Updated: Best antivirus 2016: 10 antivirus packages reviewed and rated

Introduction

It's a dangerous world, and every PC needs antivirus software to keep threats at bay: it's an absolute essential.

Don't assume that Microsoft's free tools are enough, either. Microsoft Security Essentials (or Windows Defender with Windows 8.1) is compact and easy to use, but independent testing labs such as AV-Comparatives report that Microsoft's protection is very poor.

This doesn't have to be a problem if you're short of cash. Opting for a free solution doesn't have to mean compromising your security – there are some great freebie tools around.

• Check out: Best free antivirus software 2016

Don't automatically rule out paid products, though. Independent testing reveals that commercial packages will often (although not always) deliver the best protection, as well as offering extra functionality. If you're looking for the maximum security then you should at least consider a paid package.

Here we've found 10 of the best home antivirus tools available for you to buy, listed in alphabetical order.

Avira Free Antivirus

Price: Free

At first glance, Avira Free Antivirus doesn't look like the best security choice. The interface is dated and relatively complex, there's a distinct shortage of extras, and even basic web protection requires installing a separate browser add-on.

The package scores where it matters, though, with all the big testing labs – AV-Comparatives, AV-Test and Virus Bulletin – giving it stellar ratings, comparable to Bitdefender and Kaspersky.

Avira Free is easier to use than it looks, too. The program can take care of most threats all on its own, and if you do need any assistance then a capable local help file explains everything you need to know.

There are also a few small bonus features thrown in. By default the program blocks autorun, reducing the risk from infected USB keys, while Windows hosts file protection keeps you safe from malicious redirects (both options may be disabled if they get in your way).

If you're looking to avoid the annual subscription then we'd also consider Panda for its great web filtering, but for pure desktop protection Avira Free Antivirus is hard to beat.

• While Avira free antivirus does the job, its bigger brother, the Ultimate Edition Suite 2015, might be a better bet with support for up to three devices for three years. You also get Laptlink PCMover Express, DriveLock Private, SuperEasy Driver Updater and Avira Antivirus Pro for Android thrown in for a grand total of £39.90 at Amazon.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015

Price: £29.95 (1 PC, 1 year)

In a world packed with free security software, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015's annual £29.95 may look eye-wateringly expensive. And that's because it is, but don't move on just yet: you get a lot for your money.

Bitdefender's engine is one of the most accurate and reliable around, for instance, and loved by all the big independent testers: AV-Comparatives, AV-Test and Virus Bulletin.

An excellent antiphishing module alerts you to malicious links in your search engine results, and blocks access to dangerous sites.

Some very worthwhile extras include a secure browser to keep your financial transactions safe, and a password manager which can also auto-complete credit card details in web forms.

There are a few less impressive areas – an average vulnerability scanner, basic PC tune-up tools – but Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015 is still a likeable package which offers great detection rates, minimum false positives, and more than enough bonus features to justify its premium price.

• The just-released Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2016 is available from Amazon for as little as £11 including delivery. Note that this is the one-year, three-user edition and is the boxed version. Alternatively, you can purchase the Total Security 2016 edition for £11.99. It adds a firewall, parental control, antispam, file encryption and much more!

eScan Anti-Virus

Price: £17 (1 PC, 1 year)

eScan Anti-Virus stands out immediately for its great value. Not only is it one of the cheapest of the commercial tools, but it also includes a firewall, browsing protection and spam filter, just about enough to qualify it as a budget security suite. And support for Windows 2000+ means it runs on even the most ancient of PCs.

It's the protection you get that really matters, of course, and the results from the testing labs aren't entirely consistent. AV-Test most recently gave it a distinctly average rating, but Virus Bulletin was much more impressed, and AV-Comparatives regularly place it in their top 10.

Odd interface design makes the program a little awkward to use. It's more cluttered than most of the competition, a little dated, with lots of text prompts and generally too many clicks required to carry out any particular action.

Still, once the package is set up you generally won't have to tinker with it anymore, and advanced users will find some useful configuration options here. When setting up eScan's updates, for instance, you're able to select update mode (http, ftp, network), set a proxy, define when to check, schedule a download, run a defined program afterwards, even send an email notification so you know all is well.

Overall, while it doesn't give you the best antivirus protection, eScan Anti-Virus deserves a top 10 place, and the capable firewall and anti-phishing filter (though not the weak antispam) will be a welcome bonus for some.

• Escan Universal Security suite (14.x) comes with way more features than the basic free antivirus and costs £44.95 when purchased directly from the vendor.

F-Secure Anti-Virus

Price: £19.95 (1 PC, 1 year)

If you're tired of the junk that weighs down some antivirus tools, F-Secure Anti-Virus will make a refreshing change. There are no unnecessary extras here, no bonus features you'll never use: you just get straightforward real-time browsing and antivirus protection.

Keeping things simple doesn't mean compromising your safety. The package typically receives maximum marks for protection from AV-Test, and generally scores highly with AV-Comparatives, too. It does reportedly generate a vast number of false positives – almost as many as the rest of the top 10 put together – but how that affects you will vary depending on how you use your computer.

The interface is a major plus. It's extremely easy to use, lightweight, and for the most part you can just leave it alone to look after your PC. The program has minimal effect on your system performance, and if you do need to intervene then you can generally solve any issues in a couple of clicks.

Competitors like Bitdefender and Kaspersky offer better protection and more features, but F-Secure Anti-Virus remains a likeable package, fast, lightweight, and able to run alongside many other security tools without conflict. It's one of the better value commercial products, too – you can protect three systems for only £29.95.

• F-Secure Antivirus (2015) is available from Amazon for £15.95 as a download for one user, for one year. Alternatively, the online code for three users (rather than one) is £19.95 from the same seller.

Fortinet FortiClient 5.2

Price: Free

FortiClient is designed to be an enterprise tool, integrating with Fortinet's FortiGate security appliance to ensure your network's security. But you don't need a FortiGate to install the program – or even a network – and the package is a capable free antivirus package for home users, too.

Installation took a tediously long time for us, but once it's complete there's little else to do – you can leave FortiClient running in the background and it'll detect and block most threats entirely on its own.

Independent testing shows reasonable accuracy. AV-Comparatives typically rates FortiClient amongst the top 10 in its Real World Tests, with relatively few false positives, and Virus Bulletin has scored it as having excellent detection rates.

Bonus features include a simple VPN client, and the web security module has a little more depth than the competition, too. As well as automatically blocking malicious sites, there are parental controls-type options to limit web access by site category, enable Safe Search, log attempts to visit forbidden sites or record all web activity.

Fortinet FortiClient isn't going to be anyone's first antivirus choice – it's closer to the bottom of our group than the top – but it's a decent free package, and if you'll use its extras then the program could be a sensible choice.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2015

Price: £29.99 (1 PC, 1 year)

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2015 is a very thorough security package which offers multiple layers of protection to keep you safe from harm. Cloud-based technologies warn you about dangerous links or downloads, while an accurate antivirus engine detects and removes known threats as they appear. And if anything does manage to bypass your defences, Kaspersky's System Watcher detects dubious behaviour and can reverse many malicious actions.

A "set and forget" design means this is all very easy to manage. Anti-Virus 2015 can handle most situations all on its own, but if you do need to take charge then the clean and clear interface keeps any hassles to a minimum.

We've found Kaspersky products to be exceptionally accurate in recent years, and the independent testing labs mostly say the same. AV-Test has been awarding them maximum marks recently, AV-Comparatives something similar, and only Virus Bulletin seems to be a little less impressed.

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2015 still has plenty of competition. Bitdefender offers very similar protection, and more features, for around the same price; Panda and Avira will keep you just about as safe for nothing at all. But it remains an impressive package, and on balance we think Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2015 is well worth its asking price.

• For a better, rounded protection, Kaspersky also has the brand new, 2016 edition, Total Security Multi Device product which covers three devices (PC, Android and Mac) for a full year. At £30.27, from Amazon, it offers privacy protection, secure storage and synchronization of your passwords and files as well.

Norton Security

Price: £29.99 (1 PC, 1 year)

Norton Security is more of a mini-security suite than an ordinary antivirus tool, combining antivirus, firewall, browsing protection, a password manager, identity theft and online browsing protection, and more.

Assessing its reliability isn't easy because the package isn't extensively tested by the major labs, but AV-Test has recently given it a maximum score for protection, and our own smaller scale checks typically show good results.

One of Norton's strongest areas is in preventing you getting infected in the first place. An excellent URL blocker does a good job of keeping you away from malicious websites, and the program won't allow you to run files it doesn't trust. This can be infuriating if you're always downloading and trying out the latest freeware, as it'll always be raising alerts, but if you're trying to protect a largely stable system – your kids' school laptop, say – then it can be very effective.

If, somehow, you get infected anyway, the company offers unlimited phone or online access to a Norton technician, and if they can't help you remove the infection then the company's "100% virus protection promise" means you'll get your money back. That won't help much if the malware has caused a lot of damage, but it's still good to know there's support available if you need it.

For pure protection we'd still prefer something like Bitdefender or Kaspersky, but Norton Security's file blocking abilities and ample feature set could make it a good choice for some.

• Norton Security 3.0 (version 2016) costs only £24 at Amazon for the 5-device, 1-year subscription. For an extra £18, you can double the number of devices supported and you also get 25GB of online backup bundled with a 100% refund assurance.

Panda Free Antivirus

Price: Free

Every free antivirus engine claims it's just as good as the paid products, but Panda Free Antivirus is one of the few with real supporting evidence. It's regularly top or near the top of AV-Comparatives' Real World tests, and also highly rated for protection at AV-Test, with only the occasional false positive to spoil its record.

If you're wondering why such a good product is given away, it doesn't take long to find out. The installer will by default change your browser home and search pages, although you can avoid this if you're paying attention. You must then register with your email address, and Panda is presumably hoping you'll eventually upgrade to one of the paid packages, with their various extras (firewall, Wi-Fi protection, parental controls, password manager and so on).

That's no different to most free antivirus packages, though, and Panda Free Antivirus has plenty of compensations. The attractive Windows 8-style interface looks good, is configurable and easy to use. Also, detection rates are high, plus URL and web filtering does a good job of blocking malicious websites, while the Rescue Kit builds a bootable recovery environment to help remove stubborn threats.

Put it all together and Panda Free Antivirus offers strong all-round protection, some genuinely useful extras, and along with Avira is our pick of the free crop.

• Although Panda Antivirus Free is a superb deal, you can get the Global Protection (2016 edition) version (which includes Mac protection, VIP services, Chat support as well as identity and family protection) for five computers for only £22.99 at Amazon.

Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security 2015

Price: £19.95 (1 PC, 1 year)

Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security can take a while to set up. You're forced to remove "incompatible software" before it does anything at all, then we had to restart Firefox three times to install all the new extensions.

Once it's up and running, though, life gets much easier. The interface is clean and straightforward, the core antivirus engine doesn't slow you down, and it does a great job of detecting threats, regularly receiving top ratings at independent testing labs.

There are some above average extras, too. Browsing protection watches the links you click, blocking access to most malicious sites, while the spam filter is surprisingly good by security suite standards, keeping your inbox largely junk-free.

If there's a problem here, it's that the Trend Micro engine can raise more false positives than almost anyone else. AV-Comparatives' Real-World Protection Tests have highlighted this recently, and we've seen this issue too, though not to the same degree.

We'd recommending running the trial for its full 30 days before you buy, then, to see if this might be a problem. But if you're unaffected, its high levels of detection and excellent bonus features make Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security 2015 a good choice.

• Trend Micro Maximum Security 10 (2016 edition) which provides costs a mere £9.99 for the 1-year, 3-device version (you only get the product key) or you could get a better deal from Amazon with Internet Security 2016 which is a one-year subscription for three devices for only £23.99.

Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus

Price: £29.99 (1 PC, 1 year)

Plenty of security tools claim to be "lightweight", but Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus is one of the few that actually delivers. Its few core files are installed in a fraction of a second, and it doesn't waste time or bandwidth on bulky signature updates, instead using behaviour monitoring and its cloud service to detect even the very latest threats.

This doesn't mean the program is short on features. Along with the core antivirus protection, there's accurate real-time antiphishing, a firewall and network connection monitor, a configurable sandbox for testing suspect programs, and assorted other interesting extras.

A single example: the "Execution History" log shows you all the processes your system has launched recently, and how long they were active. Even if your system is entirely malware-free, seeing that kind of detail on your background processes is very helpful for optimising your PC's performance.

How effective is all this? That's the only complication. Our own small-scale tests suggest it works very well, but we'd like some confirmation from the big independent testing labs, and right now they rarely, if ever, assess Webroot products.

Still, there's a lot to like about SecureAnywhere AntiVirus, and Webroot's 70-day 100% money-back guarantee suggests it's confident in the product, too. If you're tired of bloated antivirus engines then this must be on your shortlist.

• Webroot SecurityAnywhere Antivirus can be purchased from Ebay for as little as £15.89. It comes with a money-back guarantee as well as 25GB of online backup. This is the 3-device pack that contains a card only (you will have to download the actual product, either for Windows or for Mac and activate it).

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Updated: The best Australian apps

The best Australian apps

From the moment that Apple launched its first iPhone, Australian developers have been at the forefront of creating amazing software for mobile devices. Over the past eight years, the local industry has blossomed, with amazing apps for everything from productivity to entertainment being created by Aussies for the rest of the world.

But while there are hundreds of locally produced apps that are changing the way people use their devices, there's a special class of app that punches well above its weight. Where small, local indies have managed to grow into something bigger.

These are the best Australian apps. We'll keep updating this list as more local devs change the world with their creations.

Tripview

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows Phone | Price: $3.79 / $3.99 / $4.89

Sydneysiders will be all too familiar with the perils of public transport in Australia's most populous city. It was a battle developer Nick Maher was facing every day. Yet unlike the thousands of people who silently suffered delays, cancelled trains and overcrowded buses, Maher used his experience to build a Java app for his Sony Ericsson phone, which he then ported to the iPhone in 2008.

Originally designed to tell a user how long until the next train arrived, the app has expanded significantly since launch. It now offers real-time data for trains and buses (not quite all of them, but a large percentage) and has expanded to cover Melbourne's public transport as well as Sydney's.

While Maher credits a lot of the app's success to being in the right place at the right time (on the App Store not long after the iPhone 3G launched in Australia), the app's intuitive interface and detailed information is also crucial to its place at the top of our list.

Wikicamps Australia

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows Phone | Price: $7.49 / $7.49 / $8.59

Sometimes you just need to pack up the car and get the hell away from the city. But where do you go?

WikiCamps Australia creators Russ and Cliff Corbin spent 2.5 years travelling around Australia and were surprised that there wasn't a full database of the country's campsites.

After two full trips around the country, they had enough of a database to launch the platform back in 2012, but quickly realised that a user-generated wiki was the best way to create a truly useful tool.

Since it launched, the database has expanded from 2,000 to over 20,000 sites, with comprehensive information about everything from amenities and mobile coverage to Information Centres and pet-friendly locations.

There's also over 260,000 site reviews and over 100,000 site photos, giving users a real opportunity to explore their camping adventure before they leave.

Pocket Casts

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows Phone | Price: $4.99 / $3.99 / $4.29

The world of podcasts is as wide and varied as the people who make them. But listening to your favourite podcast can be a convoluted experience without the right app.

Aussie developers Shifty Jelly have created what is arguably the best podcasting app ever produced with Pocket Casts.

Back in 2010 when they made the app, you had to plug your phone into a desktop computer, and manually sync your podcasts across. Today, over 500,000 users simplify the whole process with Pocket Casts.

The decision is fairly easy for podcast fans, with features like filtered lists, automated downloads, variable speed playback and automated clean up of episodes all standard. It works across devices, and gets better at every opportunity.

Clipp

Platform: iOS, Android | Price: Free

The days of placing your credit card behind a bar for a good night out are well and truly behind us now, with Aussie app Clipp landing on iOS and Android.

Clipp co-founder Greg Taylor is familiar with the perils of leaving a credit card behind the bar. It was, after all the incentive for Clipp's creation.

Accepted at over 650 bars and restaurants around the country, Clipp lets you flash your phone at the bar staff to add drinks to your tab, and then close the tab from your phone, paying with your PayPal account. You'll get your receipt emailed immediately, and earn rewards points all at the same time.

But thanks to its success, the app is now so much more. After lots of demand from users, Clipp introduced the ability to split bills easily within the app.

But even more impressive is the inclusion of last-minute deals, which allows users to explore their city, saving up to 40% off their bill for next to no effort at all.

Invoice2Go

Platform: iOS, Android | Price: Free (plus subscription)

Running a small business is hard enough work, without having to waste hours navigating the well of despair that is Microsoft Excel, or pay a fortune for professional accounting software.

Founder Chris Strode was a freelance programmer back in 2002 when he created Invoice2Go during his daily train commute. He wanted a tool that would not only allow him to send an invoice within minutes, but also keep tabs of invoices being paid, tracking expenses and monitoring overall business performance.

It was in 2008 when the first app version of the service launched that things really took off. Now, business users can do everything from tracking time with the Invoice2Go Apple Watch app and even receive payments from within the app itself.

With customisable invoice styles, integrated logo design tools and the ability to offer quotes within the app, it's a comprehensive tool for small business owners.

Pocket Weather

Platform: iOS, Android | Price: $2.49 / $1.99

Being able to predict the weather takes years of practice, study and an understanding of science. Making the weather forecast look amazing on your smartphone or tablet is also challenging, but it's something the team a Shifty Jelly has accomplished with Pocket Weather.

Back when the iPhone 3G launched in Australia, Apple was using Yahoo! to provide its weather information and the results were always wrong. It was so frustrating that inspired Shifty Jelly to go out and create a simple, accurate weather app.

Beautifully simple yet packed with information straight from the Bureau of Meteorology, the app has developed significantly over time. But it's an essential download – Shifty Jelly's Russell Ivanovic tells us that Pocket Weather was so popular that they worked out it was installed on roughly one in every six Australian iPhones.

Procreate

Platform: iOS | Price: $7.49

Quite possibly the most powerful art app available for the iPad, Procreate created a bit of a stir a few years back when it was used to create a hyper-realistic portrait of Morgan Freeman.

When Apple first launched the iPad, there was a lot of debate about whether it was a creation or a consumption device. The team behind Procreate quickly realised that there wasn't another art app taking advantage of the unique technology the iPad offered, and so set about creating an app they would like to use.

With amazing versatility through a range of different brush styles, blur tools and layers, Procreate (and its iPhone sibling, Procreate Pocket) are proof that the iPad is definitely more than just a consumption device.

What's more, the developers are intimately focused on the iPad platform, rolling out new features as Apple introduces new technologies they can take advantage of. Bigger canvas sizes, more layers, cinema-quality image adjustments and superb native stylus input have all been huge improvements to Procreate since it first launched.

Pocketbook

Platform: iOS, Android | Price: Free

Keeping on top of your finances is a never-ending battle, but one that is made significantly easier thanks to technology.

Local finance startup Pocketbook lets you keep track of all your expenses and incomes across a wide range of accounts from different Australian banks, and intelligently collates them into different categories.

A great tool for managing your budget, Pocketbook also helps users save money by giving an insight into how much cash they can safely spend each month, as well as keeping tabs on bills so they can avoid late fees.

Kinderloop

Platform: iOS, Android | Price: Free

Any parent with their kids in daycare knows that getting updates on their little tykes day can be a challenge, especially if you're the parent that doesn't get to do the pre-school pick up.

That's exactly what inspired new dad Dan Day to create Kinderloop back in 2013 – he just wasn't getting enough information about his daughter, and decided to do something about it.

Today, the platform is so much more than just a communications tool for parents. Early childhood educators can use the app to make educational observations, plan around childrens' interests and document their work without exponentially increasing their workloads.

Of course, getting real-time updates on what your kids are doing via a smartphone app is still amazing for any parent, and makes you wonder why nobody thought of this sooner.

Omny

Platform: iOS, Android | Price: Free

Commercial radio today is designed to cater to a broad audience. And while Pandora tries to counter that with personalised music, Aussie app Omny takes it one step further by combining your Spotify and Pandora playlists and blending them with both podcasts you might like and personalised notifications.

The end result is a truly personalised radio experience. As co-founder Ed Hooper explains, being able to collect the parts of radio you like and swipe away the parts you don't makes for a very enjoyable experience.

The app wasn't just a hit with consumers, either – content creators loved it so much that the developers went and created Omny Studio, a fully-featured tool for creating, editing and sharing radio content.

Canva

Platform: iOS | Price: Free

Canva is like having an art department on your iPad. Created less than three years ago by Melanie Perkins, the app was created to take the complexity out of design software.

With a collection of templates and the ability to purchase stock photography cheaply directly from the app, Canva offers the ability to create everything from business cards to presentations, as well as simple things like engaging social media posts.

With an incredibly simple interface, even the most design illiterate person can create attractive products, which is probably why more than 8 million people use the app and two designs are created on Canva every second.

The app has expanded to small business too, with the Canva for Work arrival offering more flexible usage like being able to create your own brand kits, instantly resize designs and upload your own fonts.

Bodywise

Platform: iOS | Price: Free

Being able to get on top of your fitness goals is a challenge, especially with the endless stream of fitness wearables hitting shelves.

But keeping tabs on your overall fitness can be a challenge, with many health apps only keeping track of the most basic information about your health.

Bodywise is trying to become your software hub for your fitness goals, syncing with Jawbone and Fitbit devices, as well as HealthKit in iOS. Rather than counting calories, the app focuses on the important things that will make a difference to your overall health, like alcohol or smoking.

Co-founder Mike Halligan quickly realised that when it comes to being healthy, everyone has a different idea on what they want. Bodywise allows all those things to be tracked in one place, giving you a much more detailed look at your overall wellbeing.

Streaks

Platform: iOS | Price: $5.99

If you want to make something happen, you need control, discipline and an app. Streaks helps you create better habits by letting you track six tasks you want to complete everyday, from reading to exercising and everything in between.

Developer Quentin Zervaas tells us that the hard limit of only having six tasks helps the app drive you to success. The good thing about it, he says, is that finishing one or two tasks pushes you to finish the rest of the tasks in the day.

And after you complete five out of your six tasks, it's pretty hard to ignore that final one.

The app also pulls in data from Healthkit to automatically tick off your activities physical, while manual tasks are easily ticked off as you complete them.

Airtasker

Platform: iOS, Android | Price: Free

Need something done, but don't want to do it yourself? Airtasker will let you pay someone – anyone – to do your dirty little jobs for you, for a small fee of course. From cleaning your bedroom to picking up your laundry, to lining up to buy one of the first iPhone 7 handsets, Airtasker proves that people can do pretty much anything to make a bit of coin on the side.

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Updated: 7 of the best Linux remote desktop clients

Introduction

Note: Our best Linux remote desktop clients round-up has been fully updated. This feature was first published in September 2010.

Seizing control of someone's computer might seem like a violating act of aggression, but sometimes it's necessary.

We've also known people to run remote desktop sessions against the machine they're actually using (it sounds crazy, but there was more than one desktop running), so don't imagine you can't find some use for it.

While real Unixers may like to sing songs about SSH and the command line, you may need to gain access with a graphical desktop, and that's where remote desktops come in.

For many people, the tried and tested method is VNC, and it features in a lot of clients in this test. But there are other protocols and types of desktop. In fact, the growing vogue among these clients is to support multiple protocols, so whatever desktop you're targeting, and whichever server it's running, there should be something suitable here.

Obviously, over the course of these tests, we sometimes weren't running exactly like for like – but that gives a fair test of the differing protocols too. For example, although NoMachine NX supports VNC connections, we tested its performance against its own NX server, which seems to make sense.

We didn't test the TightVNC client, mainly because it's very close to the TigerVNC implementation – they have a common codebase, but TigerVNC has a few more features.

How we tested

The key to a good remote desktop is getting the responsive feedback you need to use it well. It's no good if the screen looks perfect, but it takes two minutes for each keypress to register.

We tested our ability to play Armegatron remotely. This OpenGL lightcycle game requires split-second timing, as well as the display to be refreshed often. The results are somewhat subjective, but it proved a great way of demonstrating how responsive these clients were.

The clients were tested against a local PC with quad-core processor and 16GB RAM on a Gigabit LAN running Ubuntu 14.04.3, the VNC server software X11VNC Server and the official NX server for the NX clients. RDP functionality is mentioned, but wasn't tested.

The clients ran on a virtual machine with a Core i7 dual-core processor, 4GB RAM and Fedora 23.

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RealVNC Viewer

This is a standalone program for connecting to VNC computers from the RealVNC site – once downloaded, you'll need to open a Terminal, navigate to the directory containing the program and chmod 700 it in order to let it run.

You can see it's the parent of TigerVNC, but contains even fewer options, although it does at least automatically detect VNC servers, making it easier and quicker to connect. Choose Options and you can opt to scale the window size to fit your display, run in full-screen mode and override the automatic compression settings to force it to display more than just 256 colours.

Connection is quick and easy, but performance is well below the other VNC viewers in this test, although it's still a leap forward from a few years ago. There's a noticeable lag both when browsing the desktop and when running Armagetron, and while the lag is only half-a-second, that's the difference between winning and losing.

The dither patterns make it hard to work out when glitches occur, but we did spot a few during our test. It comes across as a faithful replica of the native RealVNC client – ironically, with fewer options. The TigerVNC client is a fork of the VNC code, so more or less comprises the bits from RealVNC and TightVNC, although development has continued on these.

So, it resembles a slightly less pleasant version of TigerVNC and doesn't perform very well. If it had sound support, it would probably swear at you and tell you how rubbish you are. However, in an emergency, a portable, standalone client is a good standby.

You might not need to be able to see everything perfectly to perform a server-saving operation, so it's worth knowing about.

Verdict

It isn't pretty or quick, but it works well enough to keep for emergencies.

• RealVNC Java Client v5.3.0
• Web: http://www.realvnc.com
• Rating: 4/10

Remmina

Though not the officially Gnome-endorsed client, Remmina certainly looks at home on the Gnome desktop with its GTK stylings. The well-designed layout works just as well on a small notebook as a giant desktop monitor.

A minimalist main display contains a toolbar and a list of available connections. Once connected, a new window spawns showing the remote desktop. Multiple connections are managed by easy-to-navigate, named tabs.

The useful toolbar controls are visible all the time, enabling you to rescale the display quickly to fit the available space, go full-screen or even individually control the horizontal and vertical scale of the window.

Unlike some clients, you don't get very fine-grained control over the protocol options such as compression, but it does at least give you a choice of colour modes and the four-step quality control, which seems to be a reasonable way of managing bandwidth and CPU use. Managing connections and bookmarking them is intuitive, although there's no automatic discovery.

In the responsiveness stakes, Remmina managed to wow us with its performance during theArmegatron test – not only was it playable, it was barely distinguishable from running the game locally.

There are no chat or file transfer facilities for basic VNC connections, but these are available for RDP links, which are also supported by this client, along with NX (both NoMachine NX and Free NX), XDMCP and SSH, making Remmina the client with the widest range of protocol support, to top it off.

Note you'll need to download and install additional protocols – including VNC – via plugins.

Verdict

Great features, great performance – we don't know how it could be better.

• Remmina v1.2.0
• Web: http://ift.tt/1KdJyGR
• Rating: 9/10

TeamViewer

TeamViewer is quite a big name and the software has many major corporate clients. It's been available outside of beta for Linux machines for a while now, offering deb and rpm packages through its website, but be warned – this is effectively the Windows version running in a Wine wrapper.

The first advantage, and in some ways disadvantage, is that this client uses a proprietary protocol that enables clients to link up through a central server, which manages a connection from one site to another.

Another advantage is that, with a variety of clients on offer, you can view a remote system from practically anywhere, even on locked-down systems that wouldn't allow an SSH connection, or from behind corporate firewalls. Also, it runs on Windows and Mac, so it's an easy way to cater for all desktops.

TeamViewer has worked hard to improve performance over the years, with the latest release promising up to 15 times the speed of previous versions. This is borne out by its ability to handle Armagetron as well as Remmima, with decent quality graphics over our local connection.

There are added benefits from the proprietary protocol. It can manage audio and there's a little chat client, file transfer and even a usable VoIP service.

Connections are managed by dishing out a PIN on one machine, and the user at the other end typing it in, which isn't as secure as its authors may want you to believe – or you can set up an account and configure TeamViewer for unattended access. There's a free version for non-commercial use, something you'll be reminded about when you finish your current session.

When we first reviewed this five years ago, it was a horrific non-starter, but TeamViewer has developed into a compelling alternative to traditional VNC connections, particularly if you want to go cross-platform.

Verdict

TeamViewer has come of age, and while it may jar with the FOSS crowd, it's a surprisingly powerful alternative to traditional services given the fact it's still not a native application.

• TeamViewer v11.053191-0
• Web: http://ift.tt/sRJCJU
• Rating: 7/10

TigerVNC

As soon as you run TigerVNC, you get a good idea of the kind of people who invented it and why. A tiny request pops up and asks for the server you want to connect to – there are no bookmarks, or lists of located servers on the network, and you'll need to know your target's IP address. If this was a wrench, it wouldn't be one with a moulded ergonomic grip.

If you click the Options tab though, you'll find there are plenty of settings – ones relating to the connection and the protocols at least. While the software will automatically select the options for you, it's possible to specify things such as colour depth and compression level if you like.

High compression will reduce the bandwidth needed for an effective desktop, at the expense of more CPU cycles being required at both ends. In use, running against the Vino and standard VNC servers, TigerVNC performed reasonably well, although it couldn't get connected unless a password had been assigned first.

Of the VNC clients, it was much faster than Vinagre, and even gave Remmina a run for its money. Historic refresh problems seem largely absent in this version – we were spared the view of seeing elements of windows shearing off occasionally, and the damaged background not being redrawn for a few seconds.

In terms of response though, it was easy to find the cursor (an option allows you to render it as a dot, even if the display cursor doesn't keep up) and the keyboard seemed fine. The display is in a single window with scroll bars if it doesn't fit the local screen – there's no scaling, other than running full-screen.

This client is capable enough, and has obviously been designed mainly for admins, but even so, some rudimentary comforts would have been appreciated. You might be a hardened network engineer, but still appreciate not having to type in IP addresses every time you want to connect to something, after all.

Verdict

Plenty of options and it runs pretty fast, but there's little UI to speak of, and its lack of user-friendliness counts against it.

• TigerVNC v1.6.0
• Web: http://www.tigervnc.org
• Rating: 6/10

Vinagre

Although the name of this app sounds like something you'd put on a salad, you'll normally find it entitled Remote Desktop Viewer in your Gnome menus, because it's a standard part of the Gnome desktop. On running, an ordinary-looking window opens.

The panel on the right displays discovered servers and any bookmarks. The main part of the window is for the client connection to the server, which can be run full-screen or within the scrollable confines of this window.

If you open multiple sessions with different servers, the remote displays will appear in a series of tabs. The Bookmarks are okay, but can be confusing – there's little to distinguish them from discovered servers.

Like the other VNC clients on test here, it's reliant on the server and the features it supports in terms of performance issues.

We tried Vinagre with X11VNC Server and with its 'other half', Vino. The latter, like Krfb, is a GUI frontend and a VNC server, designed to make it easy to share desktops across computers. We had no trouble connecting to the remote screen, or using the options with the Vino server for features such as JPEG compression or different colour depths.

One curious problem we had was that the cursor often didn't update on the display very frequently. This doesn't seem to be an issue with the connection at all, because menus opened and other GUI elements were displayed almost instantaneously. It's a major issue though, as it's pretty important to know where the cursor is at any given time.

We were also unable to get it working properly with Armagetron, losing keyboard control shortly after the game launched, making it impossible to test its capabilities. That's a shame, as its frontend is one of the friendliest out there.

Verdict

Simple to use and seems to perform well, until you lose the mouse cursor that is.

• Vinagre v3.18.2
• Web: http://ift.tt/1PFh0mp
• Rating: 4/10

Krdc

Since we gave Vinagre the opportunity to work with its companion server, we thought we'd use a standard KDE desktop on the client and server side and try Krdc with the Krfb server.

Somehow, even though it's implementing the same VNC protocols that everything else does, this combination is about the worst thing after TeamViewer in terms of responsiveness. It worked much better with the standard VNC server and X11VNCServer than with Krfb.

A less than auspicious start, but wait: Krdc is actually pretty good. Once you move it away from Krfb, it's actually as responsive as the best clients when trying to survive a round of Armegatron. The responsiveness and frame rate were great, even if Krdc did still suffer the same background redraw problems as other VNC clients.

If your viewing needs change, it has an easy button to switch between full and scaled viewing modes. There are tabbed views for multiple connections, and the panel on the right, rather like Vinagre, also displays a list of bookmarks, recent connections and servers discovered on the local LAN.

There are plenty of settings for the client itself, but a disappointing set of choices for configuring the connection – you get the choice of high, medium or low-speed connections, and the software works out which features to use from there. We found this a bit annoying and limiting.

Aside from that, using Krdc was trouble-free, and it also supports the RDP protocols used for Windows remote access. If someone adds an NX plugin, it could become even more useful. If you run KDE and need an occasional VNC client, there's no compelling reason to change.

Verdict

Krfb is a bust, but the client side of this pairing is a rare gem.

• Krdc v4.4.4
• Web: http://ift.tt/1PFgXXO
• Rating: 6/10

NoMachine NX Client

The NoMachine philosophy is quite simple and easy to buy into. Imagine a world where a computer system has such foresight that even its very method of displaying something on the screen is split into a server-client software relationship. Now imagine that after many, many generations of this, the one true way has been lost, and it's just become a very complicated, overblown display driver.

NoMachine wants to rediscover its greatness, but too much stuff has been added without thought to the server-client relationship. That's why its approach is completely different to the standard VNC setup.

The NX protocol works over SSH. This brings security and a few other things not native to the RFB protocol used by VNC as standard. It also uses smart methods of encoding and compressing data, and makes clever use of caches to minimise the bandwidth required. And if you can save the bandwidth, you can do other cunning things with it – why not also ship over the audio feed from the host machine, for example?

An advantage of using the SSH connection is that if you have a user account on the target machine, you can just log in as normal and start a new X session. The corollary is that it's hard to 'grab' a screen that's already running, although the NX machine can do that through a standard VNC connection instead if necessary, or by launching a shadow session.

Shadow sessions work well, and depending on the setup, the remote machine may have to confirm the connection. For whatever reason, this tends to be markedly slower than spawning your own X session.

As well as VNC, it also supports RPC for Windows machines, with a similar interface, so it can be used as a general remote access tool. Although the client software makes it easy to configure connections and save them as settings, it doesn't really give that much love to the desktop users.

Somehow you end up with a whole host (intended) of software installed to do a simple job. There are no tabbed views or anything pretty, and you have to set up sessions in a different application than where you launch them from. But all that goes by the by when you see it run.

Whatever magic pixies sit in the pipes pushing the data through, they do an incredible job. NX on NX definitely gives the best user experience, and the fact it's now completely cross-platform with server support for Mac and Windows too make it an interesting choice – although some functionality is restricted to paid-for versions.

Verdict

NX connection makes short work of even demanding apps, and plays sound too!

• NoMachine NX Client v5.0.63
• Web: http://ift.tt/owyNGH
• Rating: 8/10

Final verdict

Leaving aside the clients that don't work that well, there's almost a war of ideology going on for the top spots here. There's no doubt that NoMachine, although it eschews standard VNC (you can still use it as a VNC client), performs excellently.

In the tests, the OpenGL game was fluid and playable. And while it was fiddly to set up, in use it was better than most. The NX protocol may well be the future, but the client software still has a lot to learn from the user experience guys.

The KDE entry, Krdc, performed well, in spite of its disastrous early start with the companion server. That could really be a problem for the Krdc people, because users will likely use them together and be disappointed with the slow performance. If you're running a KDE desktop and need a simple VNC client though, there's probably no need to search further.

TeamViewer has come a long way since we first included it in this roundup. It's now pretty nippy, responsive and simple to use. The fact it throws in extras like VoIP and chat will make it popular with those who need to communicate with people sat at the other end too. It's not open-source, however, and still not native either, which could be a deal-breaker for some.

Once again we take our hats off to Remmina. Performance was exemplary – only TigerVNC felt quicker, but that's not the full story. It had the best feedback and responsiveness of any client, and if you didn't know better, the remote desktop might have been a normal-speed local machine.

More than the performance though, this client had the best mix of features, and a sensible and well thought out interface. Although it did split into multiple windows, the controls always remain accessible.

As well as discovering clients on the network, it has a good way of storing connections, which would still work well if you had to deal with lots of desktops. Support for NX makes Remmina the all-round winner.

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Microsoft now caters for Insiders wanting to test Windows 10 with minimal risk

If you're a Windows Insider (testing out versions of Windows 10 before they're sprung on the computing public at large), then you'll be interested to learn that Microsoft has added a new 'Ring' alongside the existing Slow and Fast Rings for both PC and mobile users.

And the new channel, named the Release Preview Ring, is essentially one for the very risk averse.

As you're likely aware, the Fast Ring is designed to push out preview builds swiftly and is used by those who want to try out new features as early as possible, but with the risk of bugs affecting their experience (and sometimes potentially quite nasty glitches).

The Slow Ring, on the other hand, receives builds at a slower pace, but when more bugs have been ironed out so there's less risk to the user's device.

Third Ring

And now there's the Release Preview Ring, which Gabe Aul, VP of Engineering Systems, notes is: "Best for Insiders who enjoy getting early access to updates for the Current Branch, Microsoft applications, and drivers, with minimal risk to their devices, and still want to provide feedback to make Windows devices great."

As he states, this is really for those who want to take as little risk as possible, and it will only deliver software and driver updates early, as opposed to whole new preview builds. There are doubtless those who will appreciate this option, although some denizens of the net appear to be complaining that the Ring system is becoming somewhat confusing (although really, it isn't – and there will always be someone complaining).

Microsoft recently promised to speed up the pace of builds being delivered via the Fast Ring, and indeed we saw the first evidence of Redmond pressing down harder on the accelerator last week. But of course, more speed equals more risk – hold onto your hats, preview people…

Via: Betanews

• Should you upgrade to Windows 10?

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Amazon Lumberyard's zombie clause proves it pays to read the fine print

Who reads end user license agreements (EULA)? Anyone? Well, you might start now, because Amazon just trolled all of us in the service terms for its new game development engine, Lumberyard.

In Section 57.10 of the agreement, as delightfully pointed out by Daring Fireball's John Gruber without context, it is said that this tool cannot be used with "life-critical or safety-critical systems," like medical equipment, air traffic control and military applications.

That is, unless the world is in the event of, "a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization."

And the government has to approve it. Seriously, look it up.

The beauty here is that this is both hilarious and, well, dead-ass serious, legally speaking. Amazon's legal team may be joking now, but there damn well better be the servers and bandwidth to get us back on Netflix when everything on this spinning rock goes down the tubes. (Oh, and the power, but they can wing it.)

I can't wait to see the EULA for the next iOS release. How are you going to protect us, Apple?

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Twitter pulls a Facebook, putting the best tweets first starting today

Don't be surprised to hear the defeated howls of a thousand media people in the air today, as Twitter has just pressed the go button on its controversial shake-up of the Twitter timeline.

Last week, the hashtag #RIPTwitter started trending after rumors emerged that the company would switch so that timelines are not reverse chronological, as they are now, but instead generated by an algorithm. The thinking is that this would make Twitter more like Facebook, where upon visiting you're presented with only the items which the algorithm thinks you'll be most interested in.

The company has now made it official, rolling the feature out to accounts that use the Twitter app.

"We've already seen that people who use this new feature tend to Retweet and Tweet more, creating more live commentary and conversations, which is great for everyone", the company explained in an official blog post.

Opt-in ... for now

That nervous unease that you can see across the #RIPTwitter hashtag is coming from the power users who spend every day on Twitter. People like journalists, who require the real-time functionality in order to properly do their jobs.

So, the good news is that this new approach to the timeline is opt-in, at least initially. To switch the feature on, simply go into the timeline section of your settings and choose "Show me the best Tweets first". Even with the feature turned on, you can pull to refresh your tweets and it will switch back to normal, chronological view.

The launch comes at a difficult time for Twitter, which has been frustrating investors with slow growth and struggling to figure out how to make any money. This has led to executive shake-ups and the promise of new features to tackle some of the platform's biggest issues, like trolling.

• 5 things Twitter needs to improve if it wants to grow.

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