We bShot 1.39

Platform Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Nathan Moinvaziri
Size 528Kb
Free Download

WebShot allows you to take screenshots of web pages and save them as full sized images or thumbnails. Screenshots images can be output in the JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP formats.

The freeware version comes with a demo of the command line interface, which can be purchased, and used to streamline the screenshot process on whole websites. The server edition of WebShot comes with a DLL that will allow you to embed WebShot technology in your own applications.

The command line version of WebShot is located in the WebShot installation folder and is called webshotcmd.exe. Below are the command line arguments that you can use. The arguments are color coded to indicate what version supports them.

Just like a camera has a bunch of options to allow you to take the best possible picture, so does WebShot. Some of these configurable options come in the form of wait parameters that specify amounts of time to wait before or after certain browser events occur. Because of the nature of the web these days, a lot of websites have scripts or activex controls that load after a page has been loaded by Internet Explorer. Flash is a good example of an activex control that takes time to load after the page has completed loading. Some content heavy flash and active-x controls may take longer to load than others. Therefore the wait parameters allow you to wait a specified amount of time for objects on the pages to load.

ACDSee Pro 2.0 beta

Platform Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer ACD Systems
Size 30MB
Free Download

View, develop, catalogue, and publish your photo collection with the precision and control demanded by pro photographers.

Get unparalleled speed in every facet of your digital photography workflow-from photo capture to final print. ACDSee Pro's powerful toolset, including custom categories, visual tagging and batch editing, cuts hours out of any serious photographer's workflow.

Within ACDSee Pro's intuitive interface, you'll get full support for your preferred file formats like RAW, JPEG and TIFF, as well as non-destructive RAW editing, and complete color management control.

Participate in the ACDSee Pro 2.0 Public Beta program and help design the next version of ACDSee Pro, industry’s most powerful software platform for viewing, processing, editing, organizing and publishing images. Preview ACDSee Pro 2.0’s new tools, including enhanced RAW processing and colour separation.

This beta of ACDSee Pro v2 works until 30th of September 2007.

CryptoExpert 2007 Lite 7.05

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer SecureAction Research, LLC
Size 2.06MB
Free Download

CryptoExpert creates encrypted virtual disks and these disks are visible as usual disks with drive letters (for example, G:, H:, Z:, i.e. with any drive letter that isn't in use by other system devices).

The data stored on a CryptoExpert disk is stored in the container file. A container is a file, so it is possible to backup a container, move or copy it to other disk (CD-ROM or network, for instance) and continue to access your encrypted data using CryptoExpert.

Any free drive letter (or chosen letter) in the system may be used to mount and to open an encrypted file-container for access.

When your virtual disk is opened, you can read and write data as if it were a conventional removable disk.

You can do anything with a CryptoExpert virtual drive that you can do with a normal hard drive, but with CryptoExpert, the encrypted volumes require password authentication before the files become accessible.

RootkitRevealer 1.71

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Microsoft
Size 225Kb
Free download

Advanced rootkit detection utility. It runs on Windows NT 4 and higher and its output lists Registry and file system API discrepancies that may indicate the presence of a user-mode or kernel-mode rootkit. RootkitRevealer successfully detects all persistent rootkits published at www.rootkit.com, including AFX, Vanquish and HackerDefender (note: RootkitRevealer is not intended to detect rootkits like Fu that don't attempt to hide their files or registry keys). If you use it to identify the presence of a rootkit please let us know!

The reason that there is no longer a command-line version is that malware authors have started targeting RootkitRevealer's scan by using its executable name. We've therefore updated RootkitRevealer to execute its scan from a randomly named copy of itself that runs as a Windows service. This type of execution is not conducive to a command-line interface. Note that you can use command-line options to execute an automatic scan with results logged to a file, which is the equivalent of the command-line version's behaviour.

Safari for Windows 3.02

Platform Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Apple
Size 8MB
Free download

Safari is the world’s fastest and easiest-to-use web browser for Windows PCs and Macs. Safari is the fastest browser running on Windows, based on the industry standard iBench tests, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari joins iTunes in delivering Apple’s legendary user experience to both Windows and Mac users as well as full support of open Internet standards. Safari 3 features easy-to-manage bookmarks, effortless browsing with easy-to-organize tabs and a built-in RSS reader to quickly scan the latest news and information.

“We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Hundreds of millions of Windows users already use iTunes, and we look forward to turning them on to Safari’s superior browsing experience too.”

Safari has always been the fastest browser on the Mac and now it’s the fastest browser on Windows, loading and drawing web pages up to twice as fast as Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Mozilla Firefox 2. The speed of Safari combined with its intuitive user interface lets users spend more time surfing the web and less time waiting for pages to load. Other Safari features now available to Windows users include SnapBack, one-click access to an initial search query; resizable text fields; and private browsing to ensure that information about an individual’s browsing history isn’t stored.

Safari 3 supports all modern Internet standards so users can view websites as they were meant to be seen, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and Java. Safari software updates are delivered seamlessly through Apple’s Software Update application, which automatically checks for updates.

Ad-Aware 2007 Free 7.0.1.4

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Lavasoft
Size 17.3MB
Free download

This free utility scans your PC to identify and remove any adware or spyware components.

For the uninitiated, adware or spyware is unwanted software that can be installed on your PC, either with other software or when you visit websites (cookies etc).

They can track your surfing habits, push aggressive advertising at you, and generally abuse your privacy.

This new version completely overhauls the scanning engine, which results in more accurate scanning methods and an all-new program architecture. This new version now supports the detection of embedded malware, including known and emerging threats.

The new TrackSweep module will control privacy by erasing tracks left behind while surfing the web through Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera, with one easy click.

You decide exactly what is scanned on your PC, from a single folder to the complete system. Files larger than a specified size can be skipped, making for a quicker scan. Flagged components can be quarantined, letting you restore them if their removal causes problems.

Note that the free version is for personal-use only. This is not Vista-ready.

GOM Media Player 2.1.3.3413

Requirements: Windows Me/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista
Download Now

GOM Player is a free multimedia player with popular video and audio codecs built-in. GOM Player supports file formats such as AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, ASF and more. Users don't have to install codecs separately. GOM Player is capable of playing incomplete or damaged AVI files by skipping the damaged frames. It can also play locked or partially downloaded files. Its other features include drag-and-drop support, HTTP streaming, editable skins, subtitling, overlay mixer, key remapping, enhanced filter rendering, real-time index rebuilding for AVI files and unicode support among others.

CoolPlayer
Operating System: 32-bit MS Windows (95/98), 32-bit MS Windows (NT/2000/XP), All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP), Win2K, WinXP
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
Category: MP3
Download now.

Blazing fast audio player. Features: Skins, Simple user interface, Playlist editor, Internet streaming, File Renamer, Fast mp3->wav converter, Smallest executable, Continuous play (no pause between tracks), programmed in C

Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool 1.30

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Microsoft
Size 4.6MB
Free download

Security must be becoming an important issue for Microsoft, as this is the second release in almost as many days, coming hot on the heels of its AntiSpyware software.

Download this small tool and your PC will be scanned and checked for malicious software. Should any be found it is automatically removed, and a full report displayed on-screen at the end of the scan.

A new version of this tool will be released every second Tuesday of the month, and the download link above takes you to the Microsoft download page to ensure you get the most up-to-date version.

You must have administrator access in order to run this software on your PC.

Fission: Firefox Add-on

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP Server, Windows Vista, Mac OS X
Type freeware
Manufacturer Zeniko
Size 14KB
Free download

If you have downloaded the new Windows edition of Safari, you may have noticed that the address bar shows the progress of the page being loaded. Firefox users can now get the same effect with the Fission Add-on.

As with all Firefox add-ons, installation is simple, although a restart of Firefox is required. The default progress bar is a simple grey but the colour can be changed or an image used instead.

There may be some problems if a different Firefox theme has been used. Three themes are known to work: Safire, Eternal Aqua Safire and Noia (Extreme). Patches have been written for three more themes: Apollo, Redshift, Wellrounded. We used it with the Azerty III theme without any problems.

IObit SmartDefrag beta 3

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer IObit.com
Size 1.82MB
Free download

When you purchase your new PC, it seems like a speed daemon. You wonder why it’s so fast. Does that new Core 2 Duo processor really make so much of a difference? Surely the new graphics card can’t make applications launch more quickly or your hard drive enable your system to boot more swiftly?

Well, yes, they do improve the speed of your system, but it’s the fact that you’ve installed Windows on a brand new hard drive that really makes the difference. You’d probably find, that after using your old PC for a year, that if you installed Windows from scratch, your system would be at least 25% quicker.

Part of the problem is down to the ongoing use of installing and removing software and moving files around your drive. The more you write/move files to and from your hard drive, the more your drive becomes fragmented. Parts of the files are located in different locations on your drive. When you drive then attempts to load an application or read a file, it takes a great deal longer as the drive has to access files from all over your drive, rather than from one continuous block.

The answer is to defragment your drive. This will move files in to one continuous block and rearrange the space so that it ends up located in one big block of space. It means your files and applications launch much more quickly.

The downside is that you have to defragment your drive and this can take ages. If you have a huge hard drive, you might need to leave the process running overnight.

IObit SmartDefrag is a free defragging tool and worth investigating. It’s also rather fast. However, remember that when you defragment your drive that it’s advisable not to be running applications at the same time.

Note that SmartDefrag is still in beta so should be used with an element of caution. Also displays Google Ads (adware) within the application. This new version includes support for Windows Vista.z

Yahoo Messenger 8.1.0.401

Platform Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Yahoo!
Size 9.94MB
Free download

Yahoo Messenger is one of the most popular instant-messaging programs and it's easy to see why: a simple-to-use program supported by a massive online community, and it's all free.

All you have to do is get yourself a Yahoo ID (by signing up for one at the Yahoo UK website) and download a very small installation program.

The set-up procedure is slightly confusing, as you are presented with several different options and it's not always obvious which ones to choose. The offer of a free Yahoo email address, for example, may be appealing to some, but the set-up procedure also attempts to set your browser's homepage to Yahoo, which might annoy some users.

You have to make sure you remove the tick from the appropriate box if you don't want this to happen. Once installed, you'll find evidence of the program everywhere - your desktop, taskbar and quick launch bar will be littered with shortcuts and your web browser will have suddenly developed a whole new toolbar. These are all easily dealt with, but it feels a bit invasive.

The Messenger program itself works just like MSN, with the added bonus of enormous, thriving chat rooms where you can talk to fellow webcam users as well as your nearest and dearest.

New features in version 8 include support for making PC to PC calls, worldwide, for free, and much more.

FlashGot 0.5.99

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer InformAction
Size 243Kb
Free download

When you’re browsing the web, are you tired of "saving as..." all those downloadable movies, music files, pictures and applications? Are you sick of rather slow downloads? Are you afraid of losing them in the middle of download if you get disconnected or close your browser, being forced to repeat all that tedious work?

Well, you need a download manager and a manager that integrates with Firefox.

FlashGot is a free Mozilla Firefox extension (compatible with Netscape and Flock, too), meant to handle single and massive ("all" and "selection") downloads with several external Download Managers.

With right-mouse button integration, you can quickly right-click on links within Firefox and add the download to your manager. Downloads can apply to media files on the web, so you can download music and similar files to your desktop.

Spyware Terminator 1.9.2.140

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer CRAWLER, LLC
Size 9.78MB
Free download

There are plenty of anti-spyware programs available, but few as comprehensive (or free!) as Spyware Terminator, which is an application that will prevent spyware, adware, keyloggers and other types of malicious applications from hijacking the use of you computer. It resides in your system tray and works in real-time to prevent unauthorised programs from taking over your computer.

There are others available, but many anti-spyware applications are paid-for products, primarily as the software developer has to update the anti-spyware engine on a daily basis. These developers are always fighting the latest spyware technology.

When Spyware Terminator finds a suspect file, it is moved into Quarantine. Spyware Terminator prevents them from functioning and causing further damage to your computer. You can review and choose to permanently remove suspect files or safely store essential files.

Spyware Terminator will scan your computer manually or schedule an in-depth scan to be performed on a regular basis. The scan process runs in the background so that you will not be disrupted while working on other tasks.

K-Lite Codec Pack 3.15

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer KL Software
Size 13.9MB
Free download

There are three or four key compression formats that most people use to compress video (or audio) for playback on the Internet and users will generally use QuickTime, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer or DivX Player to playback your video.

However, it’s not always as simple as this. Some people avoid the mainstream players, as these players require the end-user to register in order to use their software and people see this as an invasion of their privacy. However, some of the freeware and Opensource video players don’t always ship with the relevant codecs. Indeed, if you try and playback a video compressed in the 90’s, you might find it was encoded with an old Intel codec or other popular codecs that have long-since been discontinued.

The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools that will enable you to playback just about any video/audio format you’ll find on the Internet. A codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 alpha 5

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla
Size 6.19MB
Free download

Some users were disappointed with the release of Mozilla Firefox 2.0. After months of betas, release candidates and previews, the new features weren’t as spectacular as people expected. However, there is only so much you can do to improve a web browser.

With the forthcoming release of Mozilla Firefox 3.0, planned for 2007, the web graphics rendering engine will receive a completely new upgrade. Dubbed ‘ Cairo’, the new graphics rendering engine should improve the output across different platforms, as it’s being developed as an open-standard (see http://wiki.mozilla.org/Cairo). Mozilla Firefox 3.0 will also be based around the forthcoming Gecko 1.9 rendering engine.

With other improvements in the way that pages are ‘painted’ onscreen, improved SVG support and CSS enhancements, the general improvements for Firefox 3.0 are based around the way it will render web pages through the browser.

Note that further improvements and new features will be included within Firefox 3.0 as it is being developed. This 3.0 alpha 5 (dubbed “Gran Paradiso”, rather than Firefox) is an early developer preview.

Mozilla “Gran Paradiso” Alpha 5 is being made available for testing purposes only, and is intended for web application developers and our testing community. Current users of Mozilla Firefox should not use Mozilla Gran Paradiso Alpha 5.

The product release notes should be referred to before you download

Adobe Reader 8.1

Platform Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Adobe
Size 22.3MB
Free download

Adobe Acrobat Reader is free software that lets you view and print Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Adobe PDF is the open standard for worldwide electronic document distribution. Documents converted into PDF format preserve all the formatting, colours and graphics of the original document, regardless of the application or platform used to create it.

The PDF format is the workflow standard for the publishing industry, and is increasingly being used in financial services, regulated industries and governments.

With Adobe Acrobat Reader you can also complete and submit PDF forms online, a handy tool as more and more companies begin to embrace the technology.

Auslogics Disk Defrag 1.1.5

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Auslogics Pty Ltd
Size 1.5MB
Free download

Hard disks are by far the slowest component in your computer, particularly if you’re a laptop user with a 2.5” drive. CPU and memory work much faster than hard disks because they do not have moving parts. Therefore fragmented disks often become a bottleneck of the system performance.

Besides causing slowdowns, fragmentation makes the hard drive disk heads move frequently when reading files which leads to freeze-ups and system crashes. It is important to keep your disks defragmented and optimised as much as possible.
Disk fragmentation leads to system slowdowns, PC crashes, slow startup and shutdown and sometimes to system failures.

Netscape Navigator 9 beta 1

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Netscape Communications
Size 5.56MB
Free download

Netscape Navigator 9 may just give Netscape a fighting chance of some sort of comeback. Maybe. The new look is certainly an improvement, and it offers a richer browsing experience, with much faster page rendering. It's based around the existing Mozilla Firefox engine, so shares many of the latest enhancements of the Firefox browser. It also means that Netscape Navigator supports the existing Firefox add-ons, extensions and more. Effectively, this is a version of Firefox with a custom theme.

There are some new and different features. For instance, Netscape Navigator 9 will attempt URL correction, if you enter an incorrect URL. Enter www.googlecom and it will recognise that this should be www.google.com, without you having to make changes yourself.

News and news tracking is built in to the browser, so you can keep track of the latests news, info and blog from within Navigator. Other minor new features include the ability to resize text boxes within forms on a website, tab history, better import functions and much more.

Note this is the first public preview of the forthcoming Netscape Navigator 9, so you shouldn't probably use it as your primary browser until the final release.

FreeRIP 2.951

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer MGShareware
Size 1.33MB
Free download

As Windows Media Player doesn't rip MP3s, FreeRIP is a good alternative offering the abilitiy to rip CD audio into CD quality WAV files; Ogg Vorbis or MP3 files.

The freedb CD database, and ID3 Tagging (Version 1 and 2) are all supported for complete management of your audio files; and you can convert audio files from one supported file format to another (WAV to OGG, OGG to MP3, MP3 to WAV etc).

All the usual encoding options are available (bitrate etc), the track volume can be manually altered, and it is possible to perform batch conversions.

In a bid to support its freeware status it does come bundled with a music search bar for finding music on the Internet or Amazon.