysis by Hardware Unboxed above drives home. Your inputs don’t affect the AI frames, only the traditionally rendered ones. Nvidia Reflex does an admirable job of keeping latency — responsiveness — around native levels even when churning out maximum AI frames. The full 4x MFG mode only adds a handful of milliseconds of latency compared to native rendering, in exchange for DLSS 4’s delightful visual smoothness. But the way the game feels still relies on those traditionally rendered frames.
That insight unlocks several others. But the key one is this: You need a high base frame rate — 60fps or more, ideally 80fps or more — before turning on MFG to keep your games feeling “right.” If you go too much below that, the input lag becomes much more noticeable.
Fortunately, while the RTX 5080 offers only a mediocre upgrade over the 4080 Super in raw performance, the performance on offer is still more than enough to drive that 60- to 80fps “base rate” that’s so important for reasonable latency with Multi Frame Gen. Yes, Cyberpunk 2077 running at 60fps but augmented to run at 240fps with MFG/Reflex still feels like it’s running around 60fps, but constant frame pacing that comes with running a game so fast just looks and feels gooooood, man.
Frame Generation isn’t for everyone. That said, I am sensitive to latency. I am a monitor collector who has a 360Hz 1080p panel solely to play competitive shooters. I am a freak who can tell that a game running at 240fps with MFG doesn’t feel like a game running at native 240fps, and because of that I’d never use Frame Generation in multiplayer games. But the tight frame pacing and smoother visuals MFG provides makes gorgeous single-player games look and feel so much better that I unabashedly recommend using it when available, even if it feels minimally “off” at first. It’s that good.
Better yet, DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Gen will be available in 75 games and apps when the RTX 50-series launches on January 30. Some of them will be actual game updates, while you’ll need to force DLSS 4 via the Nvidia app in others. But you’ll have plenty of games to play around in.
That’s great, because DLSS 4 is the defining feature of the RTX 5080. If you’re not interested in AI frames whatsoever, the old 4080 Super would probably be a better purchase for you, weirdly enough.
The RTX 5080 and 5090 are remarkably thin graphics card considering their performance levels.Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry
The RTX 5080 is no RTX 4090 rival
…well, unless you’re running a DLSS 4 game with Multi Frame Generation active.
But other than that, the RTX 4090 still demolishes the RTX 5080. It winds up being 15 percent faster than the RTX 5080 on average at 4K resolution. Usually, the xx80 card of a generation clearly beats the xx80 Ti or xx90 tier from the previous generation, but that’s very much not the case here.
The newer card’s 16GB of GDDR7 memory doesn’t hold a candle to the RTX 4090’s massive 24GB memory buffer either. The 4090’s mondo capacity makes it beloved by content creators and AI pros alike. If you can get by with 16GB, the RTX 5080’s next-gen Blackwell GPU architecture managed to come close to the RTX 4090 in our Procyon AI text generation and Adobe Premiere Pro tests, for significantly less money. But 16GB just isn’t enough for many pros working on the most strenuous tasks these days — and while our gaming testing didn’t stress the capacity, 16GB seems awfully skimpy for a $1,000 graphics card in 2025.
Damn, Nvidia’s RTX 5080 Founders Edition is nice
If you’re lucky enough to snag an RTX 5080 Founders Edition, you won’t be disappointed. Like the RTX 5090 Founders Edition, the RTX 5080 FE wields delightfully advanced engineering tricks to squeeze the GPU’s might into a svelte true two-slot package. That means you can cram it into tiny small form-factor builds. Drooooool.
Watch GeForce’s product manager explain its intricacies in our video from CES 2025 below.
You’ll no doubt find a slew of monstrous, triple-slot custom RTX 5080s from Nvidia’s usual board partners. Their expansive heft and cooling setups will surely keep the 5080 frostier and quieter than Nvidia’s space-constrained Founders Edition, but expect to pay considerably more in return.
Given its small performance upgrade, I’m not sure that paying a steep premium for a custom RTX 5080 makes much sense unless you’re a fanatic about sound and temperatures. The Founders Edition isn’t especially hot or cranky sounding, anyways.
More power, Captain!
The RTX 5080 has a higher TGP rating than the 4080, which means it draws more power. That extra power can be used to help juice clock speeds, but some of the increase comes from the debut of cutting-edge GDDR7 VRAM fast enough to melt faces.
It’s a nothingburger in reality. The RTX 5080 consumed about 8 percent more energy than the 4080 Super in our test that logs power throughout a benchmark run. But that slightly higher power draw does pack a tangible difference: Nvidia says an 850-watt power supply is required to run the RTX 5080, a 100W increase over the 4080.
Should you buy the GeForce RTX 5080?
Only consider the RTX 5080 if you buy into Nvidia’s AI-fueled vision of the future.
Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry
DLSS 4’s Multi Frame Generation feature must be seen (and felt) to be believed. On PCWorld’s Full Nerd podcast, we compared the leap from Single Frame to Multi Frame Generation to the leap from DLSS 1 to DLSS 2. When both technologies first came out, they showed promise but had plenty of rough edges. With DLSS 2, gamers agreed that Nvidia nailed it. And while it’s not quite perfect, Multi Frame Generation nails it. Once more gamers get their Dorito-stained paws on RTX 50-series cards, and are able to tool around with MFG in 75+ games and apps, I wouldn’t be surprised if all the furor over “fake frames” online dies down quite a bit. It’s a literal game changer.
But Nvidia is in trouble this generation if the masses don’t embrace Multi Frame Generation. Because when it comes to traditional gaming performance, the RTX 5080 is no game changer.
It’s a pretty damned terrible generational upgrade, actually. Eking out a mere 11 to 15 more render performance than the RTX 4080 Super, at the same price, at a higher power draw, isn’t compelling whatsoever. It can’t come anywhere close to last gen’s 4090. If you don’t like AI-generated frames — maybe you’re sensitive to latency, or you focus on competitive games, or you loathe the idea of AI frames potentially introducing visual glitches — I’d even go so far as to suggest picking up a 4080 Super to get roughly comparable performance for less cash.
Remember: The RTX 3080 beat the RTX 2080 by 60 to 80 percent when it launched earlier this decade, and it did so for just $700. Then Nvidia jacked the price of the vanilla RTX 4080 by $500 dollars for a 30 percent performance increase, leading to poor sales rectified only by the launch of the 4080 Super at $999. With the RTX 5080 barely outpacing that, the RTX 5080 would have been immensely more compelling at a couple hundred dollars cheaper. Two generations after the RTX 3080, Nvidia has truly devastated the xx80 tier’s value in recent memory. Upgrading from the 3080 to a 5080 will only get you about 40 to 45 percent more performance, for a price tag that’s 42 percent higher. That’s not progress.
If Nvidia didn’t have MFG in tow, this would’ve been a scathing review for the RTX 5080 itself. But boyyyyy does DLSS 4’s new tricks feel great. Multi Frame Generation makes Star Wars Outlaws, a notoriously janky game, feel just as good as Doom 2016. Cyberpunk’s neon Night City feels so much more alive when you’re racing around at a buttery-smooth 240Hz+, or over 150fps even with the game’s nuclear RT Overdrive Mode active.
And that’s the promise Nvidia needs gamers to buy into for the GeForce RTX 5080 — heck, perhaps this entire RTX 50-series generation. Are you willing to embrace “fake frames” and dip your toes into experiences that aren’t currently possible with traditional rendering alone? If so, this GPU provides enough grunt to fuel those adventures in 4K and 1440p alike.
If not, the RTX 5080 is one of the most disappointing GPU releases in a long time. It’s probably best to save your cash.
Me? I’m into the vision. But I wish Nvidia imbued the RTX 5080 with more raw rendering firepower, so it could be a decent upgrade even for “fake frame” haters. Nvidia didn’t, alas — so now the RTX 5080’s future hangs in the balance of those 75 DLSS 4 games working correctly at launch.
If DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation perform like a champ when that wider availability hits, it could usher in a new era of smooth, AI-supercharged performance. But if DLSS 4 winds up plagued by visual artifacts or other issues once the floodgates open, it could instead set off an explosion of “fake frames” memes and sign a death warrant for the otherwise ho-hum RTX 5080 — perhaps even the rest of Nvidia’s 50-series lineup.
The GeForce RTX 5090 can stand alone on its own merits, but the RTX 5080 is all-in on DLSS 4. All that’s left us to see is where the chips fall. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | PC World - 30 Jan (PC World)Even if you aren’t a huge techie, you probably know about all the big, mainstream apps that are fundamental to how we use our PCs. I’m talking Word, Outlook, Chrome, Slack, Dropbox, etc. You know, right?
But there are many, many, many awesome free apps out there that can seriously improve your PC and your workflows, unlock new tools and features, and just make your PC experience better overall.
If you want to wring a little more out of your PC, here are some of the best hidden gem apps that are super useful and available for free.
Ferdium for centralizing all the web apps and services you use in one place
Ferdium
If you have a lot of permanently open browser tabs for all the different web apps you use every day, then you can make things easier for yourself by organizing them with Ferdium. (Have you heard of Rambox or Franz? Ferdium is like those except open-source and totally free.)
Ferdium lets you run separate tabs for hundreds of web services, including chat apps (like Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.) and social apps (like Slack, Discord, etc.) as well as email apps, calendar apps, media apps, AI chatbots, and more. All of those apps can reside right within Ferdium, letting you consolidate all of that to one place.
I love Ferdium for how it fences everything off into its own app. I no longer have to reach for my phone to check WhatsApp or catch up on Teams notifications or pull up Gmail or Google Calendar. It’s all just one click away on my PC and it’s less distracting overall.
PDFgear for PDF editing, converting, merging, annotating, and more
PDFgear
PDFgear is one of those diamonds in the rough, one that we’ve been evangelizing for a while now. But just because it isn’t as well-known as others doesn’t mean it isn’t an excellent PDF editor.
If you’ve ever been frustrated by how difficult it is to find a high-quality offline PDF editor that doesn’t charge you for personal use, then PDFgear is the end goal you’ve been looking for. This app is super capable at editing PDFs, whether through annotations or direct file editing.
It works with text, images, and graphics. It can merge PDFs together. It can convert PDFs into different file types. It can do just about anything else you’d want to do with a PDF. It even has a built-in AI assistant that can search, summarize, aid with editing, and more.
SitApp for developing better posture
SitApp
If you work or game at your PC for hours at a time, then maintaining good posture and proper back health is something that’s well worth the effort. But maybe all you really need is a gentle prod whenever you start to slouch, in which case you could benefit greatly from SitApp.
SitApp is a useful app that uses your webcam to analyze your posture and detect when you’re slouching — and when you are, the app shows a little pop-up reminder to let you know. It also tracks your posture history so you can compete against yourself to see how long you can maintain good posture. My record is 92% over eight hours. How about you?
BreakTimer for regular break reminders
BreakTimer
If you’re always on your PC, good posture isn’t the only thing to worry about. It’s important to get up and walk around, rest your eyes, drink water, stretch, and maybe even exercise. But it’s easy to forget to do all of that, especially if you lock onto a task or get absorbed into a game.
BreakTimer sits in the background and periodically reminds you to take a break. You can customize the alerts to whatever frequency you want, however long you want the breaks to be, which days you want them to be active on, and more. It’s simple but life-changing — and free!
Mouse Without Borders for using one mouse and keyboard with multiple PCs
Wish you could control multiple computers with one set of mouse and keyboard? One way to do that is to buy a KVM switch and go through the hassle of setting it up. Or you could just get Mouse Without Borders.
Mouse Without Borders is a Microsoft Garage project that was put together by developer Truong Do during his off-hours, and it works fantastically well for controlling up to four PCs with a single mouse and keyboard. It’s not perfect, but it’s quick, easy to use, and entirely free, making it a great alternative to hardware KVMs.
4K Video Downloader Plus for downloading videos anywhere online
4K Download
Lots of video downloader tools have come and gone over the years, useful for when you want to save videos from YouTube, Facebook, and other sites. But most of those tools eventually turn into malware, slow down to a crawl when they gain too many users, or simply die off overnight and leave you dry and forsaken.
On the other hand, 4K Video Downloader Plus works almost flawlessly, stays regularly updated, and doesn’t suffer from malware infections, all in a fast and lightweight package. What more could you ask for?
Foobar2000 for reliable music playback
Foobar2000
Are you in the minority of people who haven’t yet jumped aboard the Spotify train? Do you have a large MP3 collection instead? And are you using Windows Media Player to listen to it? If so, then I have a gift for you: Foobar2000, a simple and lightweight music player.
Windows Media Player has its foibles when it comes to managing large music collections, organizing playlists, customizing the interface, converting between file formats, and offering all kinds of other advanced features. Foobar2000 does it all plus more, and it’s been around since 2002, and it’s been completely free for that entire time.
This streamlined music player went from super popular to obscure over the last decade or so, and these days it’s sort of a hidden gem again. Its interface is barebones out of the box, but it also has deep customization options that let you make it truly your own.
MPC-BE for hassle-free video playback
MPC-BE
Back in the day, there used to be an open-source app called Media Player Classic that was a lightweight yet improved alternative to Windows Media Player for playing video files. MPC ceased development in 2006, but the project has been forked a few times since.
MPC-BE (short for Black Edition) is my preferred successor. It’s still free and open-source, and it still carries forward the streamlined principles that made Media Player Classic so popular. You don’t have to fiddle around with codecs — it just works and it doesn’t bog down your system. It’s one of the best open-source PC apps.
EarTrumpet for controlling volume on an individual per-app basis
Jon Martindale / IDG
If you consistently find that some apps are way too loud or way too quiet even when your system volume seems fine, then you need EarTrumpet. This quick and easy utility lets you individually adjust the volume of any audio source that’s playing on your PC.
From browser windows to social apps, from local audio to online, EarTrumpet gives you fine-tuned control over your PC’s audio output. It can even let you lower the volume of everyone in a Discord chat rather than having to do it one by one.
EPKL for changing your keyboard layout or customizing individual keys
EPKL
Here in the US, nearly every keyboard has the standard QWERTY layout that came out in 1874. But this classic keyboard layout has drawbacks, like inefficient typing and a greater susceptibility to repetitive strain injuries. That’s why people have been moving away from it.
Fortunately, even if you have a QWERTY keyboard, you don’t have to use the QWERTY layout itself. Thanks to EPKL, you can easily switch over to Colemak, Dvorak, or whatever other keyboard layout you want without having to buy a special keyboard.
Alternatively, you can use EPKL to move specific keys around or even rebind certain keys to perform different actions. And if you’re feeling devilish, you can even use it to prank your friends and make them think their keyboard is borked. (Just be sure to let them off afterwards, as this one could stump the less tech-savvy for hours.)
Files for an improved and more effective alternative to File Explorer
Files
Are you tired of File Explorer’s shortcomings? Then don’t delay and install Files right away. This open-source Windows file manager feels familiar yet comes with several advanced features, like dual-pane browsing, tags for files and folders, a better preview system, custom keyboard shortcuts, seamless cloud integration, and more.
Everything for a faster and more powerful way to search your Windows PC
Voidtools
If you feel like the built-in search in Windows is as ineffective as it is monolithic, you aren’t alone. Fortunately, you don’t have to put up with its subpar capabilities.
Everything by Voidtools is a far more capable search tool, able to not only find anything on your system by its name or file type but also by its contents. Content searching takes a lot longer, of course, but it’s super effective — and if you search normally (i.e., by name or file type), it’s significantly faster than Windows’ search.
Cryptomater for encrypting your data, both locally and in the cloud
Skymatic
“Not your keys, not your coins” is a cryptocurrency expression that highlights the importance of protecting your data. If you aren’t careful with your files, you could lose more than you expect — and your personal data is only as safe as you make it.
Cryptomator is a free solution that adds an extra layer of security to your files using encryption. It works with any files, no matter where you store them, whether locally on your PC or online in the cloud. It effectively locks down your data so that even if someone were to gain access, they wouldn’t be able to do anything with what they find.
Fan Control to control your PC fans
Fan Control
If you’re like me, you’ve probably used a number of software fan controllers over the years and always found them unintuitive, underwhelming, or frustrating. If so, then I have some good news for you: Fan Control is a breath of fresh air and the app you need.
This free app gives you straightforward control over all the adjustable fans in your PC, from the rear exhaust fans to the CPU pump speed to everything in between. You can tie fan speeds to various temperature sensors, apply different fan curves and trigger points, and even integrate with third-party software through plugins.
Fan Control’s interface is clean and customizable, but if you need help getting started, the app has an assisted setup that aids in labeling and organizing your fans and their associated sensors.
Microsoft PowerToys for unlocking extra features and goodies in Windows
Jon Martindale / IDG
A worker is only as good as their tools, so why use Windows without making sure you have access to its full potential? There’s something called Microsoft PowerToys, available directly in the Microsoft Store, that freely unlocks new features and goodies.
I’ve written about my favorite PowerToys features that are pretty useful, including improvements to File Explorer, a batch renaming utility, an expanded clipboard, a quick-find tool for your mouse cursor, a color palette helper, and so much more.
Microsoft PC Manager for simplified maintenance of your Windows PC
Microsoft
If might not feel as cool to use as some of the other niche third-party or solo-dev projects on this list, but Microsoft PC Manager is a really effective system maintenance tool.
It helps you free up storage space, track memory usage, monitor system startup time (which you can speed up with some tweaks), and shows you active apps for diagnostic purposes when things are acting up.
WizTree for visualizing your disk space usage and finding large files
Jon Martindale / IDG
With multiple drives full of large apps and files, it can be hard to understand just how much space you have left on your PC and how much each existing piece of data actually takes up. You can also lose space when giant files are forgotten in corners of your drives.
Disk analyzer tools like WizTree are a great way to visualize your system’s data storage, making it easier to understand which apps to uninstall or which files to delete when you need to free up some extra space. It’s fast, effective, and easy to use — as well as being entirely free.
DDU for purging old and unused drivers
DDU
It isn’t easy staying on top of your system drivers. But even if you do keep up with installing new drivers, you probably don’t uninstall your old drivers. Maybe the installer handles that for you… but maybe it doesn’t. Even official uninstallers from AMD and Nvidia can miss them.
That means you could have a bunch of old drivers still lingering around on your PC, and when old driver files build up over the years, they can rear their heads at unexpected times and cause stability issues.
Most full-blown driver uninstaller tools, like Driver Magician, cost money. But there is one that’s totally free: DDU, which stands for Display Driver Uninstaller. This straightforward utility strips your PC of unused graphics drivers, which can come in handy if you’re running into graphics card issues that are seemingly impossible to troubleshoot.
HWMonitor for checking the health of your PC and internal hardware
Jon Martindale / IDG
Want to keep an eye on your PC components and their general health? You can quickly spot overheating, performance issues, or other odd details with either HWMonitor or HWInfo.
Both tools are fantastic for monitoring your PC’s various hardware components and how they’re working. HWMonitor is simpler and easier to get to grips with, while HWInfo is more advanced with a more comprehensive overview of PC stats.
If you’d rather just keep an eye on the temperatures of your processor and its cores, check out the ultra-lightweight Core Temp.
Parsec for streamlined remote desktop access and control from anywhere
Have you ever wanted to use your PC remotely? I mean, even when you’re away from home, it’d be great if you could “remote in” to your PC and use it from anywhere, right? With remote desktop software, you can!
Most remote desktop solutions are paid, and the free ones usually aren’t very good. But these days we have Parsec, a remote desktop tool that was originally built to allow for remote gaming but has since expanded to become a low-latency desktop sharing app.
In layman’s terms, you can use Parsec to connect to your PC and operate it like you’re there, except you aren’t. It’s equally great for working on your hobby coding project during your lunch break as it is for playing your Steam games from a hotel while traveling.
Parsec has a free Personal Use version that doesn’t come with all features, but it does have all the essentials: low-latency 60FPS desktop streaming; support for keyboards, mice, and gamepads; and encrypted connections.
Further reading: Great free apps that are already installed on your PC Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | RadioNZ - 29 Jan (RadioNZ) A study has found 36 percent of GPs were not enrolling new patients last year and points to major workforce shortages and underfunding as the key driver. Read...Newslink ©2025 to RadioNZ |  |
|  | | RadioNZ - 29 Jan (RadioNZ) Researchers warn unenrolled patients are at risk of falling through the cracks or relying on emergency departments. Read...Newslink ©2025 to RadioNZ |  |
|  | | sharechat.co.nz - 28 Jan (sharechat.co.nz) General Capital Limited advises that its subsidiary General Finance Limited, a licensed Non-bank Deposit Taker, has uploaded its quarterly unaudited report for the quarter ended 31 December 2024 to the Disclose Register Read...Newslink ©2025 to sharechat.co.nz |  |
|  | | PC World - 28 Jan (PC World)Nvidia is making great strides with its newest generation of graphics cards. With the Blackwell series (i.e., the exciting new RTX 50 series), Nvidia is focusing on powerful GPUs that rely ever more on AI features and AI-driven improvements.
If you own an older Nvidia graphics card, though, things are getting tight. According to the release notes for CUDA 12.8 — Nvidia’s programming interface that allows its GPUs to be used for general purposes — several GPU models are now considered “feature-complete” and will be “frozen” in an upcoming release, reports Tom’s Hardware.
Affected GPU models are ones that have Maxwell, Pascal and Volta architectures, which include all Nvidia graphics cards from GeForce 700 up to and including Nvidia’s 10 series. They’re all deprecated, obsolete, and waiting to be put on ice.
What does this mean for you?
If you own one of these affected Nvidia GPUs, your GPU will no longer receive any new features through future updates, so don’t expect any more improvements or optimizations going forward. However, basic security fixes will likely continue via driver updates.
So, if you’re okay with that, you can keep using your GPU and don’t have to dispose of it straight away. No specific date has been announced for end of support, but it will likely come with the next CUDA update.
Nvidia broke new standards with all three GPU series that are about to be shuttered, whether in terms of raw performance, energy efficiency, or being the first architecture for mobile GPUs (Maxwell). Though these are now in the past, the company continues to break new ground and shows no signs of slowing down or stopping any time soon. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | BBCWorld - 26 Jan (BBCWorld)Democrats described Trump`s late-night firing of the federal agency inspectors general as an `attack on Democracy`. Read...Newslink ©2025 to BBCWorld |  |
|  | | RadioNZ - 24 Jan (RadioNZ) The Attorney-General has called for an investigation into the top District Court Judge`s behaviour at a private event in November. Read...Newslink ©2025 to RadioNZ |  |
|  | | PC World - 23 Jan (PC World)Hey, did you know there are new Nvidia graphics cards on the way? It’s a pretty big deal. Such a big deal, in fact, that we’re still processing what we saw at CES 2025 (along with a lot of the videos we recorded, sorry).
After Nvidia’s big reveal of the RTX 5090 and other cards, PCWorld’s Adam Patrick Murray pulled his old buddy Paul of Paul’s Hardware aside to chat and get his expert impressions.
There are two shocking things about the RTX 5090. First, it’s a true two-slot card — no 2.5-slot fuzziness — thanks to some remarkable new engineering that shrinks the primary circuit board. That means it’ll fit far more easily into every PC build, though its pass-through cooling fan setup might create some problems with the smallest SFF designs.
Second, the RTX 5090 costs $2,000. A lot of money for a graphics card (and $400 more than the RTX 4090 from two years ago). But it’s also less than a lot of people were expecting, considering the rapid rise in secondary prices for Nvidia cards due to the crypto and AI booms. Frankly, if Nvidia had priced it at $2,500 as many expected, it would still sell every single one it could make.
Paul also takes very particular exception to Jensen Huang’s claim that the less powerful RTX 5070, at a $550 price point, will give you “4090 performance.” Nvidia’s marketing rests on the new card’s more powerful DLSS 4 and AI-powered frame generation… which is undeniably cool, and also undeniably not the same thing as “performance” in the general sense. If all you want is 4K/60FPS in Spider-Man 2, it’s great. If you want 1080p/500FPS in Counter-Strike 2, not so much.
Check out the full video for all the nuanced takes between Adam and Paul, including ways AMD could counter with a win for consumers. And for the latest PC news (and a lot more stuff from CES 2025), be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
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