Drag and drop any NCH Software installer onto the "Upload and scan file" icon and wait for the results. There are no additional boxes to tick, and I can personally attest to the fact that nothing nefarious mysteriously appeared on my system even after testing a wide range of different utilities.Īnother easy test is to use the malware scanning tool Virus Total. You can check this out for yourself by downloading and running any NCH Software installer. For a long time this was certainly the case, but as of July 31, 2015, all toolbar downloads ceased. NCH Software utilities no longer come with any form of browser toolbar or other bundleware. "In the past, NCH Software has offered consumers the option to download an Ask or Google toolbar along with their software application." Similarly, a separate bug caused some NCH Software utilities to overpopulate the right-click context menu. NCH Software fixed the file extension hijacking bug in January 2016, nearly two years after our original review.
Since then, NCH Software has acknowledged that "a bug in a few of our programs was changing file associations," adding that it was "completely unintentional" while "apologizing for any frustration and difficulties" the bug caused. Our first review of NCH Software many years ago took a dim view of NCH Software's business practices at the time. "The insidious creep of NCH Software will spread across your PC slowly at first." In that case, you should head to the NCH Software List of Old Versions site, which lists a huge number of old product versions for download. Unfortunately, this can cause problems if you delete your NCH Software utility but want to reuse it at a later date.
And you now know to upgrade as often as possible during those six months. That's admittedly not a long time, but it does explain this particular issue that users seem to have. In that, you can upgrade your license and the product version for up to six months following your purchase.
"Our program versions are updated regularly and your serial number purchased is valid for the version available for download at that time, and new releases for six months after." When you buy an NCH Software license, you are purchasing a license only for that specific product version: You can find numerous forum posts wondering why a particular piece of software refuses to accept a paid-for license after an update. One common complaint against NCH Software is that their licenses seem to expire when software versions change. NCH Software sells licenses for their products.
When that period ends, you have two choices: pay for a license to continue using the full version, or fall back to a restricted-but-functional free version. The free period usually lasts around one month, and during that time you have complete, unfettered access to the utility.
You can download and install the majority of NCH Software's catalog free of charge. We previously reported that NCH Software shuns the most popular social media channels, but as of this writing, they seem quite active on Facebook and Twitter (and I've seen them post on some tech forums too).
NCH Software's customer care appears vastly improved now than in the past.
Downloads are available directly on their site, as well as across the web on several free software download sites. These tools include sound editors, accounting software, document converters, CD label makers, inventory management, an FTP client, and even a free point-of-sale system.Īs you see, NCH Software offers a broad selection of tools.
NCH Software develops and releases a huge number of media editing and file conversion utilities and more. They also have a US office in Greenwood Village, Colorado to cater to their US customers. The concern wasn't the software-NCH Software provides good, niche converters and a huge, varied range of media editing tools-but the unwanted add-ons, extra browser toolbars, and other issues that took away from the software at hand.Īre NCH Software products inherently bad? Or is it time to reconsider NCH's old and possibly outdated reputation? We dove in and tested it ourselves.įounded in 1993, NCH Software develops software out of Canberra, Australia. A few years back, downloading and installing tools developed by NCH Software was more trouble than it was worth.