Belgian firm Cowboy has launched its latest electric bike, with some pretty unconventional features for commuters looking for a clean, practical alternative to cars.

The Cowboy 3 is a big step up from the company's previous bike, with an all-new carbon belt transmission for smooth riding without the risk of accidentally dislodging a chain (requiring a roadside fix and making you late for work) or transferring oil to your clothing. According to Cowboy, the belt needs no maintenance for 30,000km (18,641 miles).

• We've rounded up the best electric bikes of 2020
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When your bike does need repair or servicing, you can call on the new Cowboy Mobile Service program – a network of specialists who will get you back on the road free of charge during the initial two-year warranty period.

As with Cowboy's previous bikes, there are no gears to worry about and no power button to press; just start pedaling and the electric motor kicks in automatically. Thanks to the Cowboy 3's newly lowered gear ratio, it's now easier to get started, and you'll be able to cruise up hills with less effort.

The bike's battery (attached to the seat tube) can be easily removed for charging, and provides a range of up to 70km.

Keep it clean

Some of the most interesting changes come in Cowboy's mobile app. Mount your phone to the bike's handlebars, and you'll be able to see air quality alerts that will help you choose whether to take the most direct route, or find a quieter and cleaner way to your destination.

The app will also unlock the bike for you automatically; just approach the Cowboy 3 with your phone in your pocket, move the bike, and you'll be ready to start riding in a matter of seconds. If anyone else tries to move or steal the bike, you'll receive an instant warning that something is amiss.

Cowboy has kept the app's accident-detection function, which detects crashes and alerts an emergency contact if you don't react quickly.

The Cowboy 3 is available to order now for €2,290 / £1,990 (about $2,500 / AU$3,600), with the first deliveries expected to arrive in July.

• Keep moving indoors with our guide to the best home workout apps

Chrome's next update could effectively turn it into a simple PDF editor, allowing you to complete forms in your browser and then download the edited file, complete with the data you've entered.

As Laptop Mag explains, although the current version of Chrome allows you to enter data in PDF forms print the completed document, saving it will erase all the data you'd entered, leaving with you with a blank form again.

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You can get around the problem by selecting Print and using a virtual printer driver to export the file as a PDF again, but it's a hassle we'd rather avoid.

Alternatively, you could use a free PDF editor to complete the form, but this seems like it should be unnecessary if you're working with a document stored in Google Drive, and the browser itself allows you to make edits.

Don't lose your data

The problem has caused some Chrome users a lot of trouble, as described in posts on the Chrome support forums, but now it looks like a solution might be on the way very soon.

Chrome Story has discovered a code change request that suggests the browser will soon have an interface specifically for saving edited PDFs, meaning your legal documents and other important forms are preserved intact:

"PDF Viewer: Add UI to download edited PDF

• Add action menu providing options to download the original or edited
  PDF
• Menu only is shown if there are edits and the 'SaveEditedPDFForm' feature is enabled."

It might seem like a pretty small change, but for anyone who has ever spent hours entering data into a PDF, only to lose it with a click, it will be more than welcome. 

We'll keep you updated if and when it's implemented, but for the time being you'll need to use a third-party program to complete your forms or make sure you use Chrome's 'Print' dialog to export them.

• Take a look at our guide to the best free office software

It’s been a busy few months for WhatsApp. In February, the app’s long-awaited dark mode arrived, accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek video soundtracked by a rare recording of Paul Simon’s The Sound of Silence. It was no mean feat – creating a new look for an app used by 1.5 billion took months of work, and the fanfare was justified – but the developers soon had a far bigger challenge on their hands: the coronavirus crisis.

With physical contact banned throughout much of the world, developers had to move fast to keep up with the demands of millions of users depending on its services to keep in touch. Features like animated stickers were seemingly pushed to the back burner, and video calls came to the fore.

"Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic we have seen that the use of voice and video calls has increased substantially on WhatsApp,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told TechRadar.

“We expanded voice and video calling to eight participants in order to help bigger families and groups of friends stay connected at this difficult time, safe in the knowledge that their private calls are protected by end to end encryption."

Messenger Rooms

WhatsApp’s video chat service will get a further boost very soon with the integration of Facebook’s  newly released Messenger Rooms. As its name suggests, Rooms was first launched as part of Facebook Messenger, but the company is integrating it into other apps and products too, including WhatsApp, Instagram and Portal devices.

Rooms differs from WhatsApp’s video chats in a number of ways, allowing up to 50 people to pop in and out of a conversation in an ad-hoc way. Rather than scheduling a meeting at a specific time, as you would in Zoom or Google Meet, you can simply open a room and friends can drop in if they happen to be around – more like a lounge than a boardroom or a phone call.

Tiffany Dohzen, product manager for Messenger Rooms, told TechRadar about her experience making the new app, and what sets it apart from tools like Zoom, Skype and Google Meet. She explained that while Facebook had been exploring ways to expand further into video chat for some time, the coronavirus pandemic was what really kickstarted development.

“The idea of rooms as a product came around once we realised the accelerating needs for a product where you can spontaneously join and have hangouts really in the last few months,” she said.

“Some of the cool things, beyond just video calls, are a lot of safety controls. We put huge value on not just making sure Rooms was fun, but also really safe. The creator can lock the room, kick someone out if they are misbehaving, and if you’ve blocked someone on Facebook they can’t join the Room.

“We’ve also added lots of collaborative features, cool effects on the mobile apps, and new ones like lighting and backgrounds. The backgrounds are really cool. Some are animated, you can move them around.” 

Links to Messenger Rooms have already been spotted in WhatsApp beta releases for iPhone and Android, and although we don’t yet know when it will be fully integrated, the teams are wasting no time.

As Dohzen explains, the Messenger Rooms team themselves are using the tool to keep in touch on a daily basis, which has resulted in faster development than might have been possible in ‘normal’ times.

“It’s early days,” she explained. “We want to adapt and respond to what people need. We’re really excited that in a time when people are working remotely we were able to launch a product remotely using the product itself.

“It’s really rare that you get to use a product like this [every day] because you need it. We ended up getting it to a place of polish much faster than if we hadn’t been using it remotely. Seeing it evolve into different use cases and feeling that we have that universal access – everyone can use it for free without worrying about time limits.”

Stickers, encrypted backups and more

So what else is on the way? The previously mentioned animated stickers haven’t been spotted since April, when they were found by the ever-vigilant writers at WABetaInfo, but they seem to be well into development might still appear later this year once things have settled down into a ‘new normal’.

New automatic download rules look like another very handy addition. If and when these are implemented, they would prevent frequently forwarded images, videos and documents from being downloaded automatically, saving your phone’s precious storage space.

Business users are likely to get some attention as well, as encrypted backups and QR codes have both appeared in a recent beta. Once implemented, this would allow iPhone users to choose whether their backups are encrypted on iCloud, and set a password that would be required for the backups to be recovered. Businesses would also be able to share their contact details with customers via a scanned code displayed on-screen.

However, with the continued demand for video conferencing and chat tools, it looks like Messenger Rooms shortcuts will be the next big feature to arrive in WhatsApp.

“Right now it’s rolled out worldwide through Messenger,” explained Dohzen, “Messenger on the desktop or apps. We’re working on launching it from WhatsApp and Instagram – those are already in testing. That’s the biggest. And it will be coming to portal – the ability to create a room from your Portal, [which has] a bigger screen – bur we don’t have a date specifically for it yet.”

We’ll keep you posted as soon as we do.

Google had launched an experimental social distancing app that uses augmented reality to help you keep the recommended two meters away from other people when you're outside.

Sodar (presumably short for 'social distancing radar') is a web app that displays footage from your phone's camera and superimposes a two-meter wide circle around your device so you can easily see if you're too close to others nearby, or if you could afford to shuffle a little closer.

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There are a few drawbacks, however. The tool is only available for Android devices, so iPhone owners are out of luck, and it will only work in Google Chrome.

How to use it

To use Sodar, you'll first need to install Google Play Services for AR (formerly known as ARCore). This will allow you to use all kinds of augmented reality tools on your phone, and automatic updates mean you won't need to download extra software as the technology matures.

Once that's done, visit the Sodar website and confirm that you'd like the app to create a 3D map of your environment and track camera motion. Your camera's images won't be transmitted anywhere; they are only used on the device itself.

You'll be prompted to point your phone's camera at the floor and move it around, after which the two-meter circle will appear superimposed on the screen, with a patterned overlay indicating your personal space.

Sodar is quite simple, and unlike a virtual reality headset, it doesn't take into account furniture and other objects when mapping your space. However, it's a handy tool to have available, particularly when you're doing essential shopping or talking to a friend and want to ensure you're keeping your distance.

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Via Engadget

A team of Japanese researchers and designers have built a soft, inflatable electric scooter for commuters that's lightweight and packs down small enough to fit into an ordinary backpack.

The device, called Poimo (short for Portable and Inflatable Mobility), can be inflated and ready to ride in under a minute using an electric pump – though that doesn't include time spent attaching the wheels, motor and battery.

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Unlike the e-scooters currently taking over streets and sidewalks around the world courtesy of hire companies like Bird and Lime, Poimo has four wheels for stability and places the rider in a comfortable seated position. 

Poimo is also designed to be safer for fellow road and pavement users; its creators say that its soft body makes it safer for pedestrians in the even of a collision.

Softly does it

Poimo is still a prototype for now, but the team from the University of Tokyo, design studio Takram and research organization Mercari R4D have released a video showing it roaming the city's streets at an impressively brisk pace.

There's no word on when it will become a commercially available product, or how much it might cost, but that does seem to be the plan for Poimo.

The team say that the final version will be even lighter and more portable, and users will be able to customize its thermoplastic polyurethane body into different shapes to suit their preferred riding style.

• Cheap electric scooter deals and price cuts

Via Dezeen

Lockdowns might be starting to ease, but it looks like social distancing is going to be with us for a lot longer – and it's not easy.

Thankfully, technology can help, and not always in the most obvious ways. Some companies are already developing apps and devices to make it easier to steer clear of other people (whether you're at work or in public), but there are also lots of tools already available that you can use to keep yourself and others safe.

Working out

If you’re used to getting together with a gym buddy, tennis partner or running club, working out solo just isn't the same – but there are other options. Zwift has recently made some improvements to its Meetup feature, which lets you arrange a virtual run with your real-life friends. You can set a time and invite up to 100 people to join a bimble around one of the app’s virtual worlds: Innsbruck, London, New York, Richmond, Yorkshire or Watopia.

Each runner will have an avatar within the app, and will be able to chat and interact while pounding the treadmill at home.

In addition to a treadmill, all runners will need a Zwift RunPod (a small cadence sensor that attaches to your shoe) and the Zwift app. This works best on a tablet – in our experience, it’s a little fiddly on a phone, especially when you’re running and it’s hard to keep your hand steady to tap the screen.

Some sports lend themselves more readily to social distancing. It’s possible to play golf while social distancing, for example, and many courses are still open for business, but it’s not a straightforward business. You’ll need to disinfect your clubs, avoid using carts (they’re hard to clean thoroughly), keep out of locker rooms, and not touch any flags.

If that’s too much hassle, or you’d rather not take the risk, Golf Club VR is well worth a look. It’s adapted from the original Golf Club simulator, and with an HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or Valve Index VR headset, is surprisingly immersive. Some dedicated golfers have even got experimental with their VR controllers and adapted them using actual golf club shafts.

Tennis is less suited to VR, but you could use your time in isolation to work on your skills. What better way to celebrate the end of lockdown than reuniting with your friends and absolutely thrashing them at tennis?

Tennis ball launchers have been around for years, but high quality ones (meant for training rather than for playing with your dog) are usually cumbersome, heavy and difficult to manage alone.

The Slinger Bag is an alternative that can be set up by one person in a few minutes. It can hold and fire 72 balls, and is styled like a lightweight wheeled suitcase so you can easily trundle it to the court without anyone to help. There’s a telescopic tube for picking up the balls when you’re done.

Shopping

When it’s time to stock up on provisions, placing a grocery order online is perhaps the easiest option, but only if you can secure a delivery slot.

If you need to head out to the store yourself, one of the easiest ways to avoid getting too close for comfort is to take a quick look at Google’s ‘popular times’ graph (accessible through Google Search or Maps) to see when it’s likely to be quiet.

Most of the data used to create these graphs will have been gathered before lockdown started, so they won’t necessarily be entirely accurate, but they should still give you a good idea of when the queues are likely to be shortest.

At work

Working from home is the most straightforward way to keep your distance from others, but there are lots of situations where that’s just not possible. Safe Spacer is a wearable designed for workplaces where you’re going to be moving around, dodging colleagues and visitors.

If you’re about to get too close for comfort, the device will alert you with a flashing light, vibration or audio alarm. It can also log any accidental contacts between people, though no data apart from the device ID and proximity is stored.

It can be worn as a watch, on a lanyard or kept in a pocket, and because it’s waterproof, it can be easily disinfected at the end of the day. 

Safe Spacer will be available to buy later this year for $99.99 (about £80 / AU$150) each, with discounts for organizations buying a batch. One for small business owners to consider.

In the park

Safe Spacer is a great idea for workplaces, but only works if everyone is wearing one. If you’d like to talk a walk (and local rules permit it) while keeping your distance from others, Strava offers an unusual helping hand. Strava Global Heatmap shows the streets that are most popular with the app’s users (the busier, the hotter) so by plotting a route that avoids these, you’re less likely to wind up weaving around people.

As with Google's charts, the map uses data gathered over the course of several months, so doesn't necessarily reflect the way things are now, but should still give you a good guide as to the busiest and quietest streets.

Of course, there may be reasons why some of these routes are less traveled (lack of proper surfacing, for example) so it would be wise to check the lay of the land using Google Street View before heading out if you’re not familiar with the area.

It can be easy to forget about distancing when you’re enjoying some fresh air though, which is why officials in Singapore have chosen to put Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot Spot to use patrolling parks. The robot (currently being trialled) is controlled remotely by an operator who checks how close people are standing, and plays pre-recorded messages reminding people not to get too cozy. 

It’s a neat idea, but being monitored by a robot is rather unnerving – and not too effective when the sheer novelty prompts people to gather together and take photos. A robot strutting around a park is far more interesting than anything else you're likely to see while self-isolating.

• The best webcams: everything you need for video conferencing.

Ducati has unveiled a new range of high-end electric scooters, with models for both streets and rough trails.

Although best known for its heritage in motorbikes, this isn't Ducati's first venture into other two-wheelers. The company has been making e-bikes with various partners for several years, and revealed its first electric mountain bikes in 2018. 

The bikes are powerful, stylish and very expensive, with prices ranging from €3,699 (about $4,000 / £3,300 / AU$6,200) all the way up to €8,890 (about $9,600 / £8,000 / AU$15,000).

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Prices for the new e-scooters are yet to be announced, but judging by the specs we're expect they'll put a pretty hefty dent in your bank balance too. Their motors will range in power from 250W (which is standard for most electric scooters) to 500W.

You'll find the most powerful motor on the Ducati Scrambler Cross-E scooter (pictured above), which is designed for rough roads and trails rather than city streets. It also features fat anti-puncture tires, has a top speed of 21mph (though, like any electric scooter, it'll do significantly less uphill), and a large LCD display on the handlebars. 

City slicker

The Pro II scooter is intended for smoother roads, with a slimmer profile and less powerful motor, and more subtle design than the tractor-like Cross-E. Both models have both an electric rim brake at the front and a disc brake at the rear, helping you stop swiftly in an emergency.

The Cross-E is expected to hit the trails on June 20, with the Pro II following close behind on July 6. Two more models will join the range later, with the whole set being available to buy (if your budget can stretch to it) before the end of the year.

• Electric scooters will soon be road-legal in the UK, but only if you hire them

Via T3

Garmin has launched a pair of new rear-view radars to help cyclists watch our for approaching traffic and take some of the anxiety out of riding on the road.

The Garmin Varia RVR315 and RTL515 (the latter of which includes a tail light) attaches to your seat tube and works together with various popular GPS-enabled cycling apps, overlaying extra info on your phone's screen to help you stay safe. 

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Alerts are color-coded so you can see what's happening behind you at a glance: green means the road behind is clear, amber means traffic is approaching, and red means something is coming up at speed, so you can be prepared and ride defensively to keep yourself safe.

You'll also get audio and vibration alerts, so you'll know if something is approaching without taking your eyes off the road.

Bright ideas

The tail light built into the Varia RTL515 doesn't just make you more visible to incoming traffic, letting incoming drivers see you from up to a mile away in daylight, as it's also designed to be friendlier to fellow cyclists. When you're riding in a group, switching to peloton mode tones down the flashing to be easier on your friends' eyes.

The Varia RTL315 has a suggested retail price of £129.99 (about $160 / AU$250), while the Varia RTL515 will set you back £169.99 (roughly $200 / AU$320). That might sound pretty steep (especially considering you'll still need a good quality front light, even with the RTL515), but the extra peace of mind could be worth the cost.

• Garmin launches luxe fitness tracker for sailors (and runners) with deep pockets

Google Chrome will soon let you hold 12-person chats in your browser, courtesy of Google Duo. The mobile version of Google Duo has offered group calls for some time, but until now the web version has only supported conversations between two people.

Now, Google has announced that it's bringing bigger causal conversations to the desktop, starting with a preview for Chrome. You can sign up for Duo for Web right now using your mobile phone number for one-to-one calls, and Google says that a group calls will launch "in the coming weeks".

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While the likes of Skype and Zoom are handy for both work and play, Duo is designed specifically for casual chats with family and friends. There are various masks and filters to liven up calls, and as ZDNet reports, one of the latest additions to the mobile app is a dedicated family mode that lets you send colorful doodles while you're speaking.

There's also no mute button in Google Duo's family mode, which is intended to avoid conversations being interrupted accidentally by a wayward click or tap.

It's not yet clear if or when these features will be brought to Duo for web, but sketches seem like a natural fit for a larger screen.

Decisions, decisions...

For businesses that need a free video conferencing tool (and don't want their employees messing about with astronaut filters), Google recently announced that it's making Google Meet free for anyone with a Google account.

Meet was originally only available to paying G-Suite customers, and allows up to 100 people to join a call for up to 24 hours (compared to just 40 minutes with the free version of Zoom). This will eventually drop to one hour, but not until September 30.

With WhatsApp Web soon to offer video conferencing for up to 50 people via Facebook Messenger Rooms, and new tools like Twilio arriving on the scene, there are now so many free options available, the hardest part might be making sure everyone agrees which one to use.

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Staying at home doesn't have to mean staying still. While there are some fantastic home workouts available (like PE with Joe) and a wealth of great exercise apps, we've also come up with some ideas of our own to keep active in lockdown.

If you're tired of the treadmill or feel like something different to your regular yoga app, here are some tried and tested alternatives.

Keith Walker, managing director

‘Low impact’ workouts have become the norm for me in lockdown. Not because I struggle with burpees, star jumps etc. but because I live in a top floor flat and the neighbours downstairs don’t appreciate ‘squat jump’ reps on their ceilings at 7am...

Cat Ellis, fitness and wellbeing editor

My regular running club has been replaced with a virtual one on Strava, and our pub socials are now weekly Zoom chats (bonus points for having a collection of medals in the background). I set up a virtual Land's end to John O'Groats run on My Virtual Mission, thinking it would easily last until the end of lockdown, but it turns out I vastly underestimated how long a pandemic might last.

We've all been taking part in virtual races too, where you log your time with a fitness tracker and receive a medal in the post. It's been great, except for the Easter run where the organizer sent everyone chocolate eggs, which arrived smashed to pieces and tasting of envelope glue.

Tom Bedford, staff writer, phones

My gym closing turned out to be a blessing in disguise - while a treadmill encouraged me to run the same distance in better and better times, I’ve found running outdoors pushes me to see how far I can go, no matter the timing. What began as a quick run to see how long the queues were in my local shops, when lockdown started, has quickly grown to a 10km dash every other day just to get out, and of course I’m using Strava to boast about it all too.

Mark Wilson, cameras editor

After picking up a lockdown running injury, I’ve had to resort to the distinctly less preferable home bodyweight exercises and dreaded foam roller. But this had led to one positive – me and my girlfriend now have a column each in a Google Sheets exercise tracker. This is working well, because neither of us want to suffer the humiliation of breaking our streak. I’ve also been enjoying Sky’s Fit in 5 workouts, mainly because the guests always seem to be as knackered as I am.

Samuel Roberts, senior entertainment editor

I bought myself an Ultrasport F-Bike back in January, because I know I'll never, ever be motivated to join a gym (also, I'm too cheap for a monthly membership). I've loved using it, and I cycle 11km on it per day, on an average of six days a week. I only burn 250 calories per go, but the mental health benefits are obvious.

Since I have to write about Netflix and Disney Plus for this website on a near-constant basis, too, putting the bike in front of the TV is a great way to catch up on shows I haven't seen yet.

Mackenzie Frazier, deals editor

Since I can no longer go to a pilates class, I downloaded the Melissa Wood Health app. She has hundreds of guided workout videos and meditations  - the best part is you don’t need any equipment, you use your own body weight. The workouts are short - 20 to 30 minutes, and I look forward to doing a class every day. I plan on sticking with the app even when gyms open back up. 

Henry St Leger, staff writer, home tech

Oddly, lockdown has me exercising a lot more than usual! I used to stagger half-heartedly to the gym once a week, with the odd jog to get some fresh air, but with my local gym closed – and not much else to do – I’ve taken to using my excursion to get a good 30-minute run in a few days a week.

I’ve found evenings better for not running into other people on the sidewalk (or in local parks), and will take the opportunity to run in windy or wet weather for the same reason – but I wouldn’t blame anyone for sticking to short runs at sunny times too.

• How and where to buy a treadmill: these retailers still have stock

Google is updating dark mode for Chrome with a new feature that makes searching the web more comfortable at night. It looks like Android users will be first to benefit, but hopefully it will be rolled out to all operating systems in the near future.

Google first brought Chrome dark mode to mobile devices last year, making it easy to toggle between the usual crisp, white interface and something easier on the eye at night. There's a problem, though: the setting doesn't affect any website content, so when you perform a Google search, the results page is still dazzling white.

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You can get around this problem by heading to chrome://flags and enabling the option 'Android web contents dark mode', but this will change the colors of all web pages (not just Google itself) and the results are variable. Sometimes it looks natural, but sometimes it's jarring and unpleasant.

Now it looks like we'll soon have a proper solution to the problem. As 9to5Google reports, a recent code change to the Chromium source repository shows that the browser will soon be getting a new flag, titled #enable-android-dark-srp.

When enabled, this flag will show a dark search results page [SRP] if the browser is already in night mode. No more squinting after dark.

Why go dark?

The jury is out on whether exposure to blue light actually affects the quality of your sleep, but there are several reasons to try switching your mobile apps to dark mode

As mentioned earlier, some people find white interfaces hard on their eyes, particularly when using their phone at night.

Google's own research has found that darker colored pixels draw significantly less power than white ones, which could help extend your phone's battery life a little. This is true for all displays, but if your phone has an OLED screen, pixels that need to appear black are actually switched off, saving even more juice.

Finally, dark mode just makes a refreshing change. For a long time, Google's material design principles meant its apps had mostly bright, clean white interfaces, but over the last couple of years it's gradually worked on developing alternative styles. 

More choice is always welcome, so it's good to see Google continuing to develop and improve the experience for anyone who opts for the dark side.

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Google Chrome can now add captions to any video in real time (or very close to it). Live Captions was originally a feature exclusive to the Google Pixel 4, and was later rolled out to the Pixel 3 and Pixel 2.

That's all set to change though, as the tool has now appeared as an experimental option in Chrome Canary – a version of the browser that's intended mainly for developers, but is also a great way to try new features before their official release.

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YouTube already has its own feature that transcribes speech in real time with pretty accurate results, but Live Captions would be a boon for other sites – and could be a game-changer if it works with video conferencing in your browser.

Speech to text

In our tests the feature didn't seem to be quite ready yet, but some users have managed to activate it successfully.

To see if they'll work for you, download and launch Chrome Canary for Windows, macOS or Linux (Live Captions aren't yet available for mobile), then type chrome://flags into the address bar and use the search box at the top to look for 'live captions'.

Click the drop-down menu and select 'Enabled'. Relaunch the browser using the blue button that appears at the bottom right.

Go to chrome://settings/accessibility, find the switch marked 'Live Caption' and toggle it on. If you're lucky, subtitles will now appear automatically whenever you visit a website containing a video with speech.

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Via Android Police

Firefox Lockwise, Mozilla's password manager, now alerts you immediately if you've reused a password that's leaked in a data breach.

Reusing passwords isn't good practice – ideally we'd use strong, unique logins for all our accounts – but it's easily done when you're registered with scores of websites and services, particularly if you created the accounts before you started using a password manager to keep track of them all.

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Unfortunately, doing so leaves your accounts particularly vulnerable, as a would-be attacker can simply try plugging the same details into various different sites.

Lockwise (which is now built into Firefox as standard, having started life as a plug-in) could already warn you if one of your logins appeared in a list following a data breach, so you knew to change it straight away, but the latest update goes one step further, warning you straight away if any of your repeated passwords has popped up in a recent breach.

Stop shoulder-surfers

The latest Firefox update also helps protect you from shoulder-surfers who might wait until you're away from your desk for a moment to grab a coffee, open your password manager and jot down all your logins before you return.

Previously, if you hadn't set a master password using Lockwise, it was possible to scope out a full list of saved logins through the browser's main menu. Hopefully it's not a problem many of us will face while working from home, but many concerned users requested a solution.

Now, if you don't already have a master password set already, Firefox won't let you see stored usernames and passwords unless you first enter your Windows or macOS login credentials. A small change, and one that should give you some extra peace of mind when you're back in the office.

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Portable apps are programs that don't have to be installed, and don't change your PC's settings. Provided there’s enough space available, you can store portable apps anywhere – an internal drive, an external storage device like a USB stick or SD card, on a networked drive, or a cloud storage service like OneDrive or DropBox. 

Portable apps have several advantages: they make it easy to switch between different computers because you can take your software with you; they don't interfere with any other programs installed on your PC; and they can be used on PCs with restricted user permissions (at work or school, for example).

Some portable apps have an ‘installer’, but don't worry – this just unzips a compressed file archive and saves the extracted files to a location of your choice; it doesn’t make any changes to your system files. Other portable apps are provided as a regular ZIP file for you to extract yourself. 

The program itself is an EXE file, but the extracted folder will also contain associated files including fonts and settings, which are essential for it to run. Some portable apps have optional language files, which will add to the size considerably, so consider opting out of these unless you need a language other than English.

These are the best portable apps for Windows. Keep them close to hand and never be without your favorite programs again.

Best portable apps - at a glance

1. Google Chrome Portable
2. LibreOffice Portable
3. GIMP Portable
4. VLC Media Player Portable
5. CCleaner Portable
6. Emsisoft Emergency Kit

All the popular browsers have portable editions, but for sheer convenience we've opted for Google Chrome Portable. Because it's linked to your Google account, all your bookmarks and preferences are automatically synced, making it the best choice for working on the move.

Chrome also supports hundreds of extensions, though you might want to be a bit picky about which you install – they can bump up the disk space requirements considerably.

A couple of pointers to note are that passwords are not saved between PC's by default, and that certificates are not managed by Chrome but by windows so these won't transfer with you.

• Download Google Chrome Portable here.

LibreOffice Portable is the largest of the portable apps here, but it's still amazingly compact considering it's a full Microsoft Office substitute. You’ll need an external drive if you want to carry it, but you can easily keep it in the cloud (the free version of OneDrive gives you 5GB to play with, and DropBox gives you 2GB). 

LibreOffice Portable includes almost all the programs from the installable version of LibreOffice: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector drawing), Math (formulas), and Base (databases). The only thing missing is Charts – though you can create graphs and other visualizations using Calc.

Like many portable apps, LibreOffice Portable is made using open source code. This takes some time, so it's a few versions behind the installable version of LibreOffice. However, that time has been well spent and it's well optimized for use on the move, with easy access to documents stored on a networked drive, an FTP server, or Google Drive.

• Download LibreOffice Portable here

The portable edition of GIMP, the free open source graphic and image editor, should be fine to install on any modern USB stick or any other storage media.

It’s a hefty folder thanks to all the necessary resources, including brushes, plugins and fonts, coming in at just under 200MB. The need to access all of these means GIMP Portable takes a little while to launch, but once it does you've got the perfect tool for advanced photo editing, wherever you are.

It's easy to open files from a local drive, networked storage, or a URL, making GIMP Portable brilliant for editing pictures remotely.

The portable edition is based on the full version's current stable release, so you'll get all the latest features and built-in extensions.

• Download GIMP Portable here.

VLC is one of the most capable and widely-supported media players around. Its main appeal is its ability to play pretty much any audio or video file or stream, without the need to download additional codecs.

That flexibility makes VLC Media Player Portable extremely handy. Keep it in reserve and if you come across an awkward file that won't play nicely with your regular music or video software, you've got the perfect tool for the job.

VLC Media Player Portable can handle files from any location, including local drives, network storage, and streams. You can even supplement it with extensions to integrate it with specific services - though bear in mind that this will add to its size considerably. 

• Download VLC Media Player Portable here.

CCleaner is the biggest name in system maintenance. It makes it easy to clear out clutter like temporary files and cookies that not only takes up valuable space, but can also put your privacy at risk.

CCleaner Portable is a handy toolkit that you can run on any PC in need of a good spring clean. The download includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the program, so you can pick the right one for the OS running on the afflicted machine. 

CCleaner Portable is ideal for helping out friends and family members whose PCs have started to slow down (though always check before deleting their cached logins)

Oh yes, and if you’re running it from your Downloads folder, don’t worry – it won’t try to delete itself. 

• Download CCleaner Portable here.

Most of the portable software here is nice to have to hand, but Emsisoft Emergency Kit is essential – particularly if you’ve been lumbered with the role of unofficial tech support for your friends and relations. 

Emsisoft Emergency Kit isn't a replacement for a good antivirus program; instead, it's designed to save your bacon if your PC has already become infected with something unpleasant. If your machine is acting strangely, just run the program, update its database of threats, and scan for nasties.

If anything suspicious is found, Emsisoft Emergency Kit quarantines it to preventing it from affecting system files, then gives you the option to delete it, or release it back into the wild.

Read our review of the Emsisoft Emergency Kit here.

• Download Emsisoft Emergency Kit here.