Best New Software of 2014

Startups are new ideas that were finally brought to life. Software startups are usually releases of fresh software that correspond with all the latest tendencies and demands of users. Of course, one might say that there are good old programs that are improved year to year and they were reliable 5 years ago so I will continue to use them, but you can upgrade a VHS infinity a number of times and it will never become a flash drive. Newly released software usually covers all the missing functionality that old software wasn’t even planned for. As we are wide open for everything new, useful and free, we reviewed the most remarkable free software that was released in 2014.

InstagramSaver
InstagramSaver is a lightweight and simple-to-use software for downloading pictures and videos from Instagram accounts. What you need to do is simply enter the right username into the app and press the “Download” button. There is a Log where you can check what you’ve already downloaded with the help of this open-source program. There are also some settings you can customize (we especially liked the option not to download already saved files and the option of saving videos as well as photos). Also, you are free to add the most frequently needed Instagram users to your Favorites for faster access to them.

This software still needs to be polished (for example, the addition of a Pause button for the downloading process; the possibility to select certain files but not all; customized names of saved files, etc.), but it saves pictures and videos in an extremely simple and fast way.

Icecream Screen Recorder
Icecream Screen Recorder is one of our favorite software; our team uses it constantly. With its help, users can save screenshots in JPG or PNG, share them over the web easily, capture the screen right away, or create a scheduled screen recording at a necessary time. The drawing panel that supports adding both graphic elements and text is great for highlighting the parts of the screenshot or screencast to pay attention to. The user-friendly, attractive interface and extended settings are the cherry on the top.

Icecream Screen Recorder is a powerful software for screen recording that works great since we also designed it so that we can use it as well. Constant upgrades and improvements are guaranteed, so we hope that in the next year we will be able to make this product even better.

Younity
One ring to rule them all: this is a cross-platform program that unites all the added machines to your account. Through this account you can access media files that were previously added from the scanned machine. You are free to add PC, MAC, iPad and iPhone to your account, and can add documents, music, photos and videos to this cloud service. You can also share files with other Younity users or Facebook friends (through personal messages).

The things that are missing from this service are the division of files per machine (as of right now they are shown all together) and the files are available to work with only if their device is on. Besides that, this really is a great personal cross-platform cloud service.

Prey
Prey is a protection software that is great for finding missing or stolen devices. You create an account within the Prey service and install Prey software on every machine or device you want (Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Linux, Android and iOS are supported). You add machines or devices to your account and by choosing a device from the added ones you can find out its location and when this device was last online. You can also send a message, turn on the alarm or even lock the chosen machine.

This is a great service to protect yourself from being helpless if some of your precious devices are stolen. Send a message to the person who stole or found your belonging, turn on the alarm to make sure the robber knows he will not get away with this, and if nothing works, simply lock your device to protect your personal data.

Encryptr
Another cross-platform app that is phenomenally easy to use. Download this software on Windows, Mac OS X, Android and Linux, create an account that only consists of a username and password and you are good to go. When you are logged in, it is possible to add a credit card, general information, and passwords to the usernames and websites. As soon as you add a new item of any of these 3 categories you’ll see it listed in the main window of the program.

One thing we are not sure about is if it is a good idea not to connect an Encryptr account to an email. If you forget your password for Encryptr, there is no way you can remember it; there should be at least something like hints to remember the password if the developers don’t want the Encryptr accounts to be associated with emails.

Antelope
Antelope is an easy to use software with a rather minimalistic interface for the optimization of images of JPEG and PNG formats. Simply add the pictures to be reduced in size, tweak compression options for each JPEG and PNG format, select if you want to overwrite your added images or create new files and choose where they should be saved. There are also options to enable a transparency effect and to show thumbnails of images. When all the settings look good, press the “Play” button and the optimization starts.

Antelope is really simple to use – add images, go to settings and start optimization. During our testing we figured out that the best result is up to 8% of decrease, which is rather good for bulky high resolution images.

Glasswire
Glasswire is a program that is a tool to monitor your network as well as a firewall. The program has four menu tabs. “Graph” shows you which apps are running at which time and how they were using your network; “Firewall” is for preventing some apps to access the Internet manually; “Usage” shows you the statistics of your apps, data that was incoming and outgoing, protocols and hosts that were used by each app; and “Alerts” are notifications about apps that are accessing the Internet at the moment.

This program is a handy and nice looking program that shows the connection of apps from your computer to the Internet and allows you to block them with built-in firewall. All the information is easily understandable since it is represented as graphs.

This year was very rich on software, online and cloud services, and mobile apps. A lot of awesome and interesting utilities were represented to the users. In the new year, we look forward to the software developers releasing even more amazing and handy products.. Who knows, maybe the app you are working on right now will be included in our list next year. Bring it on, fellow colleagues!