The best free PC software programs aren’t about the cost (or lack thereof), they’re about a fresh opportunity—collections of code that put the dumb hardware in your computer to smart use, tools that can accomplish anything from balancing your household budget to helping cure cancer.

Stocking your PC is an intensely personal task. But some programs are so helpful that we heartily recommend them to everybody. These free PC programs—a mix of must-haves and delightful auxiliary apps—deserve a place on almost any computer. There are times when a paid alternative makes sense, however. We’ve pointed out the circumstances where an upgrade over the free offering is warranted, along with our recommendation for the category.

And if you’re selecting these programs as part of breaking in an all-new PC, be sure to check out our guide to how to set up new computer up the right way. Let’s dig in!

A better browser

Microsoft

Before you roll up your sleeves and start slinging software around, make sure to snag your web browser of choice. Using Windows 10 and 11’s default Edge browser when you’re accustomed to something else feels like wearing somebody else’s shoes. (Blech.)

That said, our money’s actually on Edge if you’re not a Chrome die-hard — it’s pretty great in its own right. Firefox is great for privacy-minded users. But hey, browsers are all all free! Try before you “buy”—we’ve published some extensive looks at compelling features you’ll only find on Edge, Firefox, and Vivaldi (a.k.a. the enthusiast’s browser)

Ninite makes loading up a new computer a breeze. Simply head to the Ninite website, select which free software you’d like to install on your PC—it offers dozens of options, including many of the programs named here—and click Get Installer to receive a single, custom .exe file containing the installers for those programs. Run the executable, and Ninite installs all of them in turn, and it automatically declines the offers for bundled bloatware so many free apps try to sneak in. No muss, no fuss, no hassle. 

For most users there really isn’t a worthy alternative, and even if there was it wouldn’t justify the cost. That said, there is a paid complementary utility called Ninite Updater that costs $10 per year that makes it easy to keep all your desktop programs up-to-date.

Unchecky

Accidentally installing unwanted bloatware is one of the greatest dangers of free software, the sanctity of Ninite aside. For everything else, use Unchecky. Unchecky automatically unchecks all of the checkboxes when you’re trying to install a program, and warns you if shady software is trying to sneak something ugly onto your machine. 

Again Unchecky is in a league unto itself, and while you might find similar capabilities bundled in an antivirus program, there’s little reason to look elsewhere.

Microsoft PowerToys

If you want to fine-tune your Windows experience, be sure to check out Microsoft’s killer PowerToys suite. Ostensibly for enthusiasts, PowerToys is absolutely loaded with tools designed to streamline all sorts of PC hassles. It offers utilities to batch resize images, quickly find your mouse cursor, always keep a chosen window on top of your others, remap your keyboard keys, show file previews in File Explorer, and a whole lot more. And you should definitely be using FancyZones, Microsoft’s killer multitasking app.

Launchy

On the surface, Launchy is a simple app launcher, and that’s swell all on its own! App launchers let you activate software far faster than navigating Windows, even if you use the Windows key and search for an app by name. But Launchy can do much, much more: Open any file or folder in mere seconds, shut down your PC, or even kill processes and perform math calculations with the right plug-ins. Install Launchy and forget about your Start menu.

Launchy is another Windows utility that is unto itself; however, the developers do accept donations, and we highly recommend tossing the developers a few dollars for this excellent program.

7-Zip

Windows can create and extract ZIP files natively, but if you find yourself staring at another compressed archive you’ll need a dedicated program to handle it. A lot of them cost money. 7-Zip is open-source and completely free, ready to perform all your archiving needs from Windows’ right-click context menu. You can even encrypt 7-Zip archives with a password to send them securely.

7-Zip is great, and paid parallels such as WinZip really don’t offer enough to justify the fee. For most of us, 7-zip is just great — and Microsoft has integrated RAR and 7-Zip file support directly into Windows 11 itself.

VLC

Windows 10 and 11 have a prickly problem: Unlike Windows 7, they’re incapable of playing DVDs out of the box. Your PC might have a DVD-playing program installed if you bought a boxed system, but if not, the simply wonderful VLC media player can play your flicks (and music, and podcasts, and…) for free. It can even play (some) Blu-ray discs with a little fiddling.

VLC is just fantastic, and you won’t find a paid option that justifies its worth compared to this free workhorse. You can, however, send the VideoLAN organization a donation as a thank you for its hard work.

Paint.net

Don’t let Paint.net’s freebie status fool you: This image editor may not have all the bells and whistles of Photoshop, but it packs everything that most people need (even layer-based editing) and costs hundreds of dollars less. We’ve got Paint.net tips to help you get started with this killer no-cost software.

If you’re a graphics professional, and you can’t afford Photoshop but require more than Paint.net offers, check out GIMP. It has a challenging learning curve, but its capabilities are damned impressive once you wrap your head around it. Those aren’t your only options though. Check out our roundup of the best free Photoshop alternatives for more no-cost programs for everything from quick and dirty tweaks to nitty-gritty image edits.

ree image editors are generally great and GIMP is looking better than ever. But Adobe’s Photoshop remains the unrivaled titan for image editing, while the hobbyist level Photoshop Elements has advanced features that you won’t find in the free programs.

Audacity

If you need to record or mix audio without spending big bucks on pro software, Audacity is hands-down the best option around. This powerful open-source audio editor offers excellent production capabilities—and a dizzying array of buttons and options. Snag it, then read PCWorld’s Audacity primer to wrap your head around the basics.

For most users Audacity is a powerful tool, but if you’re rising to the level of semi-pro and need a deeper level of audio editing then Adobe’s Audition CC for $23 per month might be worth it. Keep in mind, however, that Adobe Audition is a pro tool and not a starter option.

Revo Uninstaller

When you delete software using Windows’ default uninstallation utility, it can leave a lot of remnants behind in weird places, sucking up precious storage space. Revo Uninstaller wipes out everything. It’s great. 

(Pro tip: If you encounter a program that says it can’t be deleted because it’s currently in use by your system, IOBit’s free Unlocker can loosen its grasp, as can Microsoft PowerTools.)

Revo Uninstaller only takes care of the basics. If you need features like getting rid of remnants from previously uninstalled programs or mass uninstalls then spending $20 on Revo Uninstaller Pro or a $20 yearly subscription to Iobit Uninstaller Pro is worth it.

SpaceSniffer

Managing your computer’s storage space is kind of an all-or-nothing experience. Windows will tell you how much space is left on your drive, and that’s it; it’s up to you to dive into a million different directories and clear out the gunk when you’re running low on space. SpaceSniffer (try not to giggle) from Uderzo Software solves this by scanning an entire drive and presenting your files and folders in a visual grid, which makes it easy to find “lost” programs eating up huge chunks of your hard drive space. It’s one of the five Windows power tools we can’t live without.

WinDirStat is another free program that behaves similarly to SpaceSniffer. If you’re looking to free up some space for the latest massive game install, you’ll want one of these installed on your PC.

Recuva

Sumatra PDF

dobe Reader may be the go-to PDF reader for many people, but it’s clunky, constantly updating, and frequently targeted by malware peddlers. If you need only basic functionality, go with Sumatra PDF instead. Sumatra lacks the fancy extras found in many full-featured PDF readers, but when it comes to straight-up reading Portable Document Format files, Sumatra PDF is blazing-fast and completely accurate. Oh, and since it’s less ubiquitous than Adobe’s offering, hackers tend to stay away from Sumatra PDF.

Spotify or iTunes

Sometimes, blasting tunes is the only thing that makes slogging through a spreadsheet or a stuffed inbox even remotely tolerable. The exact music client you’ll want will depend on whether you’ve already bought into a service, naturally. For musical neophytes I recommend two programs: iTunes and Spotify.

The iTunes Windows client notoriously sucks, but it gets the job done—and that job includes giving you access to a vast universe of premium music downloads and keeping your iPhone’s music library synced with your PC. Spotify, meanwhile, is an all-you-can-eat streaming service with millions of top-tier tunes available, all for free if you don’t mind listening to a few ads.

Yes. In fact, if my editors let me use “Hell Yes” as an option, I’d say, “Hell Yes!” You don’t need to be an audiophile to recognize the sound difference in the higher-quality versions Spotify and Apple Music premium subscribers get, plus no ads and the freedom to listen to your music anywhere? Sold.

A password manager

lastpass

The never-ending stream of high-profile hack attacks of the past few years have driven home the point: You need strong passwords, and you need a different password for each site you visit. Rather than juggling dozens of alphanumeric codes in your noggin, download a password manager. 

There are several options available, but our favorite freebie is Bitwarden, a no-cost password manager with few restrictions (unlike the free offerings from premium favorites like LastPass and Dashlane). PCWorld’s guide to the best password managers and the best free password managers can help walk you through all the available options.

A productivity suite

libreoffice writer

PCs excel at helping you Get Things Done—but few of them ship with a productivity suite installed. Fix that, stat! Even if you don’t plan to use a productivity suite regularly, it’s smart to have basic editing capabilities available on your computer.

Legions of people swear by Microsoft’s legendary Office; I do, too. But you don’t have to drop big dollars on Office if you don’t need its myriad bells and whistles. Free—and good—alternatives abound, with LibreOffice (pictured) being the flagship free-and-open-source option. The online-only Google Docs also rocks. PCWorld’s guide to the best free Microsoft Office alternatives explains your various options. 

AutoHotKey

Macros sure are great in Microsoft Word and Excel, aren’t they? AutoHotKey lets you create customized keyboard shortcuts for any program or action on your PC. It’s not exactly beginner-friendly, as configuring AutoHotKey requires some very basic scripting, which most people will be able to pick up quickly enough. It’s downright magic once you wrap your brain around it though.

Proton VPN

Browsing websites and sending private data over open Wi-Fi hotspots is just begging for hackers to capture the details. Virtual private networks secure your connection. If you need to log in to your work website or email at Starbucks, use the free version of Proton, a VPN we love, to keep your data safe. It’s fast, easy to use, and has a straightforward privacy policy, unlike many VPNs.

The only real limitation to this service is that you can only connect with one device at at time. Other than that it’s practically a premium VPN.

Free games!

steam razer blade

All work and no play makes Homer something something! Valve’s outstanding PC game marketplace, Steam, makes it easy to shrug off the stress of the workday and blow off some … well, you know. You’ll find tons of free games available on Steam, and games are frequently given away free for a limited time. If you want a steady stream of freebies, the rival Epic Games Store gives way a free game or two every single week.

Is it worth it to upgrade to a paid version?

Probably. Free games can only take you so far before you’re left wanting more. Steam, GOG, EA’s Origin, the Epic Games Store, and Blizzard can all satisfy your gaming needs once the free games aren’t enough. 

Bonus: Back up your PC!

ssds mike homnick

This isn’t an official recommendation because the best way to back up your PC for free is to use a hodgepodge of native Windows utilities and no-cost third-party solutions. But backing up your data is so vital—especially in this rising age of ransomware—that it needs to be highlighted here.

If the idea of using a mish-mash of tools makes you wince, check out PCWorld’s guide to the best Windows backup software  for more options. You’re going to need some portable storage to stash your bits on, too. PCWorld’s best external drives roundup can help there.

Master your Windows PC

windows 10

Now that you’ve loaded up your PC with the best free software around, it’s time to put Windows itself to work. Head on over to PCWorld’s guide to 10 obscure Windows features that will blow your mind to seize even more control over your PC for the low, low price of nothing.

The following is an update written by Reclaim the Records:

Hello again from Reclaim The Records! We’re that little non-profit which likes to pry historical and genealogical files and databases out of government archives, libraries, and agencies, and then puts them all online for totally free public use (which we’re able to do with your generous support). And we’re here in your inbox to announce a really unique and exciting resource that our work has identified and now made available: the first-ever free public access to the BIRLS database, the main index to the VA’s records of veteran benefits files. This particular stor has a lot of background to explain, so we're actually going to have to break up this announcement into a few separate newsletters over the next few weeks.

But the super-short version of the story is this: we figured out how to get access-by-FOIA to some amazing veteran records from the VA, from the late nineteenth century to the present day, really unusual records that aren’t available anywhere else, and now we want to help you get these files, too.

And so we’re going to start at the end of this long story and show you some of the results we’ve gotten in the past few months: the amazing, unique, almost-always-never-seen-before-by-any-researcher historical files you can now get about pretty much any deceased US veteran who served in the late nineteenth or twentieth centuries, whether they’re a relative of yours, a research interest, or just a famous person whose file you’re curious to peek at. A few examples showing the variety of things you can find in these files:

 • a 1961 handwritten letter from a WWII veteran and actor named William Lubovsky, instructing the VA to please refer to him by his long-time stage name “Will Lee”, although he would later become even better known as Mr. Hooper on "Sesame Street”.

 • a 1919 application for a military life insurance policy for a WWI soldier and immigrant named John (Giovanni) Primo, giving information about his beneficiary — his non-immigrant mother back in Italy, who was likely born in the mid-19th century.

 • a 1987 life insurance payout receipt for a WWII Navy veteran upon his death, payable to his wife — the veteran being Broadway and film director Bob Fosse and his long-separated wife listed on the receipt being dancer Gwen Verdon.

 • A 1988 handwritten letter from a veteran explaining to the VA with some amusement that the Navy’s offer of “education and training benefits” was quite unnecessary, as she had already received her PhD from Yale in 1930, thankyouverymuch. The veteran was Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, a pioneer in computer programming.

 • a 1958 typewritten letter from an undistinguished and poor WWI veteran (and barely-known relative of the person writing this newsletter) facing increasing medical problems, asking for financial help from the VA to supplement his meager pension from the local Cake Bakers Union.

 • A 1945 medical and psychological evaluation of a WWII veteran suffering from bilateral trench foot and what we would now call PTSD. It includes a harrowing first-hand account — recounted in the VA doctor’s notes in his file — about his experiences with hand-to-hand fighting in foxholes in France and Germany. The veteran was Jack Kirby, a comic book artist and writer, who just five years earlier had co-created Captain America, and who would go on to co-create other superheroes, including the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four in the 1960s. But lesser known in his career was his artwork on a 1950s war-related comic book series that was literally called “Foxhole”— perhaps unjustly obscure, given Kirby’s military service, as recounted in his full VA benefits file, which wound up being 211 pages long.

And those are just six of the veteran stories that we uncovered, using this new dataset of more than eighteen million veterans’ names to launch our FOIA requests. It’s more than a century’s worth of data, finally available for free public use.

So here’s the slightly-longer version of the story, and how we did this. A few years ago, we at Reclaim The Records tried to get a copy of a certain large data set called BIRLS from a certain federal government agency, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, better known as the VA. Even thought the VA had already given out an earlier copy of that database (but with fewer years of data) to the commercial genealogy behemoth Ancestry.com a few years before that, the government refused to give the data to us. The VA actually claimed that their own internal data was so terribly messy and so badly curated that they simply couldn’t give it out to anyone, and thus the BIRLS database should remain unavailable to the general public forever — or else solely available in an older and smaller dataset (covering fewer years) that was locked up behind the $300/year paywall of a single commercial genealogy company.

This seemed rather unfair to us, for a government agency to prioritize handing taxpayer-funded data to a single commercial entity, but not to the public. Also, it seemed like a terrible new reasoning for federal government agencies to try to evade their responsibilities under FOIA: just be really sloppy at maintaining your agency’s internal data and then you’ll always have an excuse to not be able to give any of it to the public.

So obviously, we sued the VA in federal court to get the records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), because that’s the sort of thing we do.

And after fighting about it for a few years, we won our lawsuit and thereby won the database! And the data we won was a far more complete version of the BIRLS database, containing all records where the VA believed the veteran had died prior to mid-2020. But we didn’t publicly announce our win at the time, because the judge’s ruling had also stipulated that the VA didn’t have to turn the data over to us until about two more years after the ruling, to give the VA more time to try to clean up their own internal data mess. But eventually they gave us a copy, and it’s finally online now.

We just launched a search engine for that data, a free new mini-website at BIRLS.org. The information in this database covers over eighteen million deceased US veterans, possibly the single largest public data set on US veterans ever released. And this is the first time it’s ever all been free and public (rather than paywalled), and it’s even downloadable, if you for some strange reason prefer to directly download ginormous CSV files.

But the giant database we won is really just the index to the underlying files. And so —this is the really unusual part of our story! — we also built a really cool new feature into this searchable website:

If you find someone of interest listed in the search results at BIRLS.org, you can also send a FOIA request to the VA right from your web browser asking the VA to send you the full underlying benefits claims file from their warehouse for that particular veteran.

These files we’ve helped to shake loose from the VA, the ones which are being indexed by the BIRLS database, are veterans’ benefits claim files, also called C-Files (not to be confused with the immigration-related C-Files you can get from USCIS). These C-Files are a compilation of all the different types of benefits claims a veteran (or their relatives) made (or tried to make) to the VA related to their previous military service: claims for health care, disability or life insurance policies, educational benefits (the GI Bill), mortgage assistance (VA loans), and more.

Basically, these files are the modern versions of the Civil War pension files or other veteran files held at the National Archives (NARA) which genealogists have used for years. Except these files are still held at the VA, because they’re much newer, and ~95% of them have never been sent over to NARA, and so almost nobody has ever seen them or used them.

“Filing the FOIA for them” means the VA will search for and pull the actual folder from their warehouse shelves, digitally scan the contents, and send it to you by mail on a DVD, or occasionally as paper photocopies. There could be ten items in that folder, or fifty, or even hundreds of pages of materials, from medical reports, to letters, to computer punch cards for pension payouts, even copies of vital records like marriages and divorce decrees, and there’s really no way to know what’s in a file in advance. You just have to search, and then make the FOIA request, and then wait a few months to see what you get.

And if you can’t find a deceased veteran’s name listed in the database, don’t worry. The VA may still have a file about them which you can request, but it just might not have been indexed into the BIRLS database. This is especially likely if the veteran (or their family) didn’t have any ongoing contact with the VA in or after the 1970s, which is when the BIRLS database first started getting built. So to deal with that possibility, we also built a new “build your own FOIA” system into our new website, so you can still make FOIA requests for C-Files even if the veteran’s name isn’t indexed in the BIRLS database. (They have a slightly lower chance of working, but hey, they’re free!)

Oh, and there are quite a few non-veterans listed in the BIRLS database too, including some civilians who worked for federal agencies like NOAA, who might have been entitled to some types of benefits such as VA home loans. And there are even a surprisingly large number of non-US veterans included in the BIRLS database, specifically Filipino nationals who served in the Philippine Commonwealth Army, the Philippines Scouts, the Philippine Guerrilla and Combination Service, or other service during the time period that the Philippines was an unincorporated territory and commonwealth of the United States, from 1935 to 1946.

Like we said, there is a lot of background and material to explain with this new data release. And this is just the beginning.

We’ll have a lot more to say about the BIRLS database contents (and the database’s flaws), the multi-year lawsuit we had to file in SDNY to get this material out of the VA and into the public domain, and more of the incredible stories we’ve found when FOIA’ing veterans’ C-Files from the late nineteenth century to the (almost) present day. But for now, we think it’s time to stop writing this first newsletter and turn the website over to you guys, to let you start searching and discovering and requesting records for yourself.

A huge thank you to to the approximately fifty beta testers from both the genealogy and FOIA research communities, who quietly worked with us on this project over the past few months. They gave us suggestions, made bug reports, and collectively filed more than 1,100 FOIA requests for C-Files, as we all stress-tested the system, meaning both our shiny new website and the VA’s creaky internal processes for file production. In the coming days and weeks, some of the beta testers will be posting their own blog entries and social media reports about the great stuff they’ve been finding in these C-Files about their relatives or research interests.

And now that we’re going public with the new website and its FOIA-filing capabilities, we hope that you too will find incredible materials.

Finally, we want to emphasize that we’re bringing this project to the general public for free. We filed the original lawsuit for free, we built the website for free, and we designed and built the new free-FOIA-filing-by-fax (yes, fax!) system for free. But hiring lawyers, running servers, and handling fax and e-mail APIs and data storage costs and so on — well, that’s not actually free to us. And we’re not a commercial genealogy behemoth with an expensive subscription model, we’re a little non-profit.

So if you want to see more great projects like this one, where we employ Feats of Strength to make government agencies turn over incredibly important data sets to the public domain, and where we have the Airing of Grievances to explain how to find, acquire, and use these once-hidden amazing files… Well, 'tis the season to be generous, and our little non-profit would cheerfully accept a Festivus present or two. Your generous support makes projects like this one possible.

We hope you enjoy the new website, and find terrific things in the new files!

Funeral services were held last Friday for Stanley Diamond, the groundbreaking researcher in genealogy, who passed away suddenly at the age of 91. Diamond died in Montreal on Dec.18. 

Two leaky heart valves had been discovered 38 years after his first brush with heart issues. “We only found out it was inoperable on the Monday afternoon and he was gone 36 hours later,” said daughter Jessika. “He stuck around long enough to have us all gather to say goodbye, which was a blessing.”

Stanley Mark Diamond founded Jewish Records Indexing – Poland, the world’s largest special interest genealogy group. JRI – Poland was a “second act” in his life, combining his passion for Jewish continuity with his expertise as a Montreal business leader with a Harvard MBA.

JRI – Poland grew over 30 years to approximately 170 volunteers on six continents around the world and amassed a database that now has 6.4 million records reflecting the lives of Polish Jews since the 1500s.

“Stanley had a two-fold superpower,” acting JRI – Poland executive director Robinn Magid says. “He was able to care about people and draw things out of them, but also to contribute and help. They go hand in handz but are not often found in the same person.”

In 1991, Diamond’s nephew was diagnosed as a carrier of beta thalassemia, and he created a family tree to alert relatives about their probability of having the gene. At the time, he was doing consulting work after selling his decorative ceiling business, Intalite, in 1986.

He began attending genealogy conferences and realized that the largest group of Jewish genealogists were Jews who traced their roots to the current or former country of Poland. In 1995, he partnered with two technology experts who had the skills to develop a website that could also incorporate archival information. Several months later, Diamond travelled to Poland with a colleague and persuaded the Polish State Archives to allow JRI – Poland to index his family’s ancestral town’s records. Just four months later, he returned to Poland with a printout of 40,000 entries, to the astonishment of the archives’ director, who then understood the value of the project.

Diamond hoped JRI – Poland would help people capture the essence of their ancestors. In addition to preserving their names, he wanted families to learn about their lives and about their values.

“JRI – Poland specializes in solving puzzles,” says Magid.

While some of these puzzles solve simple questions about basic family history, others are much more complex. The group has helped save lives by sharing information on hereditary health conditions. They have been able to repair damage caused by the Holocaust, connecting and reconnecting fragmented families who lost each other or did not know they even existed. They have assisted people who wanted to prove that they were Jewish and were entitled to an Orthodox Jewish wedding.

The group also assists Jews at risk. “Three years ago, when Putin invaded Ukraine, we saw an upswing in people writing us from Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Poland and other places saying they needed to prove their Polish-Jewish heritage,” says Magid. “In the past we’ve had people from Venezuela and from various South American countries like Argentina. They are in countries that have gone through turmoil and feel at risk. They are either trying to prove their halachic Jewish heritage and move to Israel, or they are trying to prove their Polish-Jewish heritage to get a Polish passport and move to the European Union. These are the people who Stanley personally helped.”

Diamond also provided his research expertise for the television series Finding your Roots and Who Do You Think You Are?, and in 2016 located documentation for the Guinness organization that verified that Israeli Holocaust survivor Yisrael Kristal was the world’s oldest living man at age 112.

Diamond was born in Montreal to Harry and Annie Diamond. He attended West Hill High School and McGill, and graduated from Harvard Business School in 1958. He was an exceptional baseball player, playing in a semi-pro league. He met his wife, Ruth Peerlkamp, at a party, and they were married for 59 years.

“Stanley Diamond’s first passion was for his family, but that soon spread to your families,” daughter Jessika said in her eulogy. “He loved doing for others, advising other genealogists, teaching, speaking out on the importance of genetic testing, reuniting families separated in the Holocaust, finding lost heirs and potential bone marrow matches.” 

In 2021, Yad Vashem granted JRI – Poland third-party access to their Pages of Testimony. Diamond advocated for the organization to support amateur genealogists who could provide hard data, and they agreed for the first time.  

“He was passionate about his work and personally devoted to helping anyone who asked for assistance,” his daughter Rachel said. “He was president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal, and he was honored by the governor general of Canada with the Meritorious Service Medal. He considered it to be the crowning achievement of his second career. He had a huge footprint that will be felt for a very long time.” 

“It’s hard to imagine doing our jobs without Stanley Diamond advocating and referring and providing knowledge in the background of what we do for people,” said Janice Rosen, director of the Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives. “He was the go-to person in so many ways. The European side, the Canadian side. He was so determined to ferret out information to help people. He was involved in so many aspects of genealogy which grew out of his need to know about his own genetic background, and he made the whole world benefit from it.”

“We say people were lifetime learners. But more importantly, he was a lifetime contributor. And I don’t think we say that about many people,” said Magid. “He wanted to make a difference because he could envision something and get the right people to do it. And that is unique. He understood that we are part of a chain of continuity of the Jewish people.”

Diamond is survived by his wife, Ruth, daughters Paula, Rachel and Jessika, and his grandchildren.

Apple in June introduced a beta version of Apple Maps on the web, allowing users of other platforms such as Windows PCs to access its map service directly from a web browser. Although the beta was quite limited at launch, it is now getting an important new feature, which is Look Around.

Look Around now available on Apple Maps web app

As noted by Chris Carley, it’s now possible to use Look Around in the web version of Apple Maps. According to the Look Map website, which lets users check the coverage of the main map platforms, the feature was added by Apple around December 11.

For those unfamiliar, Look Around is Apple’s version of Street View. The feature was introduced in 2019 with iOS 13 and lets users explore their surroundings with 360-degree panoramic views. Where available, Look Around can be accessed by tapping or clicking on the binoculars icon in Apple Maps.

Look Around is currently available in selected cities in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., the European Union and a few other countries. The full list can be found on Apple’s website.

Apple says Apple Maps on the web is still a “public beta.” The web app lets users explore the map, search for businesses and points of interest, find directions and view Guides. Features such as the transit map and 3D buildings are still unavailable. There’s also no option to sign in with an Apple ID to access saved places and custom Guides.

According to Apple, support for more features, platforms and languages will be added in the future. You can try Apple Maps on the web by visiting beta.maps.apple.com in Safari, Chrome, Edge and Firefox.

Author Marcel Deer Releases New Guide to Family History Research and Genealogy

This book is a perfect Christmas gift for anyone interested in unearthing the secrets of their ancestry.

Discover the Joy of Family History: A Rewarding Journey Through Your Heritage

Uncover the threads that connect your past, present, and future with the latest guide to genealogy.

The pursuit of family history is more than a hobby; it's a deeply enriching journey that connects individuals to their roots, culture, and heritage. In an age where the digital world often overshadows personal connections, author Marcel Deer presents 'Finding Your Tribe: A Guide to Ancestry, Genealogy, and Family,' a groundbreaking guide designed to help readers uncover their ancestral stories and preserve them for future generations.

“Family history is more than just names and dates. It’s about understanding who we are and how our ancestors shaped the world we live in,” says Marcel Deer.

This compelling book not only provides a roadmap for genealogy research but also shares inspiring anecdotes about the transformative power of knowing your heritage. Whether you're a seasoned family historian or just starting your journey, [Book Title] offers actionable tips, tools, and resources to make your research rewarding and enjoyable.

Why Discovering Your Heritage Matters

Strengthens Family Bonds: Researching your family history brings generations together, fostering a deeper appreciation for shared stories and traditions.

Builds a Sense of Identity: Understanding where you come from enriches your sense of self and helps you understand your place in the world.

Preserves Legacy: Documenting your family’s history ensures that your stories and legacy endure for future generations.

Praise for Finding Your Tribe

Readers have called it “a must-have guide for anyone passionate about family history” and “a deeply moving exploration of personal heritage.”Amazon Reviewers have said: "As well as being an inspirational tale, this is an extremely useful guide for those wanting to explore their ancestry. For me, I've yet to start, and the structure is really helpful to know where to go next. If you're part way through your search, it feels like this book would be a great prompt to reignite your activity and find new routes to explore. Very much worth a read!

Available Now

Finding Your Tribe: A Guide to Ancestry, Genealogy, and Family is available for purchase on Amazon. Don’t miss the chance to embark on your journey of self-discovery and heritage exploration.

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Website: https://shorturl.at/BMDlo

A Snapshot of Corca Dhuibhne, a new online archive of photographs from the community of Corca Dhuibhne over the last 100 years, is now available to everyone. Ruth Uí Ógáin from CFCD, and a past student of the Department of Digital Humanities UCC, came up with the idea to collect and catalogue the photos and is currently working on the ongoing project.

This project, Blaiseadh de Chorca Dhuibhne, was undertaken by Comharchumann Forbartha Chorca Dhuibhne (CFCD) and received funding from the Heritage Council’s Community Grant Scheme. To date, over 400 photographs have been contributed to the archive by the public and around half of these have now been scanned, uploaded and catalogued with the relevant searchable metadata. This is an ongoing project and CFCD hope to continue adding to the collection in the future. CFCD also hope that the public, especially the people of Corca Dhuibhne, can assist if they have further information regarding any of the photographs and each photo has the facility to submit corrections and suggestions. This project is of particular importance and has two main functions. Firstly, it has allowed the public to loan their personal photographs for scanning and archiving, thus ensuring that there will be a permanent record of their own personal treasures and memories. Secondly, these important visual artefacts, which reflect the social history of the peninsula over the past century, have now been archived and made available to researchers, historians, anthropologists or anyone interested in them. CFCD would like to thank all those who supported this important initiative and especially the generous community of Corca Dhuibhne.

A lawsuit filed on Dec. 19 in the Los Angeles Superior Court alleges that Beverly Hills fertility specialist, Hal Danzer, M.D., impregnated a woman with a stranger’s sperm rather than her husband’s sperm without the couple’s consent. The woman gave birth to twin girls but did not discover until this year that her husband had no biological relationship with them. 

The twins are now in their late 30s.

Plaintiffs in the case are the unnamed couple, described in the complaint under the pseudonyms “John Doe” and “Jane Doe.” They claim that for nearly 40 years, the family believed that the husband was the biological father of the twins, one of whom now has a child of her own. 

The complaint states that as a young couple, the plaintiffs turned to Danzer, a well-known fertility specialist, to help them start a family. They underwent successful treatment in 1986. Unbeknownst to them, the sperm used to conceive the twins belonged to a stranger named Dennis Goldman. 

The twins made the discovery about their paternity after tests through Ancestry.com and 23andMe revealed no relation to their father. The suit alleges that the actual sperm donor, Goldman, produced several other biological children through Danzer and his now-shuttered fertility clinic, Los Angeles Fertility Institute.  Moreover, the complaint states that Goldman suffered unspecified medical issues and died young, raising the specter of health concerns for the twins.

The complaint alleges causes of action for battery, fraud, infliction of emotional distress, professional malpractice and breach of contract. It states that Danzer co-founded and currently practices at the Southern California Reproductive Center in Beverly Hills. 

After more than three decades, police have made an arrest in the brutal 1992 slaying of 19 year-old Amy Hooper.

On Dec. 17, a Franklin County Grand Jury indicted 57 year-old Washington State man Bruce Daniels for the murder and rape of Hooper, according to Franklin County Court records.

He was arrested earlier this month after investigators matched Daniels’ DNA, taken from his trash by Washington investigators, to DNA from the crime.

It’s unclear what led police to Daniels although many high-profile cold cases have been solved recently using genetic genealogy, a field that uses genealogical DNA banks to identify possible suspects.

Hooper was killed on March 9, 1992, after her bound body was found on the floor of her Lincoln Village apartment. She was bludgeoned and stabbed to death. 

Investigators have previously stated that they believed Hooper knew her attacker, although police have not publicly confirmed any connection she may have had with Daniels, who was 25 at the time.

A North Texas police department used genetic genealogy technology, similar to what's used in over-the-counter ancestry tests, alongside DNA evidence to find a suspect in a 33-year-old cold case.  

Plano Police has arrested 64-year-old Nicholas Ray Carney in Ardmore, Oklahoma, for allegedly abducting and sexually assaulting an 8-year-old child in 1991. 

The 1991 Plano cold case

On August 15, 1991, police say the victim was walking with another child to a neighborhood pool just before 6 p.m. in the alley behind Lake Hill Lane, near Tree House Lane and Country Place Drive. A man got out of his car and asked for help finding his lost dog, then grabbed the victim and forced the child into his car.

Police said the man sexually assaulted the minor, who turned up in Garland about five hours later. Police issued a description and a sketch of the suspect, but he was never found.

In 2004, the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences at Dallas tested evidence from the case for DNA and found a match to a 1999 case from Dallas in which a 9-year-old was abducted and sexually assaulted. A sketch and description from the Dallas case were similar, as well. Still, there was no progress in identifying the suspect.

New DNA technology sheds light on the case

In May 2023, a Plano PD detective started investigating the department's cold cases to see if genetic genealogy, a relatively new tool, could produce new leads.

Genetic genealogy uses DNA testing combined with traditional genealogical methods to trace family relationships, identify ancestors, or confirm familial connections. Genealogy tests are over-the-counter products that can easily be purchased online or in retail stores. Companies like 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, and others sell these DNA test kits.

The department worked with the Texas Rangers to submit evidence preserved from the 1991 and 1999  cases to an outside laboratory through the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, which works to clear the backlog of thousands of DNA samples linked to unknown suspects.

A family tree connection leads to a suspect in Oklahoma

On October 19, 2024, Bode Technology, the forensic firm that tested the DNA, found a possible family tree for the suspect, including his mother and a brother who died in a Utah prison while serving a life sentence for murder.

One of the people in that family tree was Nicholas Carney, police said. 

Detectives discovered that the Garland Police Department had run Carney's name in November of 1991 for an unknown reason. They also found that he lived in Dallas in 1999, just 1.2 miles away from where the second victim was abducted. A 1996 drivers license photo also resembled the police sketches from both cases.

Google could soon add a feature that makes it super easy to learn about a file. 

Rumors and reports online suggest that the tech giant could be working on a feature that'll let you attach a file then search within it, in order to then analyze the document. 

As spotted by Android Authority, this new, rumored tool from Google would let a user upload a file in the search bar with the familiar paperclip icon, then parse through that document. Users would be prompted to "ask anything about the file" via the regular Google search bar. 

In effect, you could take any local file and comb through it via Google search, receiving answers with the help of AI. Of course you'd have to trust Google to keep your documents private and that its AI tools would spit out accurate responses. 

The tool was spotted and posted on X and by Khushal Bherwani, an SEO analyst who frequently posts about this sort of thing of the social media site.