Digital photography means we don’t have to restrain our itchy trigger finger, and we’re able to take hundreds, even thousands of photos per assignment, project, trip or event. However, that also means we need the best photo editor software to organize and edit these shots. Most computers come bundled with these apps, but is it worth paying a little extra to access even more tools for editing and managing photos?

CyberLink PhotoDirector is one such tool, expanding photo editing capabilities for professionals and beginners alike. We’ve long been fans of the company’s content creation suite, and when we last reviewed the software, we praised it for providing one of the best Photoshop alternatives and best alternatives to Lightroom. So, how does CyberLink’s latest version compare to the competition? We put PhotoDirector to the test.

CyberLink PhotoDirector: Pricing & plans

• The price alone makes PhotoDirector extremely competitive, compared to Lightroom, and the fact you can opt for subscription or perpetual license is the icing on the cake

CyberLink is a rare beast: in a world increasingly dominated by subscription packages, this company still offers you the choice of purchasing a perpetual license. The version known as Ultra can be yours for $100, which is less than one year of renting Adobe Lightroom. A subscription is also available of course - for those who enjoy not owning their software - and the price here is also very competitive: it usually costs $60 a year to get PhotoDirector 365, but as of this writing, you can get it for $40.

The main advantage of subscribing to any software is the constant regular updates you get, and CyberLink releases fixes, new features, and new media each and every month.

If you’re curious about this software, you’re encouraged to download the free trial by clicking here.

• Pricing & plans: 5/5

CyberLink PhotoDirector: Launcher

• The Launcher is where you choose which tool to use - and which interface to open. This way of working isn’t as intuitive as having everything in one window, but it doesn’t take long to get used to it

Launch PhotoDirector and you’ll be faced with a simple launcher, prominently featuring an animated advert at the top for some of its latest features. Beneath this distracting 40% of the interface are the main icons in yellow. Some open a floating window onto which you’ll drop an image to perform the required action, while others open up a whole new interface. The various icons that do this present you with a different yet similar interface, offering unique tools for the job at hand. It can get a little confusing navigating through this way of working, but the more we used PhotoDirector, the more we got used to it.

Further down the launcher window are more icons. These offer quick links to regularly used tools, and this section is customisable, letting you choose which of these icons to display or hide. There’s also a link to CyberLink’s tutorial page, which offers over a hundred how-tos to help you understand the software better.

• Score: 3.5/5

CyberLink PhotoDirector: Library & Adjust

• Library and Adjust lets you organize your shots and alter them to look their best. The ability to switch between Guided, Manual, Presets and Expert modes gives you a lot of flexibility, depending on your skill level

The ‘Library and Adjust’ module is likely the one most get PhotoDirector for: a place to organize your shots, and use various tools to improve the quality of your photographs. When selected, you’re confronted with a very traditional interface, with a sidebar on the left containing various categories for the ‘Library’ section, or tools while in ‘Adjust’ mode.

In either case, most of the interface on the right is taken over by your selected photo, while thumbnails at the bottom help you see other shots in the same category.

Using the available tools is as easy as any image editing app you’ve likely used before, with a generous number of sliders to make the necessary alterations. Be aware though that if you’re using the free version, the vast majority of these tools are premium only. You can use them, but if and when you do, the image will be prominently watermarked, until you undo the change, or pay for the proper version.

You’ll find Manual and Preset options, and to the right is a drop down menu offering you Guided and Expert interfaces. As its title implies, Guided is a simplified version, whereas Expert opens up a multi-layered interface, giving you more free reign over your modifications. There’s also a third option in that menu, the Generative AI Studio, but we’ll be exploring that part of the software a little later on.

As for the library section, it’s pretty standard actually. You can organize your shots into albums, with tags, by faces, there’s also a calendar view, and you can set up various smart collections to atomically organize your photos based on set criteria. There’s nothing drastically new here that we haven’t seen many times before. Still, it works, and works well.

There is however a third section: Create. This is where you get to transform your stills into something potentially more interesting, such as a slideshow, or an animated GIF. You have the ability to create panoramas, perform digital witchcraft with ‘Face Swap’, merge photos with different exposures to get the best out of them, and there’s even a section turning video clips into photos. Interesting though all of this is, these tools are only available to paying customers.

• Score: 4/5

CyberLink PhotoDirector: Editing

• PhotoDirector has extensive edit features which go well beyond image editing, and comfortably enter the image compositing. The list of tools is vast, and are incredibly easy to use

The Edit module takes more of a leaf from Photoshop, expanding from the ‘Create’ section we looked at just before, and allowing you to create complete image composites. With it you’re able to add multiple text layers, perform some basic actions like cropping, resizing and rotating, you’ll find some animation effects, you’ll be able to apply lens effects, modify the shape of faces, remove backgrounds, add stickers, frames, and overlays, the versatility is quite extensive, and oh so easy to use; you’ll find it’s pretty effortless to just dabble and experiment until you reach the look you’re after.

Regretfully, as with the premium alteration we explored in ‘Library and Adjust’ you cannot save any changes you’ve made which contain premium effects. We understand the watermarking and the restriction when exporting, but being unable to save changes does restrict the amount of experimentation you can perform without getting a plan or a perpetual license (and that’s likely the reason).

• Editing: 4/5

CyberLink PhotoDirector: AI tools

• The AI tools can be found throughout the PhotoDirector interface, and they work as you would expect them to - although you’re given as set number of credits each month with your subscription

There’s no escaping artificial intelligence - we’ve even reviewed the best AI tools, and PhotoDirector has a wealth of them that can be accessed from various parts of the interface. By now you should know how this works: you type in a description of what you’re after, select an aspect ratio, style, and away you go. But here PhotoDirector goes beyond that: you can import a photo and transform it based on specific criteria, such as changing the clothing someone wears or the background they’re shot in front of, or replacing an object with another, expanding an image beyond its borders, do a spot of interior redesigning of an existing shot, turn a photo into an anime drawing, and much more.

This all sounds great, but there’s a catch, which is the same for other software offering such services: PhotoDirector’s generative AI feature works on a credit system, which you spend each time you create a new AI image. You get 100 credits a month with a basic subscription. If you need more you need to pay for those separately, from 50 to 500 credits a pop, and the more you buy in one go, the cheaper each credit becomes (from $6 for 50 to $35 for 500).

Should I buy?

Buy it if...

You need an app that’s a mixture of a photo organizer and a powerful image compositor, with an increasing number of AI tools thrown in for good measure, and you appreciate having a choice between subscribing to the service or buying the software outright.

Don't buy it if...

Your needs are more modest, you might be better off sticking to the photo organizing software that’s bundled with your computer, or you’re not a fan of the extensive AI tools here.

We tested out the best photo editing PCs and the best laptops for photo editing and these are our top picks.

Most of the backup software we review are paid products – at best, they offer a free version with fewer features – but that’s not the case with UrBackup.

UrBackup is free backup software, open-source and with a client/server backup system, that works in the background while your PC is motoring through other tasks, so you won’t even notice it.

It has a very minimal footprint on your PC because much of the management is handled by a web interface, and it works on a host of alternative platforms too.

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Urbackup: Plans and pricing

Urbackup is open source, meaning that it’s functionally free as long as you adhere to its terms and conditions in both personal and commercial settings, so it could be a viable option if you want basic small business backup without having to pay.

It’s not just for Windows, either. The client application works on MacOS and a variety of Linux systems, and on the server side, it supports Windows, Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, several other Linux versions and systems like FreeNAS, QNAP NAS and other NAS systems.

Features

UrBackup uses image and file backups to deliver fast, unintrusive, complete file preservation in the background while your system runs. It also keeps a continuous watch on folders and systems to ensure faster incremental backups, so you don’t have to make a fresh start each time you want to preserve files or folders.

File backup, management, and restoration are possible through the web interface, and backups can be configured, started, restored and logged using the small client installed on your home system.

Because this app largely uses a web interface, it’s mostly designed for web and NAS-based backups rather than local backups.

Restoration is also possible if you download a version of UrBackup that can be used to create a bootable USB stick – handy if you need to restore a system that has encountered technical difficulties and so won’t boot.

Backups can be made to the standard Microsoft VHD format or as a file-by-file replication, and the same files on different computers are only saved once – a handy move to preserve space.

The app’s logging and reporting options are extensive, and you can send backups anywhere, from local destinations and external hard disks to network and NAS-connected locations.

It’s certainly ideal if you want a simple and lightweight app to send backups to network and NAS locations, and UrBackup’s open-source status is a boon for people on a budget or those who want to use Linux distributions.

Delve into the options in the web interface and plenty of customisation is available. You can restrict the maximum number of backups and how much bandwidth is used, tweak permissions, back up mail servers, view extensive logs and monitor the status of your various backup locations.

This free app is missing many features compared to commercial backup apps, though. You’ll find more encryption and scheduling options elsewhere and a more comprehensive range of cloud options on many other tools. Many other backup apps also have additional modules for verifying backups, cleaning up and wiping files and other sundry computing tasks.

Interface and use

UrBackup is a free and focused app with a narrow remit, which is fine if you just need core backup functionality without an intrusive app.

It’s pretty quick to get started, too. Download the Server app, configure the network location where your backup will be stored, specify what you want to back up and let the app work.

Anyone who uses this tool, though, does need to have plenty of computing experience to get the most out of it. The tiny downloadable client is easily navigable for experienced users, but it makes nothing easy for beginners and is quite basic.

The web interface is similarly complicated, but it is packed with options – dozens, if not hundreds, that allow you to tweak virtually every aspect of your backup regime.

As before, though, you’ll need to be a pretty experienced PC or Linux user to get the most out of this app, even if there’s loads of potential here for creating unintrusive and personalised backup schedules and regimes.

UrBackup is certainly not the only app out there with this level of customization, and if you opt for systems from Macrium or EaseUS, or enterprise systems from Veeam or Acronis, you’ll find those options crammed into a far more accessible and understandable interface.

And because UrBackup is primarily an online tool, its performance will largely depend on your internet connection.

It took just over ten minutes to preserve our document and Excel folders and nearly twenty to handle our media and mixed file folders. Those are results that put it into the mid-table in our latest selection of backup tools, which is undoubtedly a decent result for a free piece of software.

Support

You won’t get the support system here that you will with commercial apps that have dedicated teams.

The best option for support with UrBackup is to head to the forums – UrBackup has an active and helpful community that can help with most issues. It’s also worth checking out the developer blog to see if extra features or fixes are coming in future updates to the app.

Elsewhere, there’s an issue tracker, FAQ, online manuals, and server support, but that’s all.

Competition

Any of the big commercial options will outmatch UrBackup in te, so we’d advise you to look to faster tools from big names like Acronis Cyber Protect, EaseUS Todo Backup, and Macrium if you need any level of backup.

If you want a free product, then Uranium, FBackup, Hasleo and Cobian tools do the job without asking you to spend a penny. And if you don’t like those, even more free versions are available elsewhere.

Be aware, though, that many of those free versions – while more accessible and competent – include adverts that try to upsell you to paid products. You won’t find that in UrBackup.

Verdict

This free, open-source app is a very niche and particular bit of software – an ideal backup option for anyone experienced with networks, interfaces and navigating tricky apps or anyone who wants to support open-source software or backup on Linux.

Beyond that, though, it’s tricky to recommend this tool unless you really know what you’re doing and have security measures incorporated into your systems elsewhere. Other apps are easier to use, faster, or have more support options. There’s also no encryption built-in to UrBackup, which is a huge risk to any home or business user.

UrBackup is an admirably open-source option that will sate some people who want a low-key, low-resource “send and forget” backup tool, but it’s hard to recommend for most people beyond those technically-minded few who will be comfortable with this kind of software.

Uranium Backup is a broad and effective backup software solution for small businesses, and it combines well with another product called Supremo Console to offer backup and management for larger enterprises – and there’s even a free version, too.

On paper, then, Uranium Backup tries to be all things to all people – even to those who don’t want to pay for their backup products. But can it compete with similarly versatile rivals, like EaseUS Todo Backup or Acronis Cyber Protect?

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Uranium Backup: Plans and pricing

The first Uranium tier after the free version is the Base product, which adds features like drive image and FTP support alongside backup synchronization.

Nanosystems, the company behind Uranium, is based in Italy and only offers pricing in Euros, so we’ve converted here.

The Base version of Uranium costs €80, which converts to $90, and that’s for a lifetime licence – the same price as EaseUS ToDo Backup Home.

The Pro version is available in a few variations depending on what you need: there are specific options for tape backup, SQL and Exchange support and Shadow Copy (VSS) support. It’s €150 or $168 for a lifetime licence.

The Pro Virtual edition costs €229 or $256 and adds all of the aforementioned features alongside Hyper-V and VMWare support.

If you need all that functionality alongside the ability to manage and monitor endpoints from a single interface, there’s a Professional product that costs €216 or $241 – and that one is also available on a subscription for €18 or $20 per month.

At the top of the tree is Uranium Backup Gold, which includes every possible feature for €290 or $324. If you want more management options for backup across a business, then Supremo Console is a web management interface that’s available on a monthly subscription with pricing that varies based on how many devices you need to monitor.

There’s lots going on with the different options, but the pricing is reasonable. At the lower end, Uranium’s costs tally well with rival products from companies like EaseUS, and at the top end Uranium is more affordable than many enterprise options from rivals such as Acronis.

Features

The free version of Uranium is relatively basic, but it’s fine if you want to preserve files and folders.

Using the free product you can back up to local or network destinations. You can specify how many copies you want to keep – handy if you don’t want your backups to overwhelm your disk space – and you get basic scheduling options, too.

There are plenty of options for tweaking your backups, too, if you want to tweak exactly what files and folders are in your backups.

It’s an entry-level array of features for a free product, and it’s well-suited to sole traders who need to preserve files and folders – but the lack of encryption and synchronization in the free version means that the Base product is more suitable for any kind of professional backup, even in the smallest organizations.

Step up to the Base product, and you do get synchronization and 256-bit encryption alongside password protection and loads of extra features, like the option to backup Exchange mailboxes.

You can run Uranium as a Windows service, employ differential or incremental backups, send files to FTP destinations and use Backup Drive Images and cloud backups, with loads of different cloud services supported.

Step up to one of the Pro products and you add Backup to Tape functionality alongside the SQL and Shadow Copy options if you’ve picked that product, and at the top level there’s Hyper-V and VMWare support. And then the Gold version gets everything – you don’t have to pick a Pro product that suits you.

It’s a good range of features, although having a web console locked away behind the Supremo Console product is a bit restrictive. If you want an enterprise-level offering like that, backup options from companies like Veeam and Acronis include web consoles as part of the offering.

Interface & Use

Uranium’s interface is straightforward, if a bit busy. Open the app, and you’re greeted with a list of your existing backup sets on the left-hand side, and in the main window, there’s a list of common tasks, like starting a new backup to a litany of potential destinations or configuring a new destination.

It can look a bit confusing at first, but the interface is saved by a row of larger icons at the top of the window. These open wizards for common tasks like creating a new backup or restoring an existing backup, and one of them allows you to run a pre-configured backup. These buttons are large and well-labelled, and they’re the easiest way to get to your backup jobs quickly.

Handily, one of the large buttons at the top of the window opens the options menu, and another loads Uranium’s web console if your version includes that module.

We tested our latest slate of backup apps with a 42GB document folder, a 2.5GB spreadsheet folder, a 162GB folder of media and an 82GB file that mixes all of those file types. We backed them up to three different SSDs to weed out any inconsistency.

Uranium’s best results came when working with documents and our folder of media files. When working with both tests, it returned averages just above fourteen minutes – times that just crept into the top half of our results tables.

That’s a reasonable pace, but lots of other apps were much faster. Acronis, Macrium, and EaseUS were notable speedsters when backing up files and folders, and were several times faster than Uranium in those tests. It’s no disaster, though – other apps, like those from Cobian, Genie and Retrospect, were much slower too.

When working with our spreadsheets folder, Uranium’s average of thirty-five minutes was poor – only two other apps in our slate of nearly twenty were slower. And that result cascaded into a near hour-long backup average when working with our folder of mixed files. That, again, is one of the slowest results in our tests.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to speed. If you need to preserve documents or media files, then Uranium is reasonable, but it struggled with more complex tasks.

Support

Uranium has the usual offering of a knowledge base, video tutorials and manuals online, but technical support is restricted to a web form with no indication of how long you’ll have to wait for a response.

Some rivals offer phone support and there’s no sign of a forum on Uranium’s website, either, so it’s quite a barebone offering. If you’re protecting mission-critical data and may need fast support, this may not quite cut it.

Competition

Indeed, you’ll get more support from EaseUS, Acronis and many other products, especially if you pay for one of the higher-tier versions.

Elsewhere, Uranium competes reasonably well with rivals in terms of features, especially if you upgrade to one of the enterprise-level products, and we like the fact you can choose which version you need for your business.

The only real downside is that Uranium can’t compete on speed. As we’ve seen, it’s a reasonably sluggish and inconsistent product in this area, and many of its rivals are much faster.

Verdict

Uranium may not be the fastest, but it does compete well in other areas. It has a good range of features, including cloud support and lots of versatility when it comes to backup sources and destinations. It also has flexible options for buying products and subscriptions.

Value is important with Uranium, too, and it either competes with its rivals or undercuts them, with the differences becoming more stark as you scale up through the products.

As a good value business and enterprise option, then, there’s plenty to like about Uranium, but look elsewhere if you need speed or extensive support.

Retrospect Solo is one of the relatively rare backup software tools available on both Windows and Mac. As the name suggests, this product is designed for individual systems rather than organisational use. For business, Retrospect is an ideal option for sole traders or small companies that need to protect individual PCs.

It’s certainly not your only choice if that’s what you need, though, with individual products from EaseUS and Macrium leading the charge when it comes to individual system protection.

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Retrospect Solo: Plans and pricing

Retrospect Solo for Windows costs $49 for a lifetime licence, with that price rising to $129 if you want a year of email and phone support and maintenance included. The Mac version mirrors those prices.

Those standalone figures are a mixed bag: that lifetime licence is cheaper than either equivalent EaseUS or Macrium option, but Retrospect’s one-year support and maintenance upgrade, called ASM, makes the product more expensive.

Retrospect is also available in several different versions. The Desktop product covers five systems and prices start at $116 for a lifetime licence and $159 for a premium version, or from $10 per month if you buy a subscription. Server options rise in price accordingly.

The product can be customized with add-ons to support additional servers, PCs and email accounts.

If you’re in business and want to protect individual systems, though, the Desktop product looks like the best value – that lifetime subscription might be more expensive than the Solo product, but it protects five systems and so is capable of handling your business by adding some extra PCs.

Features

If you want to stick with Solo, though, then don’t worry – you’re still getting a good set of features.

It handles full, incremental and differential backups. You can preserve entire drives, entire PCs, computers on your network and your documents and settings, and you can specify if you only want to backup pictures, music, movie files or documents – handy if you're going to preserve a particular type of file.

In terms of backup destinations, you can choose from removable drives, local drives, and cloud storage, with support included for more than twenty cloud providers, including Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure, and more. There’s also support here for NAS systems from Synology, QNAP and others. That’s impressive because lots of backup apps include limited cloud support, and it’s especially useful in a business setting.

Once you’ve configured your settings there’s a one-click backup option if you want to use them again, and a wizard guides users through the entire process.

You can schedule backups for specific days of the week, repeating intervals or a single date – a reasonable selection although you will find more scheduling ability elsewhere. Delve into the backup options and you can opt for verification, data compression, anomaly detection and more, with a broad array of options available for anyone who wants to delve into some trickier menus.

Elsewhere there are extensive restoration options, a file-finding option, disaster recovery and an option to recover mailboxes from backups. The reporting is particularly extensive. There are additional modules for repairing backups, verifying media and transferring your backups to other destinations.

Combine these options together and you’ve got a powerful backup tool. You can protect and migrate your online mailboxes between providers, use the cloud for extra protection, write scripts for specific tasks, and secure your backups with encryption and multi-factor authentication.

Switch over to the Mac version and you’ll find similar features. Retrospect on Apple’s platform supports complete data protection, cloud backup, email protection, scripting, anomaly checking and most of the other features that make Retrospect Solo such a fully-featured product for individual systems.

Interface & Use

Retrospect Solo might be packed with features, but the core application is not attractive – it looks old-fashioned and intimidating, at least initially.

Many of the icons are tiny and not labelled; it’s sometimes hard to find the options you need, and you’ll have to delve through nests of menus to find your way.

There are two saving graces: the presence of some helpful wizards to guide newer users through common processes, like setting up backups, and an app called Retrospect Dashboard that presents key information, like scheduled backups, recent tasks and storage capacities, in a friendlier visual format.

Still, the main app is not particularly accessible, particularly to those who don’t know their way around software.

We tested our latest slate of backup apps with a 42GB document folder, a 2.5GB spreadsheet folder, a 162GB folder of media and an 82GB file that mixes all of those file types. We backed them up to three different SSDs to weed out any inconsistency.

Retrospect proved itself a mediocre performer in our tests. Its best result came with our folder of spreadsheets, where it took five minutes and ten seconds to back up the files – but the best apps we’ve tested, including EaseUS and O&O DiskImage, took two and three minutes respectively.

Retrospect took twenty-seven minutes to back up our folder of documents, twenty-three minutes when handling media, and thirty minutes with a mixed folder. The Mac version returned similar results.

When it comes to speed, this is a mediocre app, and if pace is a priority, you’ll want to look elsewhere.

Support

Instead of taking the lead in the results tables, NovaBACKUP makes a big deal of its support offering – and rightly so.

You can submit support tickets, call a phone line that’s open between 9 am and 5 pm, and consult an extensive knowledge base. You can schedule appointments with the support team, dive into a forum, watch webinars, and get setup assistance depending on the product you’ve purchased.

Competition

EaseUS’s app is much faster than Retrospect in every category, and single-PC versions of apps from Macrium, Paragon and O&O are faster, too.

So if you’re chasing speed and those options are available at comparable prices – and they often are – they’re all going to be better options. For the most part they’ve got more up-to-date interfaces, too.

That said, Retrospect fights back in other areas. Its cloud options are virtually unmatched, for instance, and its range of add-ons adds flexibility, admittedly for an extra price. And when it comes to core backup options, it has a good range of features once you get beyond the interface.

Verdict

Retrospect is an intriguing app that will successfully serve the needs of many home users and small businesses.

Positively, it has good core features, excellent cloud ability and great support, so if you need an app for cloud backup this should be at the top of your list.

Negatively, though, it’s not particularly fast and it suffers with an ageing interface, so it’s not the best option for anyone who needs speed or a beginner who may need more signposting in the interface.

If you’re aware of those foibles, though, then Retrospect could still do the job for lots of people – especially if you want to use the cloud for your backup.

NovaBACKUP is a serious bit of backup software for businesses of all sizes as well as home users, and its German coders specialize in enterprise-level data protection – so we’ve got high hopes for this particular bit of software.

Indeed, if you head to NovaBACKUP’s website you’ll see products for specific tasks, like disaster recovery or Microsoft 365 backups, and even areas where the company caters to particular industries, from dentistry to accountancy.

At first glance, then, there’s plenty to like – but should you deploy NovaBACKUP in your business?

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NovaBACKUP: Plans and pricing

It may be good news that NovaBACKUP is a high-end backup solution designed for enterprise, but brace yourself for the pricing – because this app is not cheap.

A one-PC licence for NovaBACKUP costs €100, which at the time of writing converts to $110, including an admittedly generous 1TB of cloud storage. A single-server licence costs €400 – or about $443 – and includes 250GB of cloud storage.

If you need a bespoke solution for your business, then you’ll need to talk to NovaBACKUP to work on a solution together – which makes sense, because then you should get a backup deployment that works for you and maximises value.

NovaBACKUP offers products for companies that need endpoint protection for remote workers, for businesses that need centrally-managed local and cloud backup for PCs, laptops and servers, and even packages for managed services providers who want to provide Backup-as-a-Service to other organisations.

Features

It’s expensive, yes, but NovaBACKUP is absolutely packed with features. You can preserve any files or folders, local or external drives, operating systems and send them to local drives, external drives, your 1TB of NovaBACKUP cloud storage space or any S3 compatible storage. Network-attached locations are also supported.

Additionally, NovaBACKUP now includes hybrid backup, which ensures more robust data protection by storing your data in three places, on two different types of media and with one copy stored offsite – what’s often referred to as a “3-2-1 backup strategy”. That’s important if you preserve mission-critical information in a commercial or healthcare environment.

It’s a comprehensive start, and NovaBACKUP also includes image backups for disaster recovery, VHD and VHDx backups, incremental backups, bare metal restoration and strong compression and encryption settings, including 256-bit AES and Blowfish encryption.

You can enjoy email notifications about your backup jobs – particularly helpful if you’re handling data in a business – and flexible file restoration means you can recover backups from any location.

NovaBACKUP offers extensive scheduling options, backup verification, custom commands to be performed around your backups, and there are extensive filtering options. In terms of core backup features, NovaBACKUP is excellent – there is nothing missing.

Opt for the Server product and you get support for Microsoft Hyper-V and VMWare backups and Microsoft SQL and Exchange support. Both apps include optional central management and monitoring features – ideal for businesses.

Upgrade to a Server Provider version – or another customised NovaBACKUP solution – and you can also add user account management, unlimited cloud storage, self-hosted cloud storage, and setup assistance.

Interface & Use

NovaBACKUP has every backup option that home and business users could possibly need, even if you wouldn’t know it from the aesthetic. The app looks decidedly old school, with old-fashioned fonts and graphics used throughout.

Still, if you get beyond the visuals then it’s pretty easy to use. Large icons on the home screen represent key backup options, and if you delve into the settings then it’s the usual list of backup sources on the left-hand side with more advanced options in a central window.

Backup logs and schedules are in their own tabs. And while there aren’t many easy wizard options for creating backup jobs, this enterprise-level app provides plenty of granularity that professionals will surely appreciate.

We tested our latest slate of backup apps with a 42GB document folder, a 2.5GB spreadsheet folder, a 162GB folder of media and an 82GB file that mixes all of those file types. We backed them up to three different SSDs to weed out any inconsistency.

And while NovaBACKUP was never slow, its results slipped consistently into the mid-table when stacked up with almost twenty other backup tools.

Its best results came when working with our Excel folder and our selection of mixed media files – it returned averages of four minutes and eighteen minutes respectively. Both of those numbers crept into the top half of our results tables.

Nova averaged sixteen minutes with our folder of documents, and seven minutes with our media files.

None of those results are slow, but lots of other apps are quicker – tools like Acronis Cyber Protect, EaseUS ToDo Backup and Macrium Reflect are notable options that easily outpace NovaBACKUP.

Support

Instead of taking the lead in the results tables, NovaBACKUP makes a big deal of its support offering – and rightly so.

You can submit support tickets, call a phone line that’s open between 9 am and 5 pm, and consult an extensive knowledge base. You can schedule appointments with the support team, dive into a forum, watch webinars, and get setup assistance depending on the product you’ve purchased.

Competition

NovaBACKUP jumps ahead of rivals like EaseUS Todo Backup and Macrium Reflect when it comes to support and sits alongside other enterprise-level offerings from products like Acronis Cyber Protect.

Verdict

Indeed, it’s probably the pricing that restricts NovaBACKUP’s appeal. While this is a fantastic tool for any business that wants to take backup seriously, especially if you want to build a bespoke package or protect servers, it’s probably overkill for home and small business users.

It’s got every feature you could possibly need, though, alongside excellent support options – there’s no doubt it earns its keep. And while it’s not the fastest, that is moot if you’re backing up to servers, network or cloud destinations.

NovaBACKUP is an excellent preservation option for businesses – expensive, sure, but you get what you pay for.

Fortect Driver Updater faces some tough competition in its quest to be one of the best driver updater tools on the market, but it more than holds its own against the likes of Ashampoo Driver Updater, AVG Driver Updater, and others due to its user-friendly interface and fast scanning speeds.

The software is manufactured by Fortect, a provider of protection, performance, and privacy solutions, of which its driver updater is just one. More broadly, Fortect provides a suite of tools, including malware removal, a registry cleaner, an antivirus tool, and more. All these tools come together under the umbrella of Fortect Protect, a PC optimizer and security solution.

As helpful as all these other tools are, this review will focus only on Fortect Driver Updater, a piece of software designed specifically to scan your device for outdated drivers and install new ones. Outdated or malfunctioning drivers can cause a number of issues, including slow running speeds, system instability, and security vulnerabilities. This review will take a look at how Fortect Driver Updater does at preventing these issues, as well as evaluating the software based on various criteria, including features, compatibility, customer support, ease of use, and more.

Fortect Driver Updater: Plans and pricing

The price for Fortect Driver Updater can’t really be compared against other pure-play driver updaters as Fortect’s solution does much more than simply keep an eye on the status of your drivers. A one-year subscription to Fortect for one PC costs $33.95 annually and comes with malware removal, virus protection, registry key optimization, and email support, in addition to its driver updater tool. 

There’s also a Multi-Device plan for three PCs, costing $41.95 annually, as well as the Ultimate plan for five PCs, which is available for $58.95 a year. These plans, which can be applied to multiple devices, can be shared with your friends, family, and colleagues, so they all receive the benefits that it provides in terms of performance.

Although there is a free Fortect plan, it is extremely limited. While you can use it to scan your PC an unlimited number of times during the trial, this only lasts 24 hours. You can also repair any issues that are discovered but you have to be quick before that trial runs out.

Features

The most important feature of Fortect Driver Updater is its driver scan. This allows you to quickly view all your current drivers as well as those that are in need of updating. After checking the scan results, if you decide that full-scale updates are not required, you can instead choose to update individual drivers. Alternatively, you can save time by updating multiple drivers with a single command and apply manual updates wherever drivers cannot be updated automatically.

In addition, Fortect Driver Updater lets users set their devices to restart automatically whenever driver updates are installed to ensure any changes are applied properly. They can also set up automatic restore points so users can roll back updates in the event of any issues. New driver installs can create performance issues, so creating restore points automatically means you can always go back to your previous drivers easily.  

Interface and in use

When assessing ease of use, the first thing that needs to be examined is how straightforward it is to download and install Fortect Driver Updater. In our experience, this was a seamless process whereby you simply download the executable from the Fortect website. If you’ve opted for any of the vendor’s three premium plans, this will contain other solutions aside from the driver updater.

Looking at the driver updater specifically, the UI is bold and clear, making it extremely easy to use. In the middle of the page, you’ll see two options: “Scan” and “Updates Hub.”  The former does exactly what you’d expect it to. It’s a simple click to let the platform check your device for outdated drivers. The Updates Hub, meanwhile, lets you manage any driver updates and view their statuses. On either side of these two options, you’ll see a short list of options, including links to other security and privacy tools, as well as driver updater settings. 

Support

Email support is included with all Fortect’s paid plans and there’s also an extensive knowledge base. The latter is home to a number of useful articles on subjects ranging from how to set up your Fortect solution to the billing process. There are also general troubleshooting topics like license key issues and common maintenance challenges. Getting in touch with Fortect’s email support is through an online form, where you can select from various topics to hopefully speed up the process of finding the right individual or department to help you. Unfortunately, we could see an option for live chat or telephone support, which is somewhat disappointing when you compare Fortect to other driver updaters on the market.

The competition

Unlike many other driver updaters on the market, Fortect doesn’t offer a bespoke solution. Instead, its driver updater is packaged alongside its other security and optimization tools. This makes it challenging to compare it against the likes of Systweak Advanced Driver Updater or Driver Reviver. These tools are much more limited in scope - which you can view as a positive or negative. 

Ultimately, when deciding between Fortect Driver Updater and its competitors, you’ll first have to decide whether you need a standalone driver updater or an entire suite of tools to fix broken registries, remove junk files, and restore your device following a viral attack. 

Final verdict

Fortect Driver Updater is a very effective tool for ensuring the optimal performance of your PC. It works best alongside other programs, including its antivirus solution and other security tools. The fact that it can be used to scan mobile devices too is another advantage it holds over its rivals, most of which only work with Windows operating systems.

If you only need a driver updater, it might be better to look elsewhere as Fortect is not the cheapest. However, if you want an all-around more secure, faster PC, then Fortect is a great option with a clean UI and fast scanning speeds.

We've also highlighted the best driver update software

We’re used to seeing free backup software packages that act as cut-down versions of paid-for products to convince customers to open their wallets, but there’s no sign of that with Hasleo Backup Suite Free – because this is a free, standalone tool.

It’s been used by over 15 million people over the years, so there’s some pedigree here – but it’s time to find out if this zero-cost backup tool can compete with free rivals or even show up some of the paid options on the market.

We've also highlighted the best disk cloning software right now.

Hasleo Backup Suite: Features

Hasleo’s app covers the core functionality of a backup tool, even if its free status means it can’t offer the wealth of features you’ll find elsewhere.

Its backup module caters for system, disk, partition or file backups, just like every other app on the market, and that will handle almost everything for most users – although there are no options to backup data from specific apps, or backup data from smartphones. That’s a feature you’ll find occasionally on more expensive apps.

Still, that’s a good start, and the restoration module is similarly straightforward: you can restore your entire backups or browse through your backups to recover specific files or folders. A cloning module also allows you to replicate systems, disks or partitions.

Backups can be saved to any location navigable on your PC – including network locations – and the app offers a robust selection of scheduling options alongside the ability to perform full, incremental and differential backups. As well as scheduling based on times and dates, you can program Hasleo to start backups when your system boots, when particular users log on, or when you attach particular USB drives.

Hasleo offers different encryption levels, backup splitting with custom sizing, password and 256-bit encryption, pre- and post-backup commands and email notifications. It can also check the integrity of backups when completed and shut down your PC after the job is done.

In terms of core backup functionality for home and small business users, the slate of backup options available here does a good job of competing with some paid home apps.

When it comes to free rivals, like EaseUS Todo Backup Free and Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Edition, Hasleo remains strong. EaseUS Todo Backup doesn’t have system or disk cloning, and Paragon’s app can’t handle partitions and can’t copy disks.

One of Hasleo’s main free rivals, FBackup, goes further here with the inclusion of cloud support and loads of helpful app plugins, but it falls down by not offering incremental or differential backups unless you upgrade to a paid version.

Hasleo Backup Suite also includes some additional tools. You can create bootable, emergency disks, mount or unmount images, wipe drives securely, rebuild your Master Boot Record and merge images.

It’s obviously missing high-end features, like cloud storage, server management, and more, but you’ll have to pay for enterprise-level apps if you need that functionality.

Interface & use

It’s no surprise that this app has a straightforward interface. On the left-hand side you’ll find the core backup, restore and clone modules highlighted with big icons, and relevant options in the central panel.

At the bottom of that left-hand panel you’ll find the additional tools, the options menu is in the top-right, and that’s about it. While Hasleo does look a little archaic, it’s easy to use, even for beginners.

We tested our latest slate of backup apps with a 42GB document folder, a 2.5GB spreadsheet folder, a 162GB folder of media and an 82GB file that mixes all of those file types. We backed them up to three different SSDs to weed out any inconsistency.

And while Hasleo’s interface may look a bit dated, its performance was anything but. Its Media file average time of six minutes and six seconds is one of the best we’ve recorded across this latest slate of backup apps – nearly twenty tools in all – and its mixed file average of eleven minutes and 34 seconds is another result that sits towards the top of our results tables.

It took less than four minutes to back up our Excel spreadsheet folder, and the worst result came when handling documents. But while it took thirteen minutes and eight seconds to preserve those files, that was still in the top half of our results tables.

That pace isn’t far off the speed we recorded from EaseUS ToDo Backup and it’s more consistent than Paragon’s app, and it’s miles better than the sluggish FBackup.

Support

The support options for this free app are minimal – Hasleo’s website has an email address you can message for technical help, and there’s a forum, but there are no other options available and no indication about how long support will take.

This is one area where paid-for apps are much better, especially if you’re buying a business or enterprise product with priority support or phone and live chat options.

Competition

Hasleo’s main free rivals come from FBackup, EaseUS and Paragon, and Hasleo Backup Suite Free goes further than most with additional features like partition and disk cloning. And while EaseUS does offer some cloud storage, you’re restricted to just 250GB of space in the free version.

The only area where Hasleo falls behind even slightly is in the speed tests. Because while Hasleo is certainly not slow, EaseUS is even faster.

Verdict

There’s lots to like here: Hasleo Backup Suite Free offers a rock-solid core range of backup features alongside good speed – and you don’t have to spend a penny. It’s certainly a better option than FBackup, too, in most situations – especially when it comes to speed.

That makes it ideal for home users and sole traders who need core backup functionality, although the lack of responsive support or high-end features means this app is not suitable for medium or large businesses.

But if you need a free backup suite you can rely on, then there isn’t much better than Hasleo Backup Suite Free.

Lots of backup apps are produced by software companies that also churn out loads of other apps in different categories, but that’s not the case with FBackup 9.9 – its creators at Softland concentrate on backup tools, and this app has been in continuous development since 2006.

That’s plenty of time to create a great bit of software, so we’ve got high hopes for this freeware tool, even up against impressive zero-cost rivals like Hasleo Backup Suite and free tools from other larger competitors.

We've also highlighted the best disk cloning software right now.

Fbackup: Plans & pricing

FBackup is an entirely free backup tool – but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

While we’ve no doubt that FBackup is an impressive app for home users, sole traders and the smallest businesses, it also exists as a shop window for Softland Backup4all, which is the firm’s professional product.

It’s one of the more affordable options out there, at least, with a current price of $48 for a single perpetual licence – an amount which undercuts many other paid pro-level apps, like EaseUS ToDo Backup Workstation Edition and Paragon’s pricier tools.

Elsewhere, it’s possible to purchase OEM bundles for hardware manufacturers and a companion app called Backup4all Monitor, allowing system administrators to monitor their operations. It costs $4.99 per licence.

Features

The free FBackup tool has a good range of features before you delve into the paid versions. Users can back up their hard drives, external drives, operating systems, configurations, and settings from browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, as well as their Document and Picture folders and even material from Google Drive and Dropbox destinations.

Impressively, hundreds of other plugins to support backups from different apps are also available for optional installation.

Users can back up their files to Google Drive and Dropbox, too, alongside more conventional local and network sources and removable media. When it comes to core backup functionality, this is a good start.

FBackup has options for filtering backup files, running full or mirrored backups, and basic encryption and file-splitting tools.

Varying levels of processing speed are supported, and there’s a scheduling and command tool that gives users a tremendous amount of control over when their data is backed up and if any conditions need to be met for processes to begin.

Some high-end features are reserved for Backup4all customers, though. Only in that app can you use more cloud sources or FTP destinations, manage multiple backup configurations and get access to some drag-and-drop and typing features that make it easier to build backups.

The paid version of the app has a Microsoft Outlook plugin, stronger encryption, the option to pause backups, and settings to let you send email notifications. You can also only access differential and incremental backups in the paid version.

Ultimately, then, FBackup is a solid preservation tool for home users and sole traders, but those missing features – especially when it comes to security, network access and incremental backups – mean that we prefer Backup4all if you’re handling backups in a business of any size.

Interface & use

The interface makes it easy to upgrade, at least, because if you click on a restricted feature, you’ll get a popup asking you to try the Backup4all free trial or pay for an upgrade.

There’s a tab at the top of the window that’s entirely devoted to an advert for the paid product, and the home screen – which has icons for managing the app – also includes upgrade links.

Get beyond the adverts and it’s a straightforward and conventional backup app, with options to start a backup on the left-hand side and a useful wizard that guides you through the process of creating a backup. There’s a separate Jobs window that allows you to go into more depth when it comes to backup management, too.

It’s easy enough to use, but FBackup fell behind in our benchmarking. We tested our latest slate of backup apps with a 42GB document folder, a 2.5GB spreadsheet folder, a 162GB folder of media and an 82GB file that mixes all of those file types. We backed them up to three different SSDs to weed out any inconsistency.

FBackup’s Document and Excel averages of 19 minutes and five minutes, respectively, are moderate results that sit right in the middle of our results tables, but FBackup let itself down when working with media files and more complex jobs.

In our Media test, it averaged a whopping 104 minutes to complete our backup, with those times consistent across three drives – its results ranged between fifty-seven minutes and 107 minutes. And when we tasked FBackup with preserving a mixed folder, which included media files, it took nearly an hour.

It’s a poor slate of results, all things considered. Hasleo Backup Suite, another free rival, is far faster, and free backup software from Paragon and EaseUS are much faster too.

Support

If you need help with FBackup, the main support option is using a form on Softland’s website, but there’s no indication of how long replies will take. There’s an FAQ and a forum online, too.

It’s a standard slate of support options for a free backup tool, and you’ll have to buy a premium product if you want phone or live chat support.

Competition

FBackup does a reasonable job of competing against Hasleo Backup Suite in the free backup tools market: it may not offer incremental or differential file backups, for instance, but it does include cloud support and loads of plugins.

Elsewhere, there isn’t much to choose between this tool and the free versions of apps from EaseUS and Paragon, and if you’re running backup operations for a business of any size then we highly recommend you invest in a more capable tool with stronger encryption and management options.

Verdict

FBackup gets off to a good start, with its plugins, impressive array of backup sources and destinations and decent commands and filtering, and it certainly does the job if you want a free backup tool.

However, its feature set is uneven – with high-end additions rubbing up alongside glaring omissions – and its lack of speed is a huge problem.

If you’re a home user not fussed about speed, then FBackup is a reasonable free option. But with so many better options, both free and at modest prices, it’s hard to recommend.