Computer,internet,download,opinion,informations

2008-06-14T12:30:00.000+08:00

Foxmarks 2.0.46.9

Type: freeware
Platform: Windows 98/ME, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Linux
Manufacturer: Foxmarks Inc.
Size: 275KB

Sometimes, for whatever reason, those of us who spend most of our time working on computers may need to use another machine. This may be due to technical difficulties or, we may be working from home or even using a laptop whilst on the train or away on business. The trouble is that we tend to have a particular machine that’s used more regularly, and because of this, it’s probably equipped with all the tools you need, not just the programs we regularly use, but important bookmarks we need for specific websites.

Ever tried accessing a particular web page from a different computer without the URL? It’s almost impossible to remember exact web addresses when you’re using a number of different sites on a daily basis.

Foxmarks is an ideal solution for such a scenario. It’s a Firefox 2 add-on which enables a user to access their bookmarks from any machine they are using via my.foxmarks.com, which constantly keeps your bookmarks synchronised whilst running in the background. You can manage your bookmarks from any computer, and in doing so, enables you to work as efficiently on any machine you happen to be using whether in the office or on the move.

This now works with Firefox 3.

2008-06-14T12:25:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox Portable 3.0 RC2

Type: freeware
Platform: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Manufacturer: Portable Apps
Size: 8MB

Download

With the forthcoming release of Mozilla Firefox 3.0, now planned for mid 2008, 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’ on screen, 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 beta 5 (dubbed “Gran Paradiso”) is the fourth public preview.

This beta 5 contains limited additional features and fixes issues found within the previous release.

Note That this is the portable version of Firefox 3.0 RC2.

2008-06-14T12:23:00.000+08:00

Opera 9.5

Type: freeware
Platform: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Manufacturer: Opera
Size: 8.5MB

Download

This is the final and official release of Opera 9.5 and it's much faster, the user-interface has been updated and the search bar includes immediate feedback.

2008-06-14T12:20:00.000+08:00

DownThemAll 1.0.3

Type: freeware
Platform: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Manufacturer: Federico Parodi and Stefano Verna
Size: 448Kb

Download

With the rise of online photo album storage sites and media portals such as YouTube, we’re now able to browse the web and view other people’s home movies and digital photos. However, downloading more than one of these files isn’t easy. For instance, head over to your favourite digital photo site or simply a photo album of one of your friends and you might be presented with hundreds of photos to download. Do you spend hours surfing for your favourites or simply download them all and choose later? Worse, the photos on the web page are only thumbnails, so you’d have to preview every photo before you can download.

DownThemAll 1.0.3 is a Firefox extension that enables you to download everything from a web site with one click. You can choose to download links on a web page, automatically. You could simply select the pages you want to download from and then DownTheAll 1.0 will go through the links and download the files

Latest version works with Firefox 3.

2008-06-14T12:16:00.000+08:00

Avant Browser 11.6 Build 17

Type: freeware
Platform: Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Manufacturer: Anderson Che
Size: 1.93MB

Download.

Internet Explorer might come bundled with Windows but it lacks many features. A number of these can be found in Avant Browser.

Avant Browser is a quick download even for dial-up users. The interface is very similar to Internet Explorer, but open some of the menus and the differences are quickly obvious.

It is possible to deactivate different parts of a web page, such as pictures, sounds and flasgh animations. If you have a slow connection, this can make a huge difference.

Avant Browser can also block advertisements (including pop-ups), translate web pages, display web pages in full screen mode, and has full support for skins.

Any favorites or recently viewed pages from Internet Explorer can be easily imported, making migrating to this browser a doddle.

2008-06-14T12:06:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 3

Type: freeware
Platform: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Manufacturer: Mozilla
Size: 7MB

Download.

Note that further improvements and new features will be included within Firefox 3.0 as it is being developed.

This is Release Candidate 3 and is code complete.

2007-12-23T08:58:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 beta 2

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla
Size 6.4MB
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, now planned for 2008, 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.

Note that further improvements and new features will be included within Firefox 3.0 as it is being developed. This 3.0 beta 2 (dubbed “Gran Paradiso”) is the second public preview.

2007-12-23T08:51:00.000+08:00

Damn Small Linux 4.2.1

Platform Linux
Type freeware
Manufacturer Damn Small Linux
Size 48.21MB
Free Download

As the demands of all operating systems increase, Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a refreshing change and worth considering by anyone with an old computer. This latest version, 4.2.1, has some updated software and new drivers, while still keeping within the 50MB limit.

The subject of the Computeractive feature introducing Linux, DSL was designed with a strict 50MB limit. This means that many of the familiar programs are not installed by default and an older version of Linux is used, but this is a comprimise worth making.

There are several ways of using DSL. This download can be burnt to a CD and used as a Live CD. Simply reboot the computer with this CD in the drive and DSL will load but without making any changes to the hard disk. Once started in this way it can be installed to the hard disk or a USB key.

A very interesting alternative is a version that works from within Windows. In this mode it can use the network connection of the computer, avoiding the need to set up a modem. This version can also be saved to a USB key so you can always have your own operating system wherever you go.

Extra software can be installed over the internet from a list of specially prepared files. These include favourites such as Firefox, Thunderbird and Open Office. These do take up more space than the goal of 50MB.

2007-11-09T10:11:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla Corporation
Size 5.55MB
Free Download

Mozilla Firefox, the popular web browser, caused a stir with the original release, but apart from minor changes, visual improvements and security fixes, there haven’t been a wide range of new features since the original 1.x release. This is all about to change, with the release of Firefox 2.0. Windows version available to download from this page.

Current new 2.0 features include anti-phishing support, useful for acknowledging the difference between a legitimate website and a fake site set up for the purposes of obtaining your personal information.

Other new features include enhanced tabbed browsing, the ability to open tabs closed accidentally, spell checking within web forms, a search plugin manager, combined and enhanced Add-Ons manager and much more, including support for new web standards.

You can download other language editions of the Windows Firefox 2.0, as well as Linux and Mac OS X versions from the Mozilla website.

2007-11-09T10:07:00.000+08:00

CCleaner 2.02.527

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer www.ccleaner.com
Size 2.51MB
Free Download

Just as regular exercise is good for your health, a regular workout for your hard disk is recommended. Windows has its own tools for doing this, but CCleaner makes a slightly better job of it.

The application is free to use and shows the door to all kinds of temporary files, from temporary internet files to old automatic back-ups from application such as Office XP and file sharing software. It also shakes out old entries from your computer's registry, such as unistallers and invalid shortcuts. The makers guarantee that it contains no apyware or adware.

CCleaner is one of the more popular system cleansing and optimisation tools available. This is the major v2 release incorporating a number of new enhancements. For instance, the new version is completely re-written and is much faster and analysing and cleansing your system. It ships with a brand new user-interface and is available in a compact version, so you could take it with you on a portable USB stick and use it to cleanse a PC that you've used in a web cafe or other location. Of course, there are also a number of other tweaks and improvements.

2007-11-09T09:57:00.000+08:00

AntiVir Personal Edition 7.06.00.270

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Avira
Size 21MB
Free Download

Virus attacks are all too common and Avira AntiVir can protect against these menaces and others including worms, trojans and dialers.

The AntiVir Guard is constantly working in the background and checks every file as it is used by Windows or other software. This includes heuristic scanning to check for viruses that have not been formally identified.

Scans can also be started manually or scheduled at daily or weekly intervals.

Should a virus be found, it can either be removed or moved to a quarantine area.

This download will only work with Windows 2000/XP/Vista. A separate program for Windows 98 and ME can be downloaded from the AntiVir website.

2007-11-09T09:49:00.000+08:00

Maxthon 2.0.5.7845

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Maxthon International Limited
Size 2.46MB
Free Download

In the past, Internet Explorer has received a lot of bad press for lack of updates, security issues, poor CSS support and more. However, since the release of Internet Explorer 7, we now have a web browser that offers tabbed browser, a much improved web engine and enhanced security features.

When you install Internet Explorer 7 on your system, the installed HTML web core is built in to Windows (and this element is very hard to remove), there have been a number of attempts to create a replacement for Internet Explorer that take this core HTML engine and add additional features to produce a even better web browser.

Maxthon is one of the more popular Internet Explorer replacement browsers and is constantly updated.

The newest version Maxthon 2 contains a new streamlined interface, which looks a bit like a mix of the Mac OS X Safari web browser and Firefox. Other features include multi-user support from the same web browser, so each user has their own preferences. There are tons of other minor updates, too.

2007-10-28T11:57:00.000+08:00

Opera 9.5 beta

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Opera
Size 4.98MB
Free Download

Since the release of Opera 9 earlier this year, Opera have been working hard fixing little bugs, making minor improvements and turning Opera in to a serious rival to Internet Explorer. Now at 9.5, albeit a second early preview, it's worth downloading if you've not used this browser before.

The new speed dial feature is a new view in new tabs. It shows live thumbnails of up to nine websites. Click on one to open the site, or enter a new address as normal. It's certainly more useful than a blank tab.

Opera also supports BitTorrent downloads. These type of downloads make best use of available bandwidth by splitting files up and downloading the different bits from several locations at the same time.

The principle of the system is that files downloaded onto your computer should be accessible to others but Opera can turn this off to conserve bandwidth quotas.

An improved content blocker allows individual elements of a webpage to be blocked to avoid adverts. The pop up blocker has also been improved.

Widgets are a small programs for showing news feeds or other information, some of which can be taken from the web. They are accessed with a single keypress and are written by the Opera community rather than the company itself.

The tabbed browsing has also been improved with a small preview of the webpages.

This is the first beta release of the forthcoming Opera 9.5 and it's worth downloading if you're an Opera user. It's much faster, the user-interface has been updated and the search bar includes immediate feedback.

2007-10-19T21:06:00.000+08:00

Auslogics Disk Defrag 1.4.10.249

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

Auslogics Disk Defrag is designed for fast optimisation of today's modern hard disks. Get the maximum performance out of your expensive hardware investment.

The latest version includes support for defragmenting removable drives, such as a USB stick and other devices. Other improvements for Vista and general program stability.

2007-10-19T21:04:00.000+08:00

IObit SmartDefrag beta 4

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer IObit.com
Size 1.61MB
Free Download

Obit 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.

2007-10-19T21:02:00.000+08:00

Defraggler 1.00.031

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Piriform Ltd
Size 400Kb
Free Download

Your old system might appear to need an upgrade, if you’ve been using your computer for over a year. It just seems to become slower, over time. Windows takes longer to boot, applications take a few more seconds to start and your system can feel a lot more sluggish. One option is simply to purchase a brand new and faster hard drive. Re-install Windows and your favourite applications and you’ll suddenly find everything is a lot more snappy. However, after a few months of using the new drive, your system will be sluggish again.

Why does this happen? Simply as the more applications you install and remove from your computer, the more likely your drive will become fragmented. This occurs when files are stored in different locations on your drive and your drive has to spin more than usual to load Windows and your applications. Defragment your drive and the contents will be stored in one continuous block, so you’ll find your system starts more quickly and your PC appears to be running more smoothly.

The Windows defragmentation tool isn’t the best available. It’s rather slow, so if you have a huge hard drive it can take hours to finish defragmenting your drive. Worse, you can’t really do anything whilst it’s performing the defragmentation process.

Defraggler is a new tool from the developers who brought you CCleaner. It’s small and compact and will enable you to defragment a collection of files, as well as your entire drive.

2007-10-19T21:00:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla Corporation
Size 5.55MB
Free Download

You can download other language editions of the Windows Firefox 2.0, as well as Linux and Mac OS X versions from the Mozilla website.

2007-10-14T09:42:00.000+08:00

Opera 9.5 Preview (build 9594)

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Opera
Size 5MB
Free download

The principle of the system is that files downloaded onto your computer should be accessible to others but Opera can turn this off to conserve bandwidth quotas.

An improved content blocker allows individual elements of a webpage to be blocked to avoid adverts. The pop up blocker has also been improved.

The tabbed browsing has also been improved with a small preview of the webpages.

2007-10-12T19:23:00.000+08:00

DownThemAll 1.0 Beta 2

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Federico Parodi and Stefano Verna
Size 425Kb
Free Download

DownThemAll 1.0 Beta 2 is a Firefox extension that enables you to download everything from a web site with one click. You can choose to download links on a web page, automatically. You could simply select the pages you want to download from and then DownTheAll 1.0 will go through the links and download the files.

2007-10-12T19:20:00.000+08:00

Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool 1.34

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Microsoft
Size 8.30MB
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.

2007-10-12T19:17:00.000+08:00

MediaCoder 0.6.0.3905

Platform Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Stanley Huang
Size 16.92MB
Free Download

Working with video and audio codecs can be a real pain, for the professional media designer and for the home user who wants to playback old video they’ve downloaded from the Internet. For the professional media designer, if they’ve been given video and audio to create a DVD, the media isn’t always presented in the format required to produce the DVD – the media needs to be decoded before it can be encoded to the correct format.

There are plenty of open-source codecs available. For instance the K-Lite Codec Pack collates a number of old and new codecs within one package which you can use to encode/decode and play your media. However, some of these codecs require you to use multiple media encoders/decoders and who wants to install these packages on one computer?

MediaCoder is a tool that collates the use of these codecs in to one interface. From the single interface, you can import your audio and video, quickly see the codecs used to encode them and then convert them to another format, where required. MediaCoder goes much further than simple conversion though. You can take DVD-quality video and then reduce this to a format that will be playable on a portable media device.

2007-10-12T19:15:00.000+08:00

KeePass 2.03

Platform Windows 98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Dominik Reichl
Size 1.43MB
Free Download

Today you need to remember many passwords. You need a password for the Windows network logon, your email account, your homepage's ftp password, online passwords (like CodeProject member account) etc. The list is endless.

Often people keep the same password for multiple accounts but this could prove a serious problem. If someone else finds this password they then have access to your various online accounts. It's like giving someone your PIN for your credit card.

KeePass is a password manager, or safe, which will enable you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. You only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database.

The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).

2007-10-06T12:31:00.000+08:00

Internet Explorer 7.0.5

Platform Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Microsoft
Size 14.8MB
Free Download

The brand new version of Internet Explorer ships with a new and enhanced user-interface, supporting tabbed browser amongst other features. Security has been enhanced so that it protects against malicious software, the theft of personal data (through online phishing sites). Other improvements include better and more modern support for CSS and general web design.

Many people were worried about using Internet Explorer 6 for secure web browsing. Tons of additional security features are to be found in the latest release. You can opt out of ActiveX controls, you're presented with an extensive security status bar so you can see exactly if the web site is secure, you now have the facility to quickly delete your surfing history (so other people can't see what sites you've previously visited) and parental controls to stop access to particular websites.

The latest version does not require windows genuine advantage, the menu bar is now visable by default and it includes a number of minor bug fixes.

2007-10-06T12:29:00.000+08:00

DivX for Windows 6.7.0.18

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer DivX
Size 22.67MB
Free Download

This bundle includes the DivX Player and DivX codec. Both are free and no adware is included in the package. The DivX codec can be used within other media players, such as Apple's QuickTime.

The DivX Player plays all AVI and .divx files that contain DivX video and MP3 audio (including DivX 3, 4, 5 and 6 video formats), and enables access to DivX Video-on-Demand services.

The DivX codec extends DivX playback support to all popular media players. This package supports English, French, German, and Japanese languages.

DivX Player is optimised to play DivX media files with full support for all the advanced features of the DivX Media Format including scene selection menus, chapters, subtitles, video tags and alternate audio tracks.

In addition, DivX Player is enhanced to give you the full value of DivX HD video through new features such as performance adaptive quality enhancement and the latest DivX.

2007-10-06T12:26:00.000+08:00

NoteTab Light 5.5

Platform Windows 98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Fookes Software
Size 2.33MB
Free Download

oteTab Light is the ultimate free Notepad replacement and a capable HTML editor. A slimmer version of the award-winning NoteTab Pro, this slick application makes text editing a breeze. Move quickly around a stack of large files with a simple tabbed interface. Format your text to your heart's content. Write with the font of your choice, fixed-width or proportional.
Key Features

Open and edit many documents at once
Capable of editing huge text files
Text drag-and-drop editing
AutoCorrect/Auto-replace mode
Clip tool for quick and easy text insertion
Capture text sent to Clipboard

2007-09-29T19:36:00.002+08:00

CCleaner 2.01

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer www.ccleaner.com
Size 2.5MB
Free Download

Just as regular exercise is good for your health, a regular workout for your hard disk is recommended. Windows has its own tools for doing this, but CCleaner makes a slightly better job of it.

2007-09-29T19:36:00.001+08:00

Winamp 5.50

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Nullsoft
Size 12.45MB
Free Download

Winamp has always prided itself on being free and it has a steady, loyal following as a result. Version 5 is sure to please its current users, and to win it some converts.

It looks good with a completely new interface, and comes with fairly comprehensive file support. Audio support includes CDA, MIDI, MP1/2/3/4, AAC, OGG, WAV, AIF, WMA and more.

Support for video is added in version 5, and currently this stretches to MPG, M2V, AVI and ASF formats.

It packs a good deal into a fairly slim package, with the player incorporating everything you would expect and more: loop, repeat, ID3 tag support, cross-fading between tracks, 2x CD burning/ripping, internet TV and radio support etc.

It has a media manager, 10-band graphic equaliser, visualisations and a playlist editor. Upgrade to the Pro edition to get full support for ripping/encoding audio into the MP3 format, and integrated CD burning up to 48x speed.

2007-09-29T19:34:00.002+08:00

Spyware Terminator 2.0.1.224

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer CRAWLER, LLC
Size 4.3MB
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.

v2 is major update to Spyware Terminator. New features include a brand new user-interface, improved scanning, improved post-scan reports and much more.

2007-09-29T19:34:00.001+08:00

Ad-Aware 2007 7.0.2.3

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Lavasoft
Size 18.84MB
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. The new 7.0.2.3 revision supports Windows Vista (32 bit edition).

2007-09-29T19:33:00.000+08:00

PC Tools ThreatFire 3

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer PC Tools
Size 14MB
Free Download

Existing commercial anti-virus and anti-malware packages are designed around a tried-and-tested system where you rely on the software supplier to provide you with ttarhe antidote to avoid being caught by the latest threat. However, you often need to be downloading new definition updates on a daily basis in order to keep on top of the situation. If your PC is used by the entire family, you can’t really monitor what your kids are downloading on your machine through the day.

The other problem with traditional anti-virus tools is that they rely on you to run a system check or schedule a check. If malicious software has found a way in to your system, you may not realise there is a problem until the next system check.

ThreatFire is a security tool from PC Tools that was designed to be different, from conception. It does not rely on definition updates, but constantly checks against system activity and warns when it believes something is happening to your machine that is different from the norm. Essentially, it simply keeps an ongoing check on your system activity, before malicious software can affect your machine.

This is the free version of ThreatFire. There is a Pro version of ThreatFire that includes PC Tools’ Anti-Virus module to offer additional support against the latest threats.

2007-09-29T19:32:00.000+08:00

ZoneAlarm ForceField Preview

Platform Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Check Point Software
Size 4.88MB
Free download

Wouldn’t it be good if you could surf the Internet in a virtual environment, outside of your primary operating system, so could be more assured that malicious files would not end up on your PC, additional entries wouldn’t be included in your Registry nor would your Internet browsing history be all over your computer.

Sadly we can’t really expect a virtual operating system on top of your existing operating system, unless you choose to run a tool such as Virtual PC 2007, but then you’d need another copy of Windows in order to get around the activation issue. You can’t use the same copy, twice. Another option is the Sandboxie tool, which is ideal for testing games within a closed box environment, but not always ideal for using it for browsing the Internet and testing downloaded files.

ZoneAlarm ForceField is a tool designed to act as a go-between, situated in front of your web brower. Download a file and it is checked by ForceField before you install. It will also enable you to browse the Internet in a private environment, so no web history, download information or other personal data is shared with other computer users. It’s simply not stored on your computer.

Note that ZoneAlarm ForceField is still in beta. It is designed for Windows XP and Vista, although the Vista version is still not fully supported.

2007-09-22T14:29:00.002+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Preview 8

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla
Size 6.27MB
Free Download

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.

Note that further improvements and new features will be included within Firefox 3.0 as it is being developed. This 3.0 Preview 8 (dubbed “Gran Paradiso”, rather than Firefox) is an early developer preview.

The product release notes should be referred to before you download

2007-09-22T14:29:00.001+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.7

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla Corporation
Size 5.54MB
Free Download

You can download other language editions of the Windows Firefox 2.0, as well as Linux and Mac OS X versions from the Mozilla website.

2007-09-22T14:28:00.001+08:00

AVG Anti-Virus Free 7.5.488

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Grisoft Inc
Size 50.97MB
Free Download.

The word 'free' often equates to an inferior product but, in this case, there is no doubt that this is a professional product.

Split into three sections and a Control Centre, AVG Anti-virus protects against viruses in a number of key areas. The Resident Shield works in the background and checks all files and file types (including floppy disk, CD content etc.) for viruses, whilst the Email Scanner works with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook.

The Boot-up Scanner operates at start-up, and checks the most important areas of a PC before you begin to use it. Every aspect of AVG's virus protection can be configured using the Control Centre, which allows you to modify a number of program settings and to schedule scans, among other things.

When installing there's an option to create a rescue disk for use should any of your key system files become infected. All crucial areas and files on a PC are backed up, and can be restored from this disk.

2007-09-22T14:27:00.000+08:00

Skype 3.5.0.239

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Skype
Size 22.77MB
Free Download

When it comes to making free calls across the internet using Voice over IP technology, Skype is certainly leading the pack. With almost 26 million people having downloaded the software, Skype is the most used free internet application.

Developed by the people behind the file-sharing service Kazaa, Skype offers free internet telephony with another PC user as long as both have the Skype software.

If you're an existing Skype user, the first thing you'll notice is that the interface has had a makeover. Another key addition is the use of public chats, so you can now start a conversation between a group of people, whether you know those people or they're random users who happen to join your topic of conversation.

2007-09-22T14:26:00.000+08:00

Ashampoo ClipFinder 1.19

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Ashampoo
Size 2.47MB
Free Download

Online portals like YouTube, VideU, MyVideo and ClipFish have long since become cult, they collect many funny and creative short videos. In the office and of course also in your everyday life in the meantime it is considered to be chic to call up the video portals for a short break and to start a couple of films to relax or for your own enjoyment.

The problem is that the offer of available videos has exploded so much in the past months that it is hardly possible to directly find the best contributions on an interesting topic. People who are in to the funny Star Wars parodies, the best animal films or quite seriously intended company presentations definitely need help with their orientation.

Ashampoo ClipFinder knows the most important portals and can, analogue to a search machine, simultaneously pass on a quickly made search inquiry to all video portals. A few seconds later, the Ashampoo ClipFinder collects all hits in its program window in order to make the user curious with preview pictures.

Ashampoo ClipFinder shows diverse information which fits each film in the results, including the length, the name of the film and its assessment. A click of the mouse is enough and the Ashampoo ClipFinder plays a film. It is however not a problem to transmit it completely to the hard drive. Then it is always available - and not only with an existing internet connection. Alternatively the link to a film can also be taken over in the favourite files and reactivated again from here at any time.

2007-09-01T11:47:00.000+08:00

Download Accelerator Plus 8.5.6.3

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer SpeedBit
Size 7.48MB
Free Download

Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) is a download manager that also claims to increase download speeds by up to 300 per cent.

DAP performs this trick by locating the most responsive server using a proximity test, and by splitting the file(s) into several segments and accessing them from multiple sources if necessary.

In our tests with an ADSL connection, DAP was only faster in a handful of occasions, but always saved you the trouble of manually selecting the fastest or closest server.

More usefully, DAP is also a download manager, which is a tool many of ushave forgotten about. Today most people download files into a variety oflocations where they can often become lost.

DAP keeps track of them all and also provides a handy history of what you've downloaded and when.

DAP will additionally recover and resume a download which has been interrupted by a broken connection. Very handy even if it doesn't necessarily make your Internet connection feel much faster.

2007-09-01T11:44:00.000+08:00

Free Download Manager 2.5.707

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer FreeDownloadManager.ORG
Size 5.35MB
Free Download

Download accelerator and manager which you can use to easily download a list of files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. FDM (Free Download Manager) can function as a site manager, accelerator, site explorer and scheduler.

FDM can resume broken downloads, so you needn't start the downloading process from the very beginning after casual interruption. You can resume unfinished download from the moment when it was interrupted. Also this program warns you if resuming isn't supported by the servers. It allows you to make a decision about the downloading. So with FDM you save your time and money.

FDM is an indispensable tool for download acceleration. It splits files into several sections and then downloads them simultaneously allowing you to increase your download speed up to 600%.

This software application can be used in automatic mode. You can schedule the following operations: set or hang up the Internet connection, exit from the program and shutdown the computer. All the operations mentioned above can be set at the specified time.

2007-09-01T11:39:00.000+08:00

Maxthon 2.0.3.4552

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Maxthon International Limited
Size 2.41MB
Free Download

Maxthon is one of the more popular Internet Explorer replacement browsers and is constantly updated.

The newest version Maxthon 2.0.3.4552 contains a new streamlined interface, which looks a bit like a mix of the Mac OS X Safari web browser and Firefox. Other features include multi-user support from the same web browser, so each user has their own preferences. There are tons of other minor updates, too.

2007-09-01T11:36:00.000+08:00

Skype 3.5.0.229

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Skype
Size 22.9MB
Free Download

Developed by the people behind the file-sharing service Kazaa, Skype offers free internet telephony with another PC user as long as both have the Skype software.

Skype Prime enables a small business, such as an advisor, to offer services over the Internet. SkypeFind is a new business and feedback system, that enables end-users to rate businesses it finds through Skype.

2007-08-12T14:46:00.000+08:00

BO Clean 4.25

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Comodo Group
Size 1.22MB
Free download

Internet trojan horse programs, spyware, keyloggers, rootkits, pseudorootkits, hijackers, adware, annoyware, email relays, spam proxies, spam relays, scam downloads and email/spam robots ("bots") are perhaps the greatest security threat to individuals and institutional networks in existence. By installing malware (short for MALicious softWARE) on a machine, computer crackers can go anywhere, see and do anything they want with your computer, including banking records and your most intimate and personal documents.

Antivirus software frequently fails to detect, and more often fails to effectively clean most malware. BOClean runs automatically in the background without interfering with your work and kills malwares INSTANTLY the moment they activate without giving them the chance to invade your machine. BOClean also eliminates the need to stop what you're doing to secure your machine after it's too late. BOClean works with all versions of Windows. Unlike antivirus programs, BOClean will actually shut them down and destroy them without the need for you to seek out the method of removal or risking dangerous editing of your system's innermost configurations. BOClean requires no technical skills and handles detection, removal and repair of your system automatically.

BOClean was designed by Kevin McAleavey, creator of NSClean - the original anticookie software - and IEClean internet privacy software and consultant in counterespionage technology since 1974. BOClean now protects schools, universities, corporations, government and individuals across the world. Our anti-malware technology can protect you as well.

2007-08-12T14:43:00.000+08:00

Fresh Diagnose 7.64

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Freshdevices
Size 1.50MB
Free download

Find out exactly what your PC is doing with this diagnosis tool.

It will analyse the PC and the tasks that are currently running, and will benchmark, or speed-test, the computer's performance in several categories.

Much of the information may be of use if your computer is running oddly and you need to call technical support.

Note: This latest version features SM/DMI and CMOS module enhancements and bug fixes.

2007-08-12T14:38:00.000+08:00

doPDF 5.2.228

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Softland
Size 1.3MB
Free download

Free PDF converter for both personal and commercial use. Using doPDF you can create searchable PDF files by selecting the "Print" command from virtually any application. With one click you can convert your Microsoft Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents or your emails and favourite web sites to PDF files.

doPDF installs itself as a virtual printer driver so after a successful installation will appear in your Printers and Faxes list. To create PDF files, you just have to print your documents to the doPDF pdf converter. Open a document (with Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad or any other software), choose Print and select doPDF. It will ask you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer.

Note that this free PDF tool does not use Ghostscript. The license will also enable you to produce PDFs for both personal and commercial use.

The latest v5.2 contains a few new features, including support for 64Bit operating systems and the facility to create a .pdf extension automatically, when saving your PDF documents.

2007-08-06T20:26:00.000+08:00

Apple iTunes 7.3.2

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Apple
Size 47.69MB
Free Download

It's been long coming, but iTunes 7 is a major upgrade to iTunes and the iTunes music store. Mainly due to the inclusion of full movie downloads (currently US only) and other improvements.

The popular iTunes has been one of the best audio players on the market. However, its vast music store now gives holders of the video iPod the opportunity to preview and download music videos, TV programmes and now full movies, all at very reasonable prices.

If you want to share your music, iTunes will look for other copies running across a network and you can then listen to other people's music. An Internet radio option is available for broadband users.

Video support comes in the form of an embedded QuickTime player which supports all the video formats that QuickTime supports (AVI, MPEG, Flash etc.). Note that QuickTime 7.1.5 is included within the iTunes installer.

Audio can be encoded in the Apple Lossless format, which lets you import music into iTunes at half the original size with no loss of quality. Podcast support is included so that you can subscribe to podcasts from within iTunes and have them automatically synced to your iPod.

Apple iTunes 7.x now supports 'iTunes Plus', songs available for download with no DRM and a higher-quality bitrate.

This is the latest 7.3 which contains support for the new iPhone, amongst other minor fixes and enhancements.

Note that the Mac OS X version is available to download from the Apple iTunes website.

2007-08-06T20:25:00.000+08:00

Portable Thunderbird 2.0.0.6

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla Corporation & John Haller
Size 6.75MB
Free Download

Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition is the popular Mozilla Thunderbird email client bundled with a PortableApps.com launcher as a portable app, so you can take your email, address book and account settings with you. You can also add in GPG and Enigmail to encrypt and sign your email.

Mozilla Thunderbird is the safe, fast email client that's easy to use. It has lots of great features including quick message search, customizable views, support for IMAP/POP, RSS support and more. Plus, the portable version leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on, so you can take your email and address book with you wherever you go.

2007-08-06T20:24:00.000+08:00

RealPlayer 11 6.0.14.543

Platform Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Real Networks
Size 13.21MB
Free Download

RealPlayer is the behemoth of the media player arena. It's been around a long time and has a wide range of features and functionality.

The player's file support is huge and it can cope with practically anything you throw at it, both in terms of video and audio. It also has its own proprietary RealAudio Lossless format for encoding audio without any loss of quality.

Like iTunes, RealPlayer comes with a digital music store built-in, but the options in terms of number of songs and the artists available are not as impressive.

As you would expect, CD burning is integrated and includes all the usual features such as normalisation of track volumes, crossfades and the removal of gaps between tracks.

You can also generate analog recordings from external sources, such as your own voice (via a microphone) and your old record or tape collection.

And you can transfer audio directly onto your portable MP3 player thanks to the built-in support for numerous devices including Palm, Nomad Zen and the iPod.

The latest RealPlayer 11 (still in beta) supports the option to download video to your computer, amongst other new features.

2007-08-06T20:20:00.000+08:00

Winpatrol 12.0.2007

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer BillP Studios
Size 670KB
Free Download

When we install software onto our computers, most of us don't know what the software is actually doing to our system.

What is the application installing on your PC? Is it adding information to the Registry, and could it be adding spyware to the system which reports back to the software supplier?

WinPatrol enables you to sniff out problematic software that would normally be classed as spyware, adware, a worm or Trojan horse.

These are applications that install on your computer with the sole purpose of performing a hidden task, such as trying to find loopholes in your system, logging keystrokes when you surf the internet and much more.

This application is different from other security applications in that it won't scan your hard drive looking for previously installed threats.

It's a proactive not re-active application which will constantly examine your current system and warn you if any changes have occurred without your permission.

2007-08-02T21:13:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox Portable 2.0.0.6

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Rare Ideas LLC
Size 6.06MB
Free Download

If you’re used to working in different departments, you’ll soon find the biggest restriction is that most operating systems are based around multi-user technology and you won’t want to browse personal information, on the web, through someone else’s computer. Sure, you could ask them to set you up with your own account, but if you only want to use their computer for a few minutes, perhaps to check your email, there’s little point.

Mozilla Firefox Portable edition is a transportable version of the popular web browser. You could ‘install’ this to an external USB key and then take this USB key with you, connect to a computer, then use Firefox Portable without leaving any trace of your web use on their machine.

Mozilla Firefox Portable is self-contained software which means that all your browsing history, bookmarks and other cookie information is taken with you, on external USB key. When you browse the web using Firefox Portable, the data is written back to the key. This makes is very useful for taking your own personalised version of the web browser with you, wherever you work or travel.

2007-08-02T21:11:00.000+08:00

Ad-Aware 2007 Free 7.0.1.6

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Lavasoft
Size 17.33MB
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.

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.

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

2007-08-02T21:07:00.000+08:00

TaskInfo 7.1.0.230

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type shareware
Manufacturer Igor Arsenin
Size 2.11MB
Free Download

The Windows Task Manager is a basic tool that enables you to see what applications are running on your system and, if they are proving problematic, you can choose to shut down the application or change the priority. If you find that your system is running slowly, you can also see which processes are using the majority of your processor time.

In addition to this information, you can find out how much of your physical memory is being used by open applications and utilisation of your network bandwidth. If your net connection is really slow, click on the ‘Networking’ tab to see if the bandwidth is being saturated 100%. You can also see the users logged in to your system.

However, it only goes so far. TaskInfo is a powerful utility that combines and improves features of Task Manager and the Windows system information tools. You can use the tool to monitor all current system activity. This activity can include processes that might remain invisible to Task Manager, such as spyware. It goes far further, showing the current libraries (DLLs) in use and much more.

2007-07-28T20:10:00.001+08:00

IE7Pro

Platform Windows XP, Windows Vista

Type freeware
Manufacturer IE7Pro.com
Size 1.28MB
Free Download

IE7Pro is a must have add-on for Internet Explorer, which includes a lot of features and tweaks to make your IE friendlier, more useful, secure and customizable.

IE7Pro includes Tabbed Browsing Management, Spell Check, Inline Search, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Web Accelerator, User Agent Switcher, Webpage Capturer, AD Blocker, Flash Block, Greasemonkey like User Scripts platform, User Plug-ins and many more power packed features.

2007-07-28T20:08:00.000+08:00

Opera 9.22

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Opera
Size 4.69MB
Free download

Since the release of Opera 9 earlier this year, Opera have been working hard fixing little bugs, making minor improvements and turning Opera in to a serious rival to Internet Explorer. Now at 9.2, it's worth downloading if you've not used this browser before.

The principle of the system is that files downloaded onto your computer should be accessible to others but Opera can turn this off to conserve bandwidth quotas.

An improved content blocker allows individual elements of a webpage to be blocked to avoid adverts. The pop up blocker has also been improved.

The tabbed browsing has also been improved with a small preview of the webpages.

The ability to make a Google search from the address bar is still present but it is now possible to create customised shortcuts.

Opera 9.2 also contains a number of fixes and new features, including a fraud detection module to protect against phishing websites.

2007-07-23T20:04:00.001+08:00

Opera 9.1 USB Edition

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Markus Obermair
Size 5.07MB
Free Download

Ever wanted to take your favourite web browser on the road, so you can access your preferences, bookmarks and your web history?

Portable versions of programs such as Opera have many advantages. You can be sure of keeping bookmarks and emails accessible no matter what computer is being used.

This portable version of Opera has the added benefit of not leaving any traces of the internet session on the computer. To do this set the Tools - Preferences- Advanced - History - Disk cache option to 0MB.

To get started and to use Opera USB from a USB stick, unzip the ZIP file you download from this site onto a USB key.

2007-07-23T20:00:00.000+08:00

doPDF 5.2

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Softland
Size 1.3MB
Free Download

Free PDF converter for both personal and commercial use. Using doPDF you can create searchable PDF files by selecting the "Print" command from virtually any application. With one click you can convert your Microsoft Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents or your emails and favourite web sites to PDF files.

doPDF installs itself as a virtual printer driver so after a successful installation will appear in your Printers and Faxes list. To create PDF files, you just have to print your documents to the doPDF pdf converter. Open a document (with Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad or any other software), choose Print and select doPDF. It will ask you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer.

Note that this free PDF tool does not use Ghostscript. The license will also enable you to produce PDFs for both personal and commercial use.

2007-07-23T19:56:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox Portable 2.0.0.5

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Rare Ideas LLC
Size 6.06MB
Free Download

2007-07-23T19:53:00.000+08:00

Flock 0.9.0.1

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Flock, Inc
Size 10.45MB
Free Download

Flock is a new web browser that combines integrated photo sharing with RSS support.

Bloggers are a target audience for Flock, which is based on the Mozilla Firefox, because it has been designed to keep people up to date with news, blogs and when friends appear online.

Favourite websites can be kept up to date with other computers that a user may have access to by using the del.icio.us and shadows services. These websites can then be shared with other users,

Flock organises news from RSS feeds in a pane rather than as bookmarks. Each feed is checked for new stories hourly. Flock shows an incon in the address bar to show that a feed is available from that page. Simply click on that icon to sign up.

Flock can automatically add photos and snippets of other webpages to blogs written with Blogger, LiveJournal, Typepad and WordPress. A special web snippets bar has been added to store quotes from other websites. Users simply drag pictures onto the Photo icon to upload, or drag and drop images which are automatically stored on to a Flickr or PhotoBucket

account.

Search with Flock is slightly different from other browsers because as text is typed in, Flock will start searching from the web as well as a user's favourites and history. These initial results are shown in a drop down menu.

Note that versions for Mac OS X and Linux are available from the Flock website.

2007-07-23T19:34:00.000+08:00

Portable Thunderbird 2.0.0.5

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla Corporation & John Haller
Size 6.74MB
Free Download

2007-07-23T19:32:00.000+08:00

Firefox Portable 2.0.0.5

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Rare Ideas LLC
Size 6.06MB
Free Download

2007-07-18T20:13:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.5

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla Corporation
Size 5.55MB
Free Download

You can download other language editions of the Windows Firefox 2.0, as well as Linux and Mac OS X versions from the Mozilla website.

2007-07-15T11:00:00.001+08:00

Apple QuickTime 7.2

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Apple
Size 19.1MB
Free download

2007-07-15T10:59:00.000+08:00

Apple iTunes 7.3.1

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Apple
Size 47MB
Free Download

2007-07-10T21:17:00.001+08:00

Maxthon 2.0.2 RC4

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Maxthon International Limited
Size 2.19MB
Free Download

Maxthon is one of the more popular Internet Explorer replacement browsers and is constantly updated.

This is the fourth public preview of the forthcoming Maxthon 2. The new version is far from complete, but contains a brand new streamlined interface, which looks a bit like a mix of the Mac OS X Safari web browser and Firefox. Other features include multi-user support from the same web browser, so each user has their own preferences. There are tons of other minor updates, with more information on the Maxthon 2 preview page.

2007-07-10T21:16:00.002+08:00

Ad-Aware 2007 Free 7.0.1.5

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Lavasoft
Size 17.7MB
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.

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.

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

2007-07-10T21:16:00.001+08:00

OpenOffice Portable 2.21

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer John T Haller
Size 69MB
Free Download

OpenOffice is a fully fledged office application suite, complete with a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation graphics program.

OpenOffice will be more familiar to some people as Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, which until recently was a free download.

With the launch of StarOffice 6, Sun changed its policy: the full office application suite would now cost (a still very reasonable) £50, while this completely free version is available to download.

Both share the same source code, with a few differences. OpenOffice does not include the StarOffice Adabas D database, certain fonts (especially Asian language ones), some templates and certain file filters.

This is the portable edition of OpenOffice, so you can take your suite on the road.

2007-07-10T21:15:00.001+08:00

CPU-Z 1.40.5

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer www.CPUID.com
Size 448Kb
Free Download

When you’re looking for a new computer – whether you’re planning on building your own or purchasing from an existing supplier – you tend to find out as much as you can about current models, peripherals and the components that you need for your machine. This information includes extensive information about the CPU you’re intending to install and the motherboard required to support the CPU.

However, many of us keep our PCs for at least a couple of years. After this team we choose to either upgrade our existing computer or make a new purchase. If we’re upgrading our PC, we need to work out what’s installed on the PC before we can purchase a better CPU and other components, if required. Can you really remember the CPU installed in your computer that you built a couple of years ago?

CPU-Z is a system tool that will enable you to find extensive information about the CPU installed in your computer. I’ll will give you speed info, installed cache details and more. You can also find out information about components that affect your CPU, such as the motherboard revision, installed memory and more.

2007-07-10T21:13:00.000+08:00

Arovax AntiSpyware 2.1

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Arovax LLC
Size 3.33MB
Free Download

After just five minutes surfing only a few pages on the internet, spyware and other parasites which harm both you and your computer are downloaded to your computer and are used to retrieve sensitive data.

If your system is unprotected, spyware and adware can easily infiltrate your system and your system will slow down, internet access might be unavailable, your identity and personal information might be stolen and much more.

More than 90 per cent of computers are infected with spyware and adware. Millions of home and corporate users are left unaware, vulnerable and unprotected. You should not become a victim; you should stop spyware before it's too late.

This version of Arovax AntiSpyware program does not include any advanced features, plug-ins or add-ons, which will be available in final release of Arovax AntiSpyware, as the main goal of this version is to check operability of main engines - Scanner and Remover on all possible PC configurations, OS versions and in different conditions.

2007-07-02T20:18:00.000+08:00

FlashGet 1.9

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Amaze Software
Size 4.41MB
Free Download

Whether you download a little or a lot, a Download Manager can offer some advantages over downloading via a browser.

FlashGet promises fast downloads, and on the whole it delivers. It is different to many download managers in that it is integrated into the browser toolbar (IE and Netscape, and Opera via optional plug-in).

FlashGet's main adavantage is its ability to split a download into up to 10 separate packets; each one downloads a portion of the file only, making more effective use of the available bandwidth.

Downloaded files can be placed into different categories in FlashGet's file explorer. These categories are duplicated on your hard drive as folders, ensuring complete file organisation.

Batch downloads are supported, as is the ability to browse an entire site (FTP or HTTP) for downloadable material.

The downside is that only eight simultaneous downloads are possible.

2007-07-02T20:14:00.000+08:00

Apple iTunes 7.3

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP,Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Apple
Size 47MB
Free Download

It's been long coming, but iTunes 7 is a major upgrade to iTunes and the iTunes music store. Mainly due to the inclusion of full movie downloads (currently US only) and other improvements.

Apple iTunes 7.x now supports 'iTunes Plus', songs available for download with no DRM and a higher-quality bitrate.

This is the latest 7.3 which contains support for the new iPhone, amongst other minor fixes and enhancements.

Note that the Mac OS X version is available to download from the Apple iTunes website.

2007-06-30T20:56:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-30T20:50:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-24T09:44:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-24T09:41:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-23T20:06:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-23T19:59:00.000+08:00

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.

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.

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

2007-06-19T20:56:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-19T20:48:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-15T20:21:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-15T20:14:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-15T20:01:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-15T20:00:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-09T18:46:00.002+08:00

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.

2007-06-09T18:46:00.001+08:00

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

2007-06-09T18:45:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-09T18:43:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 alpha 5

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

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

2007-06-08T09:49:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-08T09:48:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-08T09:46:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-06-01T21:48:00.000+08:00

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.

2007-05-31T23:11:00.000+08:00

USBDeview 1.05

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer NirSoft
Size 45Kb
Free download

You connect a couple of external USB hard drives, a firewire unit and your USB printer. However, disconnecting them is another matter. How do you know which device is installed, is assigned to a particular drive letter and more?

USBDeview is a small utility that lists all USB devices that currently connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you previously used. For each USB device, extended information is displayed: Device name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage devices), the date/time that device was added, VendorID, ProductID, and more.

USBDeview also enables you to uninstall USB devices that you previously used, and disconnect USB devices that are currently connected to your computer. You can also use USBDeview on a remote computer, as long as you login to that computer with admin user.

2007-05-31T23:09:00.000+08:00

Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.1.2

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla
Size 10.8MB
Free download

Back in the 90’s, Internet Service Providers used to supply ‘all-in-one’ suites so that you had everything you needed to connect to the Internet. Indeed, Turnpike made a fortune selling their suite to Demon, when it was primarily made up from third-party applications (Mozilla, Eudora etc).

These all-in-one integrated Internet suites were designed to work with the Internet provider. It would be all pre-configured so that you install, select your local POP (a POP was a local phone number for dialup users), entered your supplied user name and password, and you’d find that you’d have a web browser, email client, chat application and dialup manager.

Mozilla SeaMonkey is an all-in-one Internet suite from the same guys that gave use Firefox and Thunderbird. Indeed, it contains the latest Firefox and Thunderbird, along with an IRC chat application and also Mozilla’s HTML editor for creating your own web pages.

Note that this is the Windows (US language) download only. Linux and Mac OS X versions are available from the Mozilla website.

2007-05-31T23:05:00.000+08:00

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Mozilla Corporation
Size 5.5MB
Free download

You can download other language editions of the Windows Firefox 2.0, as well as Linux and Mac OS X versions from the Mozilla website.

2007-05-28T21:27:00.000+08:00

BitComet 0.88

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer BitComet.com
Size 6MB
Free download

Using peer-to-peer technology is great for downloading large files. Particularly software that has recently been released. Often you spend so long trying to get on to the software website – along with everyone else – that you just end up giving up. It’s too slow.

However, you’ll find that other people have downloaded the software you want, so why not make that software (legally) available as a Torrent file and share it with others? They can then download from you and others, quickly.

The problem with Bittorrent is that it’s a rather basic tool. Does the job, but fairly simply. BitComet is a free file sharing tool that is Bittorrent compatible. It ships with a fantastic interface, which makes it a pleasure to use if you’re sharing files on a daily basis. You can queue files to download, auto-resume downloads, set speed limits, change your ports and much more.

2007-05-28T21:26:00.001+08:00

K-Lite Codec Pack 3.1

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

2007-05-28T21:24:00.000+08:00

Skype 3.20.152

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Skype
Size 22.6MB
Free download

Developed by the people behind the file-sharing service Kazaa, Skype offers free internet telephony with another PC user as long as both have the Skype software.

The latest Skype 3.2 contains new features, including the facility to send money to another Skype user through PayPal, take a video snapshot of yourself, invite Hotmail, GMail and Yahoo friends to a chat and additional import features.

2007-05-23T19:59:00.000+08:00

K-Meleon 1.1

Platform Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer kmeleon.org
Size 4.89MB
Free download

K-Meleon is an open source browser based on the Gecko rendering engine used by Mozilla.

Looking like a bit of a cross between Firefox and Internet Explorer, it should be easy for most users to get to grips with - even if they do insist on refering to browser tabs as 'layers'.

It does have some other confusing elements too: it features both 'favorites' and 'bookmarks' menus, with the 'favorites' menu full of Internet Explorer links (msdn.com, msn.com, Internet Explorer 7 webpage etc).

However, on the whole this is a fast, secure browser that offers some features we've not seen in other browsers, such as the ability to organise tabs into groups.

It also has a number of plugins available, such as Flash and Quicktime, although from reading the documentation the installation of these isn't always straightforward.

2007-05-23T19:39:00.000+08:00

JetStart Free 4.38

Platform Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Code Sector Inc.
Size 890KB
Free Download

Tired of digging into a crowded Start Menu? JetStart offers you quick access to categorised Start Menu shortcuts, recently launched programs and system commands.

You can also place your most-used programs and documents into the handy toolbar and quickly run any program by typing few starting letters.

2007-05-23T19:38:00.000+08:00

Sophos Anti-Rootkit 1.3

Platform Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Sophos Plc
Size 1.12MB
Free Download

Sophos Anti-Rootkit is a tool that servers one purpose, in that it eliminates hidden applications and processes that were installed on your system by malicious software.

The term rootkit is used to define a Trojan (or technology) used to hide the presence of a malicious object (process, file, registry key, network port) from the computer user or administrator.

As part of its complete protection of endpoint computers, Sophos Anti-Virus detects rootkits and prevents them being installed on any of your desktops, laptops and servers. Sophos Anti-Rootkit provides an extra layer of detection, by safely and reliably detecting and removing any rootkit that might already have secreted itself onto your system.

2007-05-23T19:37:00.000+08:00

Adobe Flash Player 9.0.45

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Type freeware
Manufacturer Adobe
Size 1.1MB
Free Download

Adobe's Flash Player 9 is the next-generation Flash Player client runtime environment.

Flash Player provides a more secure, lightweight, robust runtime environment for rich media and enterprise-ready rich internet applications.

Flash Player 9 achieves up to 10 times faster performance through ActionScript 3.0 and a new ActionScript Virtual Machine, which features a Just In Time compiler that translates ActionScript bytecode to native machine code for maximum execution speed.

Installed on over 600 million internet-connected PCs and mobile devices worldwide, Flash Player provides consistent and predictable application runtime capabilities across browsers, desktops and other devices.

Flash Player and Adobe Reader provide client runtime capabilities for the Adobe Engagement Platform, which delivers a programming model, tools, components and services that enable designers and developers to create and deliver rich, vibrant, branded content and applications to mass audiences in virtually every medium.

This version is for Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Netscape web browsers. A version for Internet Explorer is also available.

2007-05-23T19:35:00.000+08:00

Spyware Terminator 1.9

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer CRAWLER, LLC
Size 8.18MB
Free Download

2007-05-20T11:28:00.000+08:00

Winamp 5.35

Platform Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Type freeware
Manufacturer Nullsoft
Size 6.3MB
Free download

It looks good with a completely new interface, and comes with fairly comprehensive file support. Audio support includes CDA, MIDI, MP1/2/3/4, AAC, OGG, WAV, AIF, WMA and more.

Support for video is added in version 5, and currently this stretches to MPG, M2V, AVI and ASF formats.

Winamp 5.35 adds a new dashboard and a few minor enhancements.