Best Free Browser Scrubber

Best Free Browser Scrubber There's no doubt that when you browse the web you accumulate huge amount of stored data. The sheer quantity is surprising; often gigabytes. A lot of this is just junk while other parts can be useful. Just what is and what isn't junk is a personal decision. For example, I regard the information stored in my browser's history as a valuable resource but I know a lot folks see it as clutter or even an embarrassment. That's why the flexibility to choose exactly what you want to keep or delete is a key requirement in any browser cleaning utility. It's in this area that CleanCache excels. Yes, there are a few other cleaner programs that also offer this but when you take into account CleanCache's speed, ease of use, automation features, near- forensic thoroughness and the fact that it works with Internet Explorer, IE Clones such as Avant, Firefox and Opera, then you have a clear winner in this category. Note that it requires the 26MB Microsoft .NET Framework to be installed on your PC.
Code:
http://www.buttuglysoftware.com/CleanCache3.html Freeware, Windows 2000 and later, 1.3 MB

Best Free Route Tracer

Best Free Route Tracer 3D Traceroute graphically displays Internet route information. You can use it for technical tasks such as diagnosing slow connections or for general purpose snooping like determining the location and owner of a web site or tracing spammers.
Code:
http://www.d3tr.de/ (1.6mb)

Best Free Parental Filter

Best Free Parental Filter The stand-out choice in this category is K9 Web Protection [1] by Blue Coat Systems. It's a web based service that uses a special driver installed on your PC to redirect all your browsing through K9's servers where it is filtered for content. This means that the filtering works for any browser installed on your PC. The actual filtering itself is highly customizable from a password protected control panel at K9's web site with over 15 selectable categories plus the ability to restrict or permit individual sites. Full reports on sites visited are also available from the control panel. The filtering seems quite accurate; I only found one site in an hour of browsing which I felt should not have been blocked. I also liked the optional blocking of Spyware and Adware sites. I tried a few obvious ways of crippling the filter such as uninstalling the product or disenabling the driver, with no success, which is comforting to parents. I suspect though, that a determined tech-savvy teenager might eventually find a solution. The only real downside was the slight slowing down of my browsing as a result of it being re-routed through the K9 servers. This will mainly be of concern to dial-up users. If that's you then you might like to try Naomi [2] that has the advantage of filtering locally. In my tests it caught all the offensive sites I tried though occasionally it caught an innocent site as well. Like K9, it's also difficult to disable. As with K9 I tried the obvious tricks of defeating the filter by terminating the Naomi service and deleting the autostart entry without success. Naomi also works with any browser on your system not just Internet Explorer. On the downside, it filters by terminating the browser session without warning whenever a banned site is encountered. I found this a real pain especially when I had several browser tabs open and lost the lot! Naomi is certainly a very capable parental filter but on balance I preferred K9's smarter logic, greater configurability and friendlier behavior. Modem users will however, appreciate Naomi's speed advantage.
Code:
[1] http://www.k9webprotection.com/ [2] http://www.radiance.m6.net/

Best Free Application Minimizer

Best Free Application Minimizer TrayIt! impressed me with its combination of simplicity and effectiveness. First, it requires no installation; just double click the program file and it's up and running. Second, it can minimize open windows to the tray either temporarily or permanently with just one click. Third, it handles "difficult" windows such as skins, with ease. Fourth, it works with all versions of Windows. Fifth, it's a tiny 45KB! Finally, it's free. A little gem.
Code:
http://www.teamcti.com/trayit/trayit.htm

Best Free CD Recovery Utility

Best Free CD Recovery Utility It's pretty common to encounter unreadable CDs. The causes are many, ranging from simple scratches through to partially written sessions. ISOBuster is free utility that will allow you extract any usable information on the CD (or DVD) to your hard drive. It works by bypassing Windows and talking directly to the hardware. As an added bonus it can read old sessions, decode multiple image file formats, recover data from quick formatted DVDs and a host of other useful data recovery features. You can use most of the functions in ISOBuster for free but it will cost you $25.96 to enable some of the advanced functions such as recovering data from MAC UDF or HFS(+) file systems. Windows 95 and later.
Code:
http://www.smart-projects.net/isobuster/ (2.5mb)

Best Free Timesheet Program

Best Free Timesheet Program This is a very lucrative class of programs and consequently the very best programs are unfortunately, commercial products. The best of the free programs is "Timesheets Lite" [1] from Moving Target Software. It's actually an older "lite" version of that company's full featured $29 shareware product. Its main limitation is that only one person can be connected to the program's database at any one time. That aside, Timesheets Lite has all the features needed for anyone who bills on a time or project basis. It can also export timesheet data to Excel for easy invoicing. I found much to like in this product and can give it my hearty recommendation. If you want an alternative consider Timesheets Express Free. The free version is limited to a single account but if you can live with this it's worth checking out. The vendors web site [2] doesn't currently offer the free version but it's readily available from a number of download sites [3].
Code:
[1] http://www.timesheetsmts.com/freesoftware.htm 4.68MB [2] http://www.acksen.com/25euro/ProductsTimesheetsExpressFree.asp [3] http://www.download.com/Timesheets-Express-Free/3000-2076_4-10442986.html (5.1MB)

Best Free Outlook Add-in

Best Free Outlook Add-in

I hate opening HTML email. Despite multiple layers of protection I just know that one day some cunning new exploit is going to get me. That's why I'm so enthusiastic about PocketKnife Peek, a small free Outlook 2002 add-in that allows you to preview your HTML email as text. RealAccount is another freeware add-in for MS Outlook 2002 and later that allows you to designate a default email account and signature for any Outlook Folder. The program is a late beta but has proved totally stable on my Windows XP Pro PC. Yet another free utility that provides functionality that should have been included in the original product.

Code:

http://www.xintercept.com/pkpeek.htm (520KB) http://www.realpopup.it/realaccount/ (338K)

Best Free Outlook Express Backup

Best Free Outlook Express Backup

This free utility allows you to do a full or selective backup of OE's critical files including mail folders, newsgroups, address book and identity settings. Simple, effective ... neat.

Code:

http://www.oehelp.com/OEBackup/Default.aspx (2.1mb)

Best Free File Un-delete Utility

Best Free File Un-delete Utility

I'm recommending two utilities here, each covering a different situation. The best freeware program I've found for recovering already deleted files is Brian Kato's Restoration. It works with FAT and NTFS file structures and runs on any version of Windows from 95 onwards. As a bonus, it requires no installation which means you can run it from a USB drive, CD or floppy. In fact, that's exactly where you should run it from as installing it on your hard drive will reduce your chance of successfully recovering your deleted files. Brian's web site in Japan is not currently working so I've also give a direct download link [1] to the SnapFiles download site.

Code:

[1] http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html (162KB)

Best Free Web Form Filler/Password Manager

Best Free Web Form Filler/Password Manager

Products in this class are among the most useful of all PC utilities because they allow you to complete the common task of filling in web forms and logins by simply clicking a button. They work by saving user IDs, passwords and other information needed for individual sites in encrypted form for later retrieval. To login to a site you only have to type in a single master password to allow retrieval of the specific password information for that site. This information is then used by the program to automatically login. This greatly improves security by allowing different passwords to be assigned to individual sites without the need to be remembered while at the same time making logging in easier and quicker. There's no doubt that RoboForm [1] is the stand-out product in the category; it's full featured, easy to use, seamlessly integrated into both Internet Explorer and FireFox browsers and is constantly being enhanced by the developer. It also allows your saved passwords to be moved between PCs which is very convenient when using multiple machines or upgrading. I do have a major reservation though: The free version allows only 10 forms or passwords to be stored. This used to be 30 in earlier versions which was adequate but 10 is way too few for most users and they will be eventually forced to shell out $29.99 to buy the full product. This reservation aside, it is a fabulous product that saves me time every day. Try it. You'll be amazed how much time it will save you, too.

Note: If you use Internet Explorer, there's some good news: the last free version of RoboForm (V5.7.6) that allowed 30 passwords is still available [2] from the RoboForm web site though well hidden in the FAQ. FireFox users are out of luck as you can't use this version with the current FireFox.

Some alternatives: First there is the open source program KeePass [3]. It's not nearly as well integrated into your browser as RoboForm but it's a very good product that works without any limitations at all. There's also an excellent KeePass plug-in for Internet Explorer that automates web form filling. Yet another possibility is KeyWallet [4] which is superior to KeePass in the way you can drag and drop saved information directly into web forms. Not quite as neat as RoboForm’s click and fill system but still highly effective. KeyWallet can also automatically save form data, handle difficult Java based forms and is skinable.

Code:

[1] http://www.roboform.com/ [2] http://www.roboform.com/dist/AiRoboForm-5-7-6.exe (1.8MB) (Direct download link) [3] http://keepass.sourceforge.net/features.php (857KB) [4] http://www.keywallet.com/ (1.4MB)

Best Free Audio Editing Software

Best Free Audio Editing Software

Thanks to subscriber Jay Eitelman for this suggestion: "Gizmo, I've switched from using $349 Adobe Audition to using Audacity [1]. It does all the recording and editing I need, and is much simpler/faster to use. Check out the noise reduction - it even allows you to select a noise profile - then remove the profile - just like Audition. " Thanks Jay. I note that, according to the web site, Audacity will also "record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files, cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together and change the speed or pitch of a recording."

Subscriber Brandon Tanner however differs: "Audacity is good but you should check out Kristal; I think it might have Audacity's number! To start with, Kristal has an ASIO driver while Audacity doesn't. That means that you can monitor your pre-recorded tracks in real-time while you're overdubbing new ones, mandatory when multi-track recording. You can't do that in Audacity as the latency is too high. Second, Kristal supports VST plug-ins. There are tons of quality VST effects and instruments floating around the net, a lot of them free. Audacity's effects are not quite up to par with some of the better VST ones. Not to bash Audacity but I have to give credit where credit's due. Third, Kristal has a 'proper' multi-track mixer, with a lot more options for routing individual tracks, effects, etc. Don't get me wrong, I like Audacity and I think it's a good program as long as your needs are basic. But Kristal definitely has more 'pro' features."

Rinchen Tsepal takes a different view: "Audacity can support VST plugins but this support is not "built-in" because the code is not 100% open source and must be kept separate for licensing reasons. The "VST Enabler" is available for download from the Audacity website, and is available for Windows, Mac OS-X and for Linux (as a LADSPA bridge apparently). They do claim that support is limited for the time being - but also that full support is coming. Additionally real-time monitoring can be enabled through preferences - although it's not selected by default."

Kristal is based on a 32-bit floating point audio engine that can handle sample rates of 44 to 192 kHz with word sizes of 16, 24 or 32 bit. It comes with a three band parametric EQ and supports WAVE, AIFF, FLAC, OGG Vorbis file formats. It can only handle a maximum of 16 audio tracks, though the web site mentions an upcoming version 2 that will handle more tracks as well as support for MIDI, virtual instruments, and a wider range of VST plugins. Like all media editing programs, Kristal requires a modern fast PC. Don't even think about using it with a sub 1Ghz machine.

Code:

[1] http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Free Open Source, Windows 98 and later (plus MAC and Linux), 2.4 MB [2] http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/ Free for personal use, Win 98/ME with IE6, Win2K, XP, 3.51MB.

Best Free Spell-Checker

Best Free Spell-Checker

This is an impressive little utility that checks individual words on a correct-as-you-type basis, from clipboard contents or from a query box. The provided dictionary is not enormous but more than adequate for normal usage and you can also add words to the dictionary as needed. Resource usage seems modest and the product can be easily enabled/disenabled from the taskbar icon. It has one odd feature; the dictionary has both American and English spelling so words like "color" and "colour" both show as correct. Overall, it's quite a solid product and an excellent companion to WordWeb.

Code:

http://tinyspell.m6.net/ Freeware, Win98 and later, 547KB.

Best Free Dictionary/Thesaurus Utility

Best Free Dictionary/Thesaurus Utility

I've been using WordWeb [1] for a while now and have seen enough to say this will be one of the rare utilities I review that ends up staying on my PC. So what does it do? Well, it's not a spellchecker so let's get that out of the way. If that's what you want, check the next item below. Rather, WordWeb is an enhanced dictionary and thesaurus. I say "enhanced" because it does some tricky extra things like showing only the relevant synonyms and related words according to whether they are noun, verb, adjective or adverb. It can also find words by pattern match or dictionary adjacency. Usage is simple; just select a word in any document and click the WordWeb tray icon. Immediately you'll get a popup with the word's meaning and synonyms. Overall, it works efficiently and elegantly to help you find the just right word to use in your written reports. WordWeb is free for personal use and a Pro version with an enhanced dictionary costs a mere $19 and is well worth buying. An equally attractive alternative to WordWeb is TheSage [2] from Sequence Publishing. Like WordWeb, it's a comprehensive dictionary with over 140,000 references together with a powerful thesaurus. It differs in that it is free even for commercial use and offers a couple of features missing from the free version of WordPro such as anagram solving and wildcard word matches. On the minus side, WordPro allows you to find meanings and synonyms in any application just by double clicking the word; with TheSage you have to cut and paste it into the application after you've launched it from its task bar icon. Picking a winner here is too hard. Try both and decide for yourself. Both products work with Windows 95 and later.

Code:

[1] http://wordweb.info/ (6.96MB) [2] http://www.sequencepublishing.com/thesage.html (8.3MB)

Best Free Disk De-fragmenter

Best Free Disk De-fragmenter

My top recommendation here is Diskeeper Lite [1], an older free version of Executive Software's current commercial Diskeeper product. It works very well indeed given that it is V7 while the current commercial product is at V10 but I've had a few complaints from subscribers about the annoying nag screen. I have no magic fix for this but there are other free defraggers worth considering.

Auslogics Desk Defrag [2] is fast, has a nice disk map, lots of stats and is really easy to use. It's pretty basic but its simplicity and speed make it a good choice for many users.

Even simpler is IObit SmartDefrag [3]. It works away in the background to keep your PC constantly defragged. It's only a beta at the moment but the feedback I've received has been excellent. A true "set and forget solution."

Another possibility is "Contig" [4] from SysInternals, a robust, free, command line utility which defrags one file at a time. It's fast, and safe but is a pain to use however eXcessive software has built an excellent user interface for Contig called "Power Defragmenter" [5] that turns Contig into a really usable product.

Update: Thanks to Vashek Weis for letting me know about how you can get version 9 of Diskeeper Lite. It forms part of Intel's large (89MB) Desktop Utilities package which is available from the Intel site [6]. If you unzip the file you'll find Diskeeper V9 Lite in the folder ../3rdparty/Diskeeper/. Neither the read-me file or the License Agreement prohibit downloading and using this program on a single computer so it appears to be a perfectly legitimate way to obtain the program.

Code:

[1] http://www.majorgeeks.com/Diskeeper_Lite_d1207.html Freeware, all Windows versions,12.1MB [2] http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/index.php Freeware, all Windows versions, 1.4MB [3] http://www.iobit.com/SmartDefrag/index.html Freeware, all Windows versions, 4.3MB [4] http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/Contig.mspx Freeware, NT and later, 55KB [5] http://www.excessive-software.tk/" Freeware, NT and later, 397KB [6] http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/software/idu/

Best Free Non-Adobe PDF Reader

Best Free Non-Adobe PDF Reader

Sick to death of Adobe's slow, bloated PDF Reader? If so then check out the Foxit Reader. It's small, loads in flash, supports bookmarks, has search capability, offers many views and runs on any version of Windows. On top of that it can print PDFs as well. It runs without installation too, so it's ideal for your toolkit CD or USB flash drive.

Code:

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php Freeware, all Windows versions, 915KB.

Best Free Drive Encryption Utility

Best Free Drive Encryption Utility

TrueCrypt is an open-source utility which enables you to create encrypted "virtual drives" of almost unlimited size, where you can securely store files and keep them away from prying
eyes. TrueCrypt offers a wide range of encryption algorithms, including the option to encrypt with multiple algorithms, as well as "plausible deniability" for the benefit of the truly paranoid. The program is very stable (although backups are obviously recommended). Newbies might find the program a bit daunting at first; however, more experienced users who want serious virtual drive encryption would be hard-put to find a better program. Great for protecting your data on USB flash drives too.

Code:

http://www.truecrypt.org/ Freeware, Windows XP, 641KB.

Best Free File Encryption Utility

Best Free File Encryption Utility

This is what the web site says: "dsCrypt is AES/Rijndael file encryption software with simple, multi-file, drag-and-drop operations. It features optimal implementation, performance and safety measures. dsCrypt uses an advanced encryption algorithm and offers unique options for enhanced security." To that I'll add the fact that it's tiny, easy to use, has open code, employs proven techniques that are essentially unbreakable and comes from a highly reputable source. In summary, dsCrypt offers the average user everything they want in a simple file encryption program and it's free. That's why I use it myself. Equally impressive is an Open Source program called AxCrypt. It t provides secure AES-128 encryption using passwords or key-files, which AxCrypt can generate. Usage is wonderfully simple; to encrypt files or folders just right-click them and select "encrypt." while double clicking on encrypted files lets you edit or view them with the program of your choice. Closing any open files automatically re-encrypts.

Code:

http://freezip.cjb.net/freeware/ <=dsCrypt (25KB) http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/ <=AxCrypt (1.02MB).

Best Free CD Catalogue Organizer

Best Free CD Catalogue Organizer I don't really have a need for this kind of product but if you do then you'll be interested in this excellent suggestion from subscriber David Killian Woods. "Disclib is a terrific utility. I archive all of my projects to CD/DVD and keep them in a fireproof box for storage. But there are over 30 full discs now (half are DVDs), and many of them have multiple versions of the same project. Disclib keeps an index of the file/directory structure of every disc, so I can search through them all without having to swap 30 discs in my drive! Invaluable! Thanks for that David, nice find.
Code:
http://www.lyrasoftware.com/disclib/ (1.75mb)

Best Free Encryption Utility for Personal Use at Work

Best Free Encryption Utility for Personal Use at Work Camouflage is a free utility that will hide your personal or confidential files within another file. The neat thing is that the container file looks and works like a normal file of that format. So, by way of example, you could embed a secret message in a Word file which could be opened by anyone and appear to be just a normal Word file. The intended recipient could use their copy of Camouflage to open the file, enter the password and extract the embedded information. This free program is not intended to provide military strength protection but rather a convenient way to sneak information past unnecessarily prying eyes. Note: It looks like the author's web site is down, however you can download Camouflage from the other links below.
Code:
http://arxspace.com/Camouflage/ (2.65mb) http://camouflage.unfiction.com/ http://webmasterfree.com/software/996.html

Best Free Windows Toolbar Backup

Best Free Windows Toolbar Backup Inexperienced PC users just always seem to be losing their Windows and Internet Explorer toolbars. I've never quite worked out exactly how they do it but they sure manage it somehow. Luckily, this free utility makes recovery a snap.
Code:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/ToolbarRepair.Exe

Best Free Internet Accelerator

Best Free Internet Accelerator In a surprise move Google released in early May 2005 a beta version of a new product called the Google Web Accelerator (GWA). Unlike most other accelerators which provide caching on your own PC, the GWA utilizes caching on Google's own dedicated web servers to accelerate browsing. On top of that it uses a number of other techniques to speed thing up including compressing html pages and pre-fetching links. The WGA program automatically installs itself into the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers and can be manually configured to work with other browsers. To protect user privacy the accelerator does not function during connections to secure sites such as internet banking. Does it work? You bet with most users myself included, reporting improvements of 10-40% in browsing speeds. There are however some caveats: First the product is only available for Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP3+. Second the product is optimized for broadband use and modem users may experience little or no gain. Third the system is currently working best within the USA and Europe and users located in other areas will only receive a partial benefit. Fourth there are some potential privacy issues involved so all users should closely read what Google has documented on the subject. Personally I don't have a problem but others mileage may vary. Finally some webmasters have been scare mongering with reports that the GWA pre-fetching function can cause all buttons on a web page to be automatically pressed including things like "delete my subscription." I've looked it this and frankly, every case I've seen has been due to very sloppy web coding. However if you want to be super cautious then I suggest you simply disable the GWA for any page that uses forms and buttons. Personally I think it's a storm in a tea cup. These reservations aside this is a terrific product. It provides for nix almost all of the benefits of expensive commercial web acceleration services like Propel.
Code:
http://webaccelerator.google.com/ http://webaccelerator.google.com/support#basics2 <= FAQ

Best Free Program Un-installer

Best Free Program Un-installer This group of programs has two sub classes: Windows uninstaller replacements and application uninstallers. The Windows Add/Remove Programs applet in the control panel constantly annoys users with its limitations. MyUninstaller [1] is a free program that works just like the Windows Add or Remove Programs applet but is a more capable product than the Windows version. It gives you much more information about each installed program including product name, company, version, uninstall string, installation folder and Windows Registry details. It also allows you to delete orphaned and obsolete entries from the list as well as the ability to save a list of all installed applications into a text file or HTML. My favorite feature though is the ability to sort programs by the date installed which is great for quickly uninstalling programs you are just trying out. As no installation is required, it can be run from a CD or USB drive which makes it an excellent addition to your diagnostic toolkit. An alternative to MyUninstaller that offers similar functionality is Safarp [2], a free Open Source program. It's great strength is its speed - it loads in a flash. Safarp can be be run as a stand alone program or installed and integrated into the Control Panel. MyUninstaller [3] is a free utility from Microsoft that supplements rather than replaces the Windows Add/Remove Programs applet It cleans up dead entries in the Windows Add/Remove programs panel and tidies up the corresponding Windows uninstaller registry entries. None of these programs can of course, remove leftover registry entries, DLLs and files that belong to defunct programs. To do this you need an application uninstaller i.e. a program that monitors the original install so that it can work out exactly what changes are made during installation. The only free program I'm aware of that does monitored installs and uninstalls is the last free version of the commercial product Total Uninstall 2 which is still available from some download sites [4]. It doesn't offer the impressive features of the latest commercial version but is quite capable. Somewhat less less capable is InstallWatch [5], a former commercial utility that is now offered for free. It logs the registry and file changes made when you install software and hardware but unlike Total Uninstall, it cannot automatically uninstall products. None-the-less it is a handy utility to have in your toolkit.
Code:
[1] http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/myuninst.html Free for personal use, Windows 98 and later, 40KB [2] http://wistinga.online.fr/safarp/ Free Open Source, Windows 2000 and later, 133KB. [3] http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=290301 All Windows versions, 1.23MB. [4] http://freeware4u.com/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=234 All Windows Versions, 684KB [5] http://www.epsilonsquared.com/ Freeware, Windows 98 and later, 3.7MB

Best Free Windows Driver Backup

Best Free Windows Driver Backup DoubleDriver allows you to view, backup and restore you Windows drivers. It also allows you to print out a driver list. It doesn't seem to have been updated recently but works fine on my XP SP2 PC. Before backing up it's a good idea to use Windows Device Manager to check that all your drivers are working properly.
Code:
http://boozet.xepher.net/dd/index.htm Freeware, Windows 98 and later, 1.4MB

Best Free PIM

Best Free PIM If you needs are basic there's Sunbird [1]. It's a small, resource efficient calendaring application and has a really neat feature that displays your to-do list for the day on your desktop . However it really is a bit minimal. Users of the Thunderbird email client would be better off with the Lightning extension [2] rather than Sunbird as it integrates calendaring features directly into the Thunderbird interface. If you want more features, check out EssentialPIM [3]. It does many of the same things as Outlook and will import your Outlook data as well. Abassis Work Desktop [4] is a $59 commercial PIM and project manager that's available to individuals for non-commercial use. It's a pretty impressive product that offers contact management, calendaring, to-lists, reminders, document filing and simple project management. Backup is built into the product. The only thing I could see that was missing was an integrated email client. Yet another alternative is the PalmOne Desktop program [5]. The program is designed specifically for use with Palm devices but it works perfectly well all by itself. It's an excellent full function PIM; if you think Microsoft Outlook without the email client you'll get the general idea. I only did a quick check-out rather than a full review but what I saw seemed pretty solid. Naturally a few things such as "Synchronize" don't work without an attached Palm device but most functions work just fine. I also checked the licensing agreement and while it's a little ambiguous I suspect its OK for personal use. Indeed, I can't see Palm objecting as it may well encourage you to buy one of their hand-helds. ;>)
Code:
[1] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird.html Free Open Source, Windows 2000 and later, 5.8MB [2] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/ [3] http://www.essentialpim.com/ (1.2MB) [4] http://www.abassis.com/index.html Free for non commercial use, All Windows versions, 1.7MB [5] http://www.palm.com/us/software/desktop/ Free for personal use, Windows NT SP6 or later plus Mac OS X, 42MB.

Best Free Remote Access Software

Best Free Remote Access Software There are several good choices here all of which are variants of the classic AT&T VNC program. A short list would include RealVNC, TightVNC, EsVNC and Ultr@VNC. Each has its merits but my top pick goes to Ultr@VNC as because of its active development, good forum support and an excellent encryption plug-in. Ultr@VNC [1] is a client/server package that allows remote control of another PC using any TCP/IP connection. It works with Windows W9x/NT/2K/XP and offers all the features you need including auto-configuration, easy user interface, extensive hotkeys and embedded file transfer. Add to that the fact that it's free, secure, reliable and reasonably speedy and you have a winner. Just the thing for accessing your home PC while traveling, off-site troubleshooting or general network administration. An alternative to VNC based products is the free version of the commercial remote access product LogMeIn [2]. This is a web based service that's extremely easy to set up and use and can be accessed from any PC with a browser. The free version won't allow file transfer and remote printing but is a great solution for accessing your remote data as well as file sharing. Registration is required.
Code:
[1] http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/ [2] https://secure.logmein.com

Best Free Data Recovery Utility

Best Free Data Recovery Utility PC Inspector File Recovery 4 is a free utility that does an impressive job recovering accidentally deleted files or files lost through corruption of the file system. It works with the FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file systems which pretty well covers all Windows installations. It has some nice features, like the ability to recover files with lost headers, and to recover partitions even when the boot sector has been lost or damaged. It even supports the saving of recovered files on network drives. Experienced users will find the product relatively easy to use but novices may be challenged. Data recovery by its very nature is a demanding task and cannot be reduced to simply pushing a button. This is no home written utility - it is a serious product from a reputable German company with a long history in commercial data recovery. PC Inspector is the ideal product for those who want the security of a data recovery program but are not prepared to fork our big bucks for the extra features of high end products.
Code:
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm Freeware, Windows 98 and later, 5.8MB

Best Free NFO Viewer

Best Free NFO Viewer Many freeware files are distributed with descriptive NFO and DIZ files as part of the distribution package. These are just plain text files so you can view them with Notepad or other text editor but often the formatting is lost. Try this tiny little viewer that's built for the job. It's free and once associated with the NFO and DIZ file types, works seamlessly, a true "install and forget" product.
Code:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Text-editors/DAMN-NFO-Viewer.shtml

Best Free Wi-Fi Network Finder Utility

Best Free Wi-Fi Network Finder Utility NetStumbler is a free packet sniffer utility used to locate Wi-Fi networks. It's one of the first tools of its kind and arguably still the best. So much so that it is the standard product used by war-drivers in their perpetual search for free bandwidth via unsecured Wi-Fi networks as well as road- warriors looking to connect their laptops back to the office. Basically it's a wireless packet sniffer that lists all networks available at a given geographical location. For each network it displays over 20 different parameters including the signal strength, noise level, encryption method used, GPS coordinates and more. It's a great product with a couple of caveats: first, it only works with specific wireless card chipsets and if yours is not one these then you are out of luck. However, most Centrino-based laptops work fine including many Dells and IBMs. Second, the program won't connect you to a network; you have to do that by other means. That said, NetStumbler is a valuable product for any laptop user who accesses Wi-Fi systems while on the road. It's also a standard tool in trade for IT security workers who need to audit Wi-Fi security.
Code:
http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/ Freeware, all Windows versions

Best Free Startup Manager

Best Free Startup Manager Everyone needs a startup program utility so they can exercise control over what third party programs start automatically with Windows. There are several fine choices: The first is Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel [1]. It’s small, and easy to use yet has powerful features including the ability to edit or add entries. A second and equally good choice is Nir Sofer's StartupRun [2]. Unlike Startup Control Panel it lists all startup programs in a single list rather than in tabs according to location. It also has a lot more information on each program and has extensive editing features as well which means that it's definitely not for Newbies. Then there's Starter [3]. It combines many of the strengths of the other products and additionally includes a first rate process viewer. As a bonus, it can be run directly from the executable without installation which makes it a handy item to have on your toolkit CD or flash drive. Folks you are truly spoiled by choice here, each one of these products is a winner. NOTE: It appears Starter has become so popular that the author's website has exceeded its download limit so I've given an alternative [4] download link.
Code:
[1] http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml (59KB) [2] http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/strun.html (68KB) [3] http://codestuff.netfirms.com/products_starter.html (466KB) [4] http://www.snapfiles.com/get/starter.html (468KB) <= Alternate Starter download site

Best Free Time Correction Utility

Best Free Time Correction Utility A lot of folks have difficulty getting time correction software to work on their PC. If that's you then you should try Dimension 4, a free utility that gives you the choice of connecting to a time server either by standard TCP protocol or by the more common (and more problem-prone) SNTP protocol. If you haven't yet got a time correction utility, this is the one. It's free, it’s easy to use, and it has every function that you could conceivably want. Because it works from both the command line and Windows, it's ideal for batch files, too.
Code:
http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/ (294kb)

Best Free Paint Program

Best Free Paint Program Although they overlap in function, paint programs are really a different class of product from digital editors such as Photoshop and The Gimp. Paint programs are specifically designed to facilitate freehand drawing. They are ideal for sketching, painting, creating animations and special effects. Most folks have dabbled with Microsoft Paint (aka Paintbrush for Windows), which comes free with most versions of the operating system. In fact MS Paint is probably responsible for the generally bad reputation of paint programs. Early versions could only produce crude two dimensional drawings with jagged edges and no color gradients. Its free availability also encouraged untalented amateurs to produce works that could only be described as abysmal. Past reputation aside, the latest XP version of Microsoft Paint is actually a very capable and resource efficient product and deserves to be more widely used. In the hands of a good pixel artist it can give excellent results. My favorite free paint program is however, not Microsoft Paint but Project DogWaffle. This is a commercial product but the developer offers an older version (V1.2) as freeware. The free version is surprisingly full featured. It has a comprehensive set of tools including fully customizable brushes, lots of filters and effects, multiple color selection options, a good set of color gradients, animation aids and more. On the downside the program runs slowly on older PCs, has limited layer support, has a clunky cut and paste mechanism and only handles .BMP and Targa files. Like all graphics editors, you'll need to invest a bit of time to learn how best to use DogWaffle but those with artistic skills will find the effort well rewarded.
Code:
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/free/index.html Freeware, all Windows versions, 4.5MB.

Best Free File Comparison Utility

Best Free File Comparison Utility WinMerge is a free Windows utility that compares two files and identifies the differences. The differences can then be merged from one file into the other. This is the sort of product that is ideal when you have several different versions of a file and are not sure of how they differ. The product is geared to text files so it won't be much use to you with Word Processing or other complex formatted documents But for text reports or computer programs, WinMerge is ideal.
Code:
http://winmerge.sourceforge.net/ (514kb)

Best Free PDF Writer

Best Free PDF Writer The top choice here is PDFCreator, an open source program from SourceForge that works by setting up a pseudo printer in your system. To create a PDF you just select the PDF "printer" and write to it. This means you can create PDFs from Word, Excel or indeed any program that allows you to print. A good second choice is CutePDF Writer a which is cut-down version of the commercial CutePDF product. It works in a similar way to PDFCreator and it's free for both personal and commercial use.
Code:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57796&package_id=53473 (2.6MB) http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp (1.04MB)

Best Free Digital Image Stitcher

Best Free Digital Image Stitcher I use an impressive $59 commercial product called PhotoVista Panorama to stitch together my digital images into panoramas. I'm very happy with it but must admit to feeling a little despondent when I discovered this utility that works just as well and is free. It's called AutoStitch and is the product Matthew Brown, a PhD student at the University of British Columbia. No, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of PhotoVista but the stitching to my eye, is actually better. The way it automatically aligns haphazard mosaics of photos without any human intervention borders on the miraculous. The author is currently looking for a commercial backer but in the interim, the product is free for personal use.
Code:
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html (1mb)

Best Free Rename Utility

Best Free Rename Utility If you want industrial strength file renaming there are several great choices: First there's Lupas Rename 2000 [1]. This is a small utility for Win 98 and later that globally renames all the files in a directory and its subdirectories. It can convert names to upper/lower case, change the case of the first letter, add text, left crop, right crop and just about anything else you can think of. And unlike DOS based utilities, it will work on hidden files as well. Add in a nice GUI interface, an undo feature, full preview of changes, MP3 tag renaming, support for regular expressions and the fact that it's free and you have an outstanding product. The second and equally attractive option is Flexible Renamer [2]. It's quite similar to Lupas and choosing between them is not easy. Lupas seems to me to be easier to use for simply renaming files while Flexible Renamer has the edge with MP3 tags. Flexible Renamer can also can bulk change file attributes while Lupas can't. It also runs without installation, a definite plus. A third choice is Bulk Rename [3]. It's a bit like Lupas Rename and Flexible Renamer rolled into one product. That means more power but at the cost of greater complexity and a steeper learning curve. Indeed the option-laden opening screen would scare the pants off average users. However it is the bulk re-namer product I like most and many power users would I suspect, agree. However if you only need a re-namer for re-labeling digital photos and MP3 files you might like instead to looked at a program [4] called "THE Rename" (sic). that's better suited to these tasks. It's freeware and works on all versions of Windows though usage is not very intuitive.
Code:
[1] http://www.azheavymetal.com/~lupasrename/lupasrename.php Freeware, all Windows versions, 734KB [2] http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA014830/english/FlexRena/ Freeware, all Windows versions, 648KB [3] http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php Freeware, Windows 98SE and later, 622KB [4] http://www.herve-thouzard.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=1 Freeware, all Win versions, 2.9MB

Best Free Outliner

Best Free Outliner I'm not a great fan of outliners - my brain doesn't work that way. Some folks however, swear by them and if that includes you, then you should check out Keynote, a freeware program that has a dedicated band of followers. Its major design attribute is its ease of use. Words like "natural" and "seamless" come close to the mark but really don't capture the essence of what is really a great design. What do you do with it? Well to quote the web site “KeyNote is used by screenwriters to draft screenplays, by medical doctors to keep patient databases, by developers to store source code snippets - and to everyone it serves as a place to put all the random pieces of information that have no particular structure of relationship to other data, and do not fit easily in task-specific applications such as word-processors, databases or spreadsheets.” Unfortunately the program is no longer being developed but is totally usable in its current form. If you find that a turn-off you might like to consider NeoMem [2] as an alternative. It's not really a dedicated outliner rather more of a general purpose note taking program that can be used as an outliner. It's a kind of hybrid of a database and word processor that's designed to allow you to organize, store, hyperlink and search information. That bland description totally under-sells the product. It's one of those programs that you really need to use in order to understand the potential. It works with all Windows versions so try it. Another possibility is FreeMind [3]. It's an Open Source program "mind mapping" program written in Java that can serve as an outliner as well. Functionally it's closer to Keynote than NeoMem. It's slower than Keynote but is more powerful for mapping complex relationships.
Code:
[1] http://www.tranglos.com/free/index.html Free Mozilla Public license, Windows 98 and later, 1.7MB [2] http://www.neomem.org/ Free MIT X11 License, all Windows versions, 680KB [3] http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page Free Open Source, any system with Java, 3MB.

Best Free Search and Replace Utility

Best Free Search and Replace Utility Many programs have a search and replace function that allows you to replace text in the file you are currently editing. However search and replace utilities allow you to replace text across multiple files or folders. The most powerful free program in this class is BK ReplaceEm [1]. It will carry out replacements in individual files, in a group of selected files, in a set of files determined by a file mask or indeed every file in a folder. Replacement can be by text string or by using regular expressions. You can even replace text within a nominated range such as html tags. The interface is both logical and powerful but it does take a little getting used so read the Help file before using. Power users need look no further than this product. A little less powerful but a tad easier for normal users is A.F.9 from Fauland [2]. It allows multiple search and replace operations in the one pass, can save search and replace operations for later re-use and has full drag and drop support. Note that these programs are designed for use on text based files such as .txt and .html and must not be used on binary files or proprietary formats such as Microsoft Word. If you want to search and replace these kind of files then check out InfoRapid Search and Replace [3]. It's not as powerful as the best binary editors but with suitable add-ins it can handle certain Microsoft Office file types plus .rtf and .pdf.
Code:
[1] http://www.orbit.org/replace/ Freeware, all Windows versions, 572KB [2] http://www.fauland.com/af9.htm Freeware, all Windows versions, 992KB [3] http://www.inforapid.de/html/searchreplace.htm Free for private use, 1.03MB

Best Free System Information Utility

Best Free System Information Utility The freeware utility AIDA32 was the best system information / inventorying tool ever, regardless of price. It documented just about every aspect of your hardware and software configuration as well as checking networks and providing memory benchmarks. However the developer announced in March 2004 that the free product had been frozen and development work shifted to another organization where AIDA32 was re-launched as a commercial product called Everest [1]. You can however still find the old AIDA32 at the second link below [2] and the non-discontinued free version of Everest called Everest Home here [3]. The old AIDA32 works better across networks while Everest Home covers more modern hardware than AIDA32. Another inventory utility for networks is Spiceworks [4], currently available as a free beta version. It's a browser based inventory program that allows LAN managers to quickly discover and document the hardware, software and patch status of their network PCs. That rather bland description seriously under-sells the usefulness of this product. It's got a terrific filter system that allows you to target your inventory request plus a highly customizable reporting system. On top of that it has a great interface, is easy to use, can handle Linux and Mac OS X workstations and uses standard network protocols. If you only need to inventory a single PC then you should also check out Belarc Advisor [5]. It's free for non commercial use and while not quite as thorough as AIDA32, it has the advantage of being actively developed. My current favorite for home use is the SIW utility [6] written by Gabriel Topala. It "displays detailed specs for motherboard, BIOS, CPU, devices, memory, video, disk drives, ports, printers, operating system, installed programs, processes, services, serial numbers (CD keys), users, open files, system uptime, network, network shares, as well as real-time monitors for CPU, memory, page file usage and network traffic. It also displays currently active network connections, passwords hidden behind asterisks, installed codecs, and more. " That's impressive enough for a freebie but my favorite feature is SIW does not need installing; all you need to do is run the executable. This means one less installed program on your PC as well the fact that you can run the program directly from a USB flash drive.
Code:
[1] http://www.lavalys.com/products.php?lang=en [2] http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html Freeware, all Windows versions, 2.9MB [3] http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html Freeware, all Windows versions, 4.0MB [4] http://www.spiceworks.com/ Free beta, Windows XP Pro with 512MB RAM on the administrator's PC, 7MB. [5] http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html Free for personal use, all Windows versions, 945KB [6] http://www3.sympatico.ca/gtopala/about_siw.html Freeware, Win98 and later, 1.18MB

Best Free Process Viewer

Best Free Process Viewer PrcView has long been my personal choice but Process Explorer [1] has pushed it aside. The reason? A better display setup coupled with more features and even more information. Process Explorer uses two vertical panes. The top contains all active processes while the second shows either all the handles opened by a selected process or, optimally, a list of DLLs and memory mapped files. A very handy search feature allows you to work backwards from named DLLs or handles to the owning process. The feature list is almost endless though only a few will ever be used but average users. The latest V10 release adds even more features including a faster refresh rate. Quite simply Process Explorer is an astonishing product and a freeware gem. Another option is What's Running [2] , a new comer that has number of features that could make it the best choice for a lot of users. First, processes are shown in a tree rather than a list, a representation that makes the parent and child relationship crystal clear. Second, What's Running doesn't only show processes; it also displays, in separate tabs, running services, dlls, drivers, IP connections, startup programs and system information. The startup tabs and IP tabs are of particular interest as they are of sufficient quality that you don't need separate dedicated applications to provide this information. So is What's Running better than Process Explorer? For expert users no, but all other users will benefit from the clear, non-confusing display and the fact they get a first class startup manager and IP enumerator in a single product. NOTE: If you can't download What's Running from the developers website [2] try the MajorGeeks download site [3].
Code:
[1] http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html Freeware, Windows 9x and later, 640KB. [2] http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/main.aspx Free beta, Windows 2000 and later, 1.09MB [3] http://www.majorgeeks.com/Whats_Running_d4778.html <= alternative download link

Best Free Registry Editor

Best Free Registry Editor I've used the full version of Resplendent Registry Editor for years and have never had any reason to look for an alternative. Recently a subscriber asked me what was the best free registry editor and that made me realize I've never looked at that particular product category. The first product I checked out was Registrar Lite [1], the free version of Resplendent Registry Editor and I'd have to say it's an impressive freebie. To start with, it works totally reliably - an essential feature for any registry editor. On top of that, the user interface is simple, the functionality excellent and, perhaps most importantly, it has a really fast search. I did, however, miss a "search and delete" option - that's unfortunately only available on the full product. That said, it leaves Regedit for dead. If you know a better free registry editor, drop me an email. NOTE: It looks like Resplendent have pulled the Lite download page from their site. You can still get it though from various download sites including MajorGeeks [2].
Code:
[1] http://www.resplendence.com/reglite Freeware, All Windows versions, 2.0MB. [2] http://www.majorgeeks.com/download469.html

Best Free Sticky Notes Utility

Best Free Sticky Notes Utility Some people hate these programs others swear they can't work effectively without them. I used to be in the first category but with so many things on my plate these days, I'm slowly being converted. The function that I find really useful is the reminder that pops up at a designated time and date. I use it for simple things like "put up the latest issue on the web site." ATnotes is a neat implementation that features configurable alarms, resizable windows, variable fonts and a host of other useful features. The product is remarkably similar to the class-leading commercial sticky notes utility called, TurboNotes, a case perhaps of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. NOTE: As of the 30th of May 2005, development work has ceased and the author's site pulled down. However someone has built a mirror of the author's site [1] where you can read about ATnotes and download the final version. You can also download ATNotes from the a number of other sites including the second link below. If you want an alternative that is still being developed try StickyPad. Some folks actually prefer it to ATnotes and I must admit the interface is very slick but I find the alarm function to be rather inflexible. It cannot for example handle recurring events such as birthdays. If you want that functionality you are better of with another sticky note program called "Stickies" from Zhorn Software. It's not quite as svelte as the other two programs I've mentioned but it's very effective in operation.
Code:
[1] http://atnotes.free.fr/news.html (723KB) [2] http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,17660,00.asp [3] http://www.greeneclipsesoftware.com/stickypad.html (550KB) [4] http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/ (596KB) 40 Best Free Secure Erase Utility Eraser [1] is a free, GNU license utility that will securely erase files, folders or even whole disks from any Windows or DOS PC. Eraser overwrites data area with selectable random data patterns and also wipes data in the paging file, Internet cache, temporary files, Internet cookies, unused disk space and a number of other places where data can secretly lurk. It handles FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS partitions as well. Erasing files with high security will always be a difficult and time consuming task and can never offer absolute 100% safety. However Eraser makes the task about as easy as it be, with a security level beyond most conceivable requirements. The author's site is sometimes unavailable but you can find Eraser at numerous download sites including MajorGeeks [2]. If Eraser is overkill for your needs try Simple File Shredder[3]. It's not as comprehensive a solution to secure deletion as Eraser but it's much easier to use. Another rather different alternative is Darik's Boot and Nuke [3]. Its an Open Source program that's used to construct a floppy disk or CD that will automatically wipe the all hard drives of any PC booted from the disk. It's great for bulk disk cleaning of PCs and is useful too as an emergency tool for quickly removing sensitive information. However this power makes it a dangerous tool in the hands of beginners.
Code:
[1] http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ Free GNU license, all Windows versions, 2.4MB [2] http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4221.html [2] http://www.scar5.com Freeware, Windows NT and later, 1.24MB [3] http://dban.sourceforge.net/ Free Open Source, All Windows versions, 1.99MB

Best Free Resource Meter

Best Free Resource Meter This is cute. TinyResMeter [1] is an itsy-bitsy system monitor. Unlike many other monitors, it doesn't consume a lot of CPU utilization in order to tell you your CPU utilization. In addition to CPU usage, you can optionally monitor cache, RAM, page file and swap file usage, running processes and threads, disk space utilization and a number of other parameters as well. Also built-in, is a screen grabber that saves the current screen to disk when you press PrintScreen. How the author fits all this into 92KB beats me. A new version is on the way offering even more functionality. If you are like something a little fancier than TinyResMeter then check out StatBar [2]. It's got more features than you could ever want though but at the cost of a higher resource overhead needed to run the program. Nice product though and easy to try out as the program doesn't require installation.
Code:
[1] http://www.pesoft.com (92KB) [2] http://www.statbar.nl/ (1.65MB)

Best Free File Cleaner

Best Free File Cleaner My first choice here is CCleaner [1], a product that started off as pretty basic but has continued to improve to the point where it is now very close to the best in its class regardless of price. It's very effective in freeing up disk space by removing unused and temporary files, cookies, Recycle bin entries, Windows hot-fix files, sold prefetch data, history and cache files in many applications such as Internet Explorer and Firefox and much more. Additionally it will check the Windows Registry for invalid entries. There are some minuses: first the installation settings are quite aggressive so do check them carefully. Second the product installation, by default, includes the installation of the Yahoo Toolbar so if you don't want it, make sure you uncheck that option. Finally I wouldn't trust this product to do your Registry cleaning; that's a job for a specialist utility. Similarly if your aim is to remove all your surfing traces rather than just to clean up your disk I'd be inclined to use a specialist cache cleaner. However if simply freeing up disk space is your objective the CCleaner is hard to beat. A good companion to CCleaner is Empty Temp Folders. It's not as complete a product as CCleaner and it's been a while since it was last updated however I find it always manages to clean more temporary file than CCleaner. That's why I suggest you use both. Another cleaner with a solid following is Steven Gould's CleanUP! [3] It's a compact, well designed and very well maintained and is a real alternative to CCleaner. I've had a couple of instances of it causing problems on my test PC but this may be specific to my setup. Certainly the feedback I get from users has been uniformly excellent.
Code:
[1] http://www.ccleaner.com/ Freeware, all Windows versions, 1.4MB [2] http://www.danish-shareware.dk/soft/emptemp Freeware, Windows 98 and later, 667KB [3] http://www.stevengould.org/software/cleanup/download.html Freeware, Windows version unstated, 331KB.

Best Free TCP Settings Tweaker

Best Free TCP Settings Tweaker Whether you use a modem or broadband, you'll get a faster connection if you tweak your connection's TCP parameters. Among the most important of these is MaxMTU which, in simple terms, needs to be set to the largest value possible without your data being broken up into smaller chunks en-route. Most techies determine MaxMTU by trial and error pinging using different packet sizes but it's a tedious procedure and definitely not for beginners. TCPOptimizer from SpeedGuide.net is a free utility that will do the job for you automatically. Furthermore, it will use this value to advise you on your other TCP settings and then apply these values at the press of the button. There are commercial programs that will do much the same thing but TCPOptimizer does it just as well and is totally free. The only minus is the lack of in-program help however you'll find a useful FAQ at the SpeedGuide site. (225KB)
Code:
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php http://www.speedguide.net/faq_in.php?category=100

Best Free Download/Upload Meter

Best Free Download/Upload Meter NetMeter [1] shows upload and download speeds, along with cumulative weekly and monthly volumes and projected values. The program reminds me in many ways of Hagel's excellent $20 shareware product "DU Meter." It's freeware and works with all Windows versions. In essence, everything you really need for nix. A good second choice if you have the Microsoft .NET package already installed on your PC is BitMeter II from Codebox Software [2] . It's a little more feature rich than NetMeter but uses a tad more of your PCs resources to deliver those features.
Code:
[1] http://readerror.gmxhome.de/ (601KB) [2] http://codebox.no-ip.net/controller?page=bitmeter2 (806KB)

Best Free Web Site Ripper

Best Free Web Site Ripper HTTrack is one impressive product: it's easy to use, has an excellent user interface, offers every feature you could want, is blindingly fast and free of any adware as well. If you like to download web sites so that you can "browse them offline", this is the product to get.
Code:
http://www.httrack.com/ Free GPL, All Windows versions, 3.3MB

Best Free Download Manager

Best Free Download Manager You have several good choices in this category. To me a good downloader is one that does the job, is well integrated into your browser and is not intrusive. That's why my top recommendation for some time has been Star Downloader [1]. Unfortunately the freeware version has been effectively frozen at version 1.44 with future enhancements restricted to the shareware version. It is however, still a fine choice. After trying half a dozen other products, I've settled on "Free Download Manager" [2] as my current top selection. It's fast, stable and integrates well into both Internet Explorer, Opera and Firefox though the later works best with the free FlashGot extension installed. "Free Download Manager" offers simultaneous multi-part downloads, easy restarting and recovery, a powerful scheduler, downloading from mirrors and just about everything else you need in a download utility. Additionally, there is no embedded adware or nag screen. I've had some reports that the author's site shows up red on McAfee site Advisor and I've recently double checked the download file and it is 100% clean. However the cautious may want to download it from Softpedia [3] who also rate it as "spyware free." After using it for a couple of weeks, I've decided that it's actually just as good as Star Downloader with the advantage that it's still being actively developed. Indeed, version 2 released in April 2006 adds even more features to this already impressive product. If you are looking for another option the commercial FlashGet [4] program is now available for free. It's certainly full featured and nicely integrated but I find it overly complex to use. The product has a bit of a history of bundling in other products with the install but when I tried V1.72, it was totally clean. Another excellent choice is the time-proven LeechGet [5] program which is free for personal use. Again it's got pretty well everything that you want in a download manager. Some folks find its colorful graphical presentation attractive, I find it a little gaudy and intrusive. Looks aside it certainly does its job well. Note that the indicated download rates are a tad optimistic so don't mistake this for superior performance. There is a separate plug-in for Mozilla/Firefox, Netscape and Opera integration. Finally for Firefox users there is the superb free add-in called DownThemAll [6]. It's not as configurable as some of the other products I've recommended but for most users it's all they will ever need.
Code:
[1] http://www.stardownloader.com/downloads.php Freeware, All Windows versions, 2.34MB [2] http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/download.htm Freeware, All Windows versions, 1.59MB [3] http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Download-Managers/Free-Download-Manager.shtml [4] http://www.flashget.com/index_en.htm Freeware, all Windows versions, 1.43MB [5] http://www.leechget.net/en/ Free for personal use, All Windows versions, 2.9MB [6] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/201/ Free Firefox extension, 425KB

Best Free Search Toolbar

Best Free Search Toolbar Search toolbars allow users to do web searches without having to go first to the home page of a search engine. This really saves a lot of time. In the last year search toolbars have become a hotly competed product class and as result, users now have an excellent choice. The "best" in terms of features is probably Yahoo's Toolbar whose features include anti-spyware capabilities as well as popup blocking. It's for Internet Explorer but they are currently offering a beta version for Firefox. My only beef with the Yahoo product is that I prefer to use Google for my web searches rather than Yahoo and that's why I use the Google Toolbar which also offers popup blocking though no anti-spyware features. On the other hand it includes a useful web form spell-checker and a few other goodies not found in the Yahoo product. Google also offers a full Firefox version as well as the standard IE version. Some folks still like Dave’s Quick Search Bar because it gives access to multiple search engines. Another advantage is that it resides in your task bar rather than your browser so it's easily accessible from any application. Other Dave's features include a dictionary, thesaurus, calculator and a lot of customizability.
Code:
http://toolbar.yahoo.com/ie (3MB) http://www.dqsd.net/ (327KB) http://toolbar.google.com/deskbar/ (447KB)

Best Free Screen Capture Utility

Best Free Screen Capture Utility Three recommendations here: The first is PrintScreen [1]. It's a prime example of the KISS principle. It does exactly what I want, in the way I want while avoiding the trap of providing lots of useless and confusing features. It's the little things that count like making the hot key PrtSc so I don't have to remember it, and automatically sequentially naming the output files for multiple screen shots. A second recommendation is Screen Hunter [2]. It's a commercial product but the "lite" free version is excellent, offering more features than Gadwin at the cost of a little added complexity. It can save in .jpg, .bmp or .gif formats. Also highly recommended is FastStone's Screen Capture [3] It doesn't require installation and yet has more features than you could ever want including the ability to capture scrolling screen shots across more than one screen page. It can also save in BMP, JPEG, JPEG2000, PNG, GIF, TIFF and TGA formats. In many ways it's like the full commercial version of ScreenHunter except that it's free for personal use. NOTE: Since version 5.4 Screencapture has become commercial shareware. You can however get the last free version from here [4] All three products work with Win 98 and later versions.
Code:
[1] http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/?prnscr (2.7MB) [2] http://www.wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter.htm (2.6MB) [3] http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm (1.4MB) [4] http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/FastStoneCapture.html

Best Free Folder Synchronization Utility

Best Free Folder Synchronization Utility This is getting scary. First I recommend Microsoft Defender and now I'm going to recommend another Microsoft product as the best in this category. Well, equal best. It's called SyncToy v1.0 for Windows XP [1] and, as the name implies, is only for XP - SP2. This program is more than a syncing program; it can copy, move, rename, and delete files between any number of folders and even computers. The program operates on the principal of pre-defined folder pairs. You define and name these pairs and then when you want to perform a sync or other task, you recall one of these pairs and carry out the operation. Syncing can be in either direction and covers all options from complete sync to updating newer files only. The handling of files with changed file names is exceptional as is the backup of overwritten files. Overall, pretty well everything you ever wanted in a sync utility. Note that SyncToy requires V1.1 of Microsoft's .NET framework. Also highly recommended is 2brightspark's SyncBack [2]. It works for Windows 98 and later and has a number of features that SyncToy lacks such as the ability to sync to a remote FTP server.
Code:
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649- CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en (844KB) [2] http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html (1.9MB)

Best Free Bookmark Cleaner

Best Free Bookmark Cleaner AM-DeadLink scans your browser bookmark file for dead links or duplicate links. When I tried it on my huge favorites file I discovered 17% of my links were dead. I've now got a much leaner set of favorites and the comfort of knowing that the links actually work. Freeware, all Windows versions, Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox, 1.1MB.
Code:
http://aignes.com/press/deadlink140.htm

The Best Free FTP Client

The Best Free FTP Client I used WS_FTP Pro as my principal FTP client for years. What started out as simple but effective product gradually with each new version became more feature-bloated and less effective for simple routine tasks. With the release of Version 9 it was clear to me that the product had totally lost its way so I started looking for an alternative. After trying seven different FTP clients I decided that the best for me was the Open Source utility FileZilla [1]. It uses a simple layout based on a two pane interface that looks a bit like the early versions of WS_FTP. But this simplicity is deceptive, it is actually a quite powerful product There's a full featured site manager, firewall and proxy support, SSL and Kerberos GSS security, restart, drop and drag and a lot more. The only significant feature that's missing is site-to-site transfer but that's of no importance to me. What is of importance is that FileZilla is fast, totally reliable, secure and and very easy to use. There's also a free FileZilla FTP server which I haven't used but I hear that it's just as good as the client. If you find FileZilla's user interface a little minimal you may want to try SmartFTP [2]. It's a commercial product but is free for personal, educational or non-profit use. If you want a SCP (secure copy) client for Windows that uses SSH and offers a rich feature set there's WinSCP [3]. It features a built-in terminal, it can launch Putty directly, allows remotely file editing edit files, direct transfer and transfer queuing and the ability to limit download speed rates. Me, I'll stick with FileZilla.
Code:
[1] http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/ Free Open Source, Windows NT and later, 3.4MB [2] http://www.smartftp.com/ Free for non commercial use, Windows 2000 and later 3.3MB [3] http://winscp.net/eng/index.php Free GNU license, All Windows version, (1.4MB)

Best Free BitTorrent Client

Best Free BitTorrent Client It's amazing how quickly BitTorrent has become one of the major download formats. With good reason, too: it's fast, equitable and efficient. If you haven't yet installed a BitTorrent client on your PC, you should as there are some great free clients available. I recommend the Open Source program Azureus [1]. It's beautifully implemented, well supported and, being Java based, is available for multiple platforms. It's very feature rich and supports embedded tracker so you can host your own torrents, UPnP, a distributed decentralized database for decentralized torrents and DHT (Distributed Hash Table) which distributes indexing responsibility across multiple clients rather than relying on a single web-based tracker plus many other features too numerous to mention. There are also a lot of plug-ins available for Azureus including a competent RSS feed scanner. One downside with Azureus is that the Java code will eat up your CPU cycles so you need a reasonably fast PC. A good alternative is uTorrent [2] which comes in at a tiny 170KB. Small it may be but it's very fast and will show Azureus a clean pair of heels of most downloads. It's also lean on resources, easy to use and requires no installation. It formidable feature list includes trackerless downloads, multiple simultaneous downloads, multi-scrape, UPnP and has an inbuilt RSS reader which is an impressive achievement for such a tiny package .One downside is that uTorrent has recently been acquired by BitTorrent.com, a company that many torrent users feel is uncomfortably close to digital copyright owners and their RIAA enforcers. A new arrival on the scene is BitTyrant, a hot-rodded version of Azureus.. The modification is fiendishly clever. While most clients only consider the number of peers available for downloading, BitTyrant also considers the capacity of each peer and the data rate required to ensure reciprocation. It then utilizes this information using a dynamic algorithm to send only to the highest capacity peers data at the minimum rate for them to reciprocate. In plain English this translates to your downloads running faster, much faster; around 65% on my tests. Now, the standard Azureus client may be one of the most full featured clients available but it's certainly not the fastest kid on the block. With the BitTyrant mods, though, it's a speed demon. In fact, it's the fastest client I've tried. But there's a downside: this kind of mod breaks down some of the fairness characteristics of the BitTorrent protocol. If you are not comfortable with that then don't use BitTyrant.
Code:
[1] http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ Open source, any PC that supports Java, 8.6MB [2] http://www.utorrent.com/ Freeware, all Windows versions, 170KB [3] http://bittyrant.cs.washington.edu/ Freeware, any PC that supports Java, 8.1MB

Best Free Registry Cleaner

Best Free Registry Cleaner

In my mind the best registry cleaner is one which reliably fixes problem entries but doesn't itself cause problems in the process. The products most likely to possess these qualities are those that are conservative in operation and confine their cleaning to removing definite and unambiguous errors. I say this because I have seen as many problems created by registry cleaners as problems solved. This view flies in the face of many who consider, for whatever reason, that the best registry cleaner is the one that finds the most problems. To me such products are dangerous and not worth owning.

That said, my top recommendation is Toni Helenius' free EasyCleaner [1] . It's a good reliable, conservative performer that will fix all major problems with a low risk of creating problems of its own As a bonus, it will also detect duplicate files and help you clean up temp files to make more disk space. One of its best features is a regularly updated "blacklist" of registry values that should not be cleaned. I'm sure this contributes to the products excellent record of causing few problems. Remember though, as with every Registry cleaner, to back up your Windows Registry before use.

A reasonable alternative is Eusing Free Registry Cleaner [2]. I've only had a couple of reports of it causing problems but it has an easy to use backup and recovery feature that will help you out should you get into trouble.

Many folks like RegSeeker [3] which combines registry cleaning with some registry management features. It's a nice product but its cleaning function is too aggressive and problem prone to allow general recommendation.

CCleaner (see section 37) , the class-leading disk cleaner has an inbuilt registry cleaner as well. However I'd never leave anything as critical as registry cleaning to a general purpose product; for this you really need a specialist utility.

To keep the registries on my PCs in top running order I use the Registry Cleaner in jv16 PowerTools. It's now a commercial products though you can still find the last free version of jv16 [4] on the web.


Code:
[1] http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm Freeware, All Windows versions, 2.8MB
[2] http://www.eusing.com/free_registry_cleaner/registry_cleaner.htm Freeware, Windows 98 and later, 860KB.
[3] http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm Free for non-commercial use, Windows 98 and later, 457KB
[4] http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/index.html#jv16 Freeware, All Windows versions, 2.1MB

Vemail Voice Email Software

Vemail is software that lets you record and send voice messages instead of text using ordinary email. To send a voice message with Vemail simply enter an email address and then press and hold down F6 while speaking. When you have finished recording, the message will be compressed and sent as an email automatically. Vemail can be played with the standard player installed in most PCs

Vemail Voice Email Software for Windows download will start now. If it doesn't, click here.

Best Free Hotkey Utility

Best Free Hotkey Utility For sheer power you can't beat AutoHotkey [1]. It can automate just about anything by capturing keystrokes, mouse clicks and even joystick movements and linking them to just about any action you want including application launching, surfing to a particular website or inserting text or code snippets. Combined this with a powerful scripting language and you have a product of awesome capability. Indeed calling this product a mere "hotkey" utility is like calling Westminster cathedral a chapel. This power does come at a cost; AutoHotkey is no product for beginners. That said, it is the product I use and an easy first choice for the technically literate. A good choice for average users is PS Hot Launch VVL [2] is a free utility that allows you to define your own hotkeys so that a single key press can launch an application, insert commonly used text, change your audio volume, or just about anything else. Hotkeycontrol works on all versions of Windows and is an excellent performer even on slow machines. A second alternative is qliner's free Open Source "hotkeys" utility [3]. It's strength is ease of use, wide support for international keyboard layouts plus a handy reminder key that flashes up your current hotkey assignments. On the minus side, it's not quite as flexible as PS Hot Launch and it's only available for Windows XP. A final option is not really a hotkey utility at all but achieves the same result by using "magic words." SlickRun [4] places a tiny text box on your screen and when you type specially assigned words into the box, it will launch a program, go to a web site or whatever. For example if you type "mail" it can launch your mail reader. Type in "46" and it can take you to the web page of the "46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities." Of course, it's up to you to define these magic words and you can have as many as you want. It all works very neatly with some really nice touches like auto-complete for your magic words which means you only have to type in two or three letters and SlickRun will complete the rest. Nice too, is an eyedropper tool that allows you to identify a program you want to "hotkey" just by clicking in its application window. There's also a built-in note jotter and a calendar date display. Hotkey utilities overlap with another class of programs: program launchers. For details of this category see item 90 in the "extended list" of free utilities.
Code:
[1] http://www.autohotkey.com/ Freeware, all Windows versions, 1.75MB [2] http://www.pssoftlab.com/pshl_info.phtml Freeware, all Windows versions, 707KB [3] http://qliner.com/hotkeys/ Freeware, Windows XP, 804KB [4] http://www.bayden.com/SlickRun/ Freeware, all Windows versions, 170KB

The Best File Archiver/Zip Utility

The Best File Archiver/Zip Utility I checked out six utilities: QuickZip, ICEOWS, IZArc, TUGZip, ZipGenius and 7-Zip. The product that impressed me the most was the Open Source program 7-Zip. It was the only product in the group that could unpack a multi-part RAR volume embedded in a ZIP archive and the only product to give a meaningful error message when an attempt was made to unpack a 256bit encrypted WinZip archive. My only reservation is that it handles fewer archive types than some of the other products; it only supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB . If that's really important to you than I'd recommend IZArc. It can read nearly 50 archive types including media formats like ISO, BIN and IMG and can write (and convert) to 12. Furthermore it can handle multi-part zip files while 7-Zip can't. You couldn't go wrong with either product. 7-Zip is a little more robust while IZArc is a little more flexible. If you already use WinZip you'll find either 7-Zip or IZArc make excellent companion products. They can can read just about all the major archive formats WinZip can't, including the widely used RAR. Note
Code:
http://www.izarc.org/download.html Windows 9x and later, 3.1MB http://www.7-zip.org/ Windows 9x and later, 1.05MB

Best Free Text Editor

Best Free Text Editor There are lots of text editors. Some of these aspire to be Notepad replacements while other are full-on programming editors. My top choice in the first category is EditPad Lite [1]. It has a Notepad-like interface combined with tabbed document windows, the ability to open as many documents as you like, no file size limitations and unlimited un-do capability. It's main downside is that it's for personal use only. If you need a free Notepad replacement that you can use commercially I suggest NotePad2 [2]. It's small, fast but unfortunately lacks the tabbed Windows that are so handy in EditPad. NoteTab Lite [3] is another possibility but personally I find it a tad slow and the single level undo a severe limitation. If however you are looking for a text editor that can serve both as a Notepad replacement and a source editor you might like to check out Notepad++ [4]. It performs impressively in both roles. Its loaded with features to make your programming more productive including syntax and brace highlighting for many languages, search and replace using regular expressions, macro recording and more. It is also highly configurable through plug-ins, has a wide range of themes and offers multi-language support. More specifically geared to programming is PSPad [5]. It supports syntax high-lighting for most popular languages, has an inbuilt spell checker, hex editor, macro recorder, FTP client and more. Other source code editors worthy of evaluation are ConTEXT [6] and my personal favorite, Crimson [7]. Choosing the best programming editor is too controversial a topic even for me so I suggest you try all these and see what works best for you.
Code:
[1] http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html Free for non-commercial use, Windows NT and later, 2.9MB [2] http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html Freeware, Windows 98 and later, 241KB [3] http://www.notetab.com/ntl.php Freeware, All Windows versions, 1.4MB [4] http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm Open Source Freeware, All Windows versions, 1.03MB [5] http://www.pspad.com/ Freeware, all Windows versions, 3.4MB [6] http://www.context.cx/ Freeware, All Windows versions, 1.6MB [7] http://www.crimsoneditor.com Freeware, All Windows versions, 1.2MB

Best Free Digital Photo Organizer

Best Free Digital Photo Organizer It’s rare for me to be utterly wowed by a product but this one certainly did it. When you first run Picasa 2 it offers to scan your whole hard drive (or designated locations) for photos and videos. Scanning is surprisingly quick and when finished you’ll have all your shots neatly organized into folders on a time line basis. Now you can view you shots one at a time, in slideshow or traversing the time line. The editing features are limited compared to professional image editors yet they provide you with every function amateur photographers need including one click red eye reduction. Similarly adding labels to photos is a cinch while a simple but effective star rating system allows you to flag favorite snaps. Individual folders can also be password protected. Facilities are provided to import your images from your camera in multiple formats including RAW. You can send photos to your choice of web printing service, cut a CD, print to a local printer or share with others via your own blog or instant messaging. Simply sensational. Windows 2000 or later, 300MHz Pentium with 128MB memory or better, 4.6MB.
Code:
http://picasa.google.com/

Best Free Digital Editor

Best Free Digital Editor I use to recommend The Gimp [1] but after dozens of letters from newbies who couldn't manage to install it or work out the idiosyncratic user interface, I've decided to confine that recommendation to more experienced users. If that's you and you patient enough to learn the product's sometimes quaint ways then you may not need to consider anything else. If you are used to Photoshop you might like to look at GIMPShop [2] , which changes the user interface of GIMP to something more familiar though frankly, I prefer the original. For other less experienced users there is Paint.net, an amazingly sophisticated piece of work from computer science students at Washington State University. It's not quite as powerful as The Gimp but a lot easier to use and install. It's also getting better; the new V3 beta continues this product's impressive development record. However V2.x is only for Windows 2000 while V3 requires XP SP2. You will also need Microsoft's bulky .NET framework installed on your PC. Another possibility is PhotoPlus 6.0 from a company called Serif [4] . It's an impressive piece of work; again it installs easily and it's loaded with features including layer support. In fact, it looks and feels like a "lite" and slightly clunky version of Adobe PhotoShop. Note: You need to register with your email address to get PhotoPlus and you may receive promotional material as a result. Recently I've had a lot of positive reader feedback about a French product called PhotoFiltre [5]. It's available in a number of languages including English and ( for a digital editor) is a tiny 1.6MB download. Like PhotoPlus it looks and works like an old version of PhotoShop. It can read and save files to JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG, RLE, comes with an impressive range of tools, brushes and filters. However it can't handle layers. That said, it offers a lot of functionality for a small program. All of the above products are for editing rasterized images. If you want a vector based editor the top choice is the Open Source Inkscape program. To quote the website "Inkscape uses W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats." Equally attractive is its small size compared to most other vector based editors, a mere 24MB versus several hundred for Illustrator. It's a product in its early stages; the current release is only at V0.45 and doesn't, for example, yet support SVG filter effects, animation, and SVG fonts. It is, however, totally usable. That usability is enhanced by an excellent user interface and the impressive set of tutorials that come with the product that help wean the user away from the world of digital images to the nodes, lines, curves and shapes that form the basis of vector editing. Overall a top product that will only get better.
Code:
[1] http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html (7.7MB) [2] http://www.gimpshop.net/ (7.4MB) [3] http://getpaint.net/index2.html Freeware, Win2K and later, 3.6MB [4] http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PhotoPlus/default.asp Freeware, all Windows, 19.4MB [5] http://www.photofiltre.com/ Free for personal use, Windows 98 and later, 1.6MB [6] http://www.inkscape.org/ Free Open Source, Available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, 20.7MB.

Best Free Digital Image Viewer

Best Free Digital Image Viewer Three good choices here. First there's the classic IrfanView. Irfan [1] is a first class product but one for which I have mixed feelings. That's why it's been in and out of my "46 Best Freeware" list several times. It's an amazingly capable product but it just doesn't work the way I want it to. Other users though, just love it. A product I feel more comfortable with is XNView [2]. Like Irfan it is very versatile; it can read and display nearly 400 types of graphic files and convert any of these to over 50 formats. It displays pictures very quickly and these may be viewed full screen, as slideshows or thumbnails. It's quite capable at processing images, too; you can adjust brightness, color, apply filters or effects, crop photos, re-size, convert format and more. These operations can also be carried out from a batch file, which makes it ideal for converting large digital photos to smaller sizes for the web or emailing. It supports drop and drag, has many plug-ins, is available in 44 languages and has full cross-platform support including Mac. XNView has a lot of similarities with IrfanView, so many in fact, that it comes perilously close to plagiarism. Put positively, one may say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery however the developer of IrfanView must feel more than a little miffed. XNView is free for non-commercial use, all Windows versions plus many other platforms. The standard version for Windows is 3.3MB but I suggest you download the complete version with all plug-ins which weighs in at 6.8MB. My third choice and personal favorite is FastStone Image Viewer [3]. This is a speed demon with a zippiness in displaying images that's reminiscent of the old ACDSee before it suffered feature bloat. It supports all major graphic formats and popular digital camera RAW formats as well. It's also got good basic image editing facilities, a great slide show and a very cute interface. Much to like here. Free for personal use, Windows 98 and later.
Code:
[1] http://www.irfanview.com/ (874KB) [2] http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pierre.g/xnview/endownloadwin32.html (3.3MB) [3] http://www.faststone.org (3.0MB)

Best Free Desktop Search Utility

Best Free Desktop Search Utility A couple of years back there were no contenders for this title. Today we have a wealth of choices. In a close race I would have to say X1 Enterprise Client [1] comes out in front because of the clear way it presents search results. It used to be a $99 product but as from mid 2006 is now free for non-commercial use. It's fast, reliable and can index the contents of 370 different file types including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Outlook, Outlook Express, HTML, text, ZIP and Adobe PhotoShop It also indexes files for most of the popular e-mail clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Netscape, Eudora and Lotus Notes. Note: If you want to use X1 commercially then you can download Yahoo Desktop Search Program which is actually powered by X1. Unfortunately the Yahoo product includes quite of other stuff as well including the Yahoo browser search bar though some of these "extras" can be disenabled during the install. X1 can index html files but can't index your web browsing history. If the later is important to you, you may want to look at Google desktop search [3]. It not only will search your web history but offers an Outlook toolbar, integrated Gmail search and a novel desktop sidebar that allows personalized search, news, weather, photos and more. The Sidebar also includes a quite effective application launcher. Some folks love the Sidebar but others, me included, find it intrusive. Exalead is a little known but highly impressive desktop search program from France. It's great strength is the highly customizable nature of its search, probably the best of any product. It can also do fuzzy searches as well. If you need to make highly specified searches then do try Exalead, you wont be disappointed. Versions are available for English and French speakers. All the products I've mentioned require Windows 2000 or later. If you are stuck with an earlier version of Windows then try the free Copernic Desktop Search. Just because I'm mentioning it last don't think it's inferior to the others - it's a very competent and balanced product and one of the few freebies that supports network shares. Indeed many experienced users think that overall, it's the best available. If the email search results were as effectively presented as X1 I'd be inclined to agree.
Code:
[1] http://www.x1.com X1 Enterprise Client, Free for personal use, Windows XP, 12.9MB. [2] http://desktop.yahoo.com Freeware, Windows 2000 SP3 or later, 5.3MB [3] http://desktop.google.com Freeware, Windows 2000 SP3 or later, 2MB [4] http://corporate.exalead.com/enterprise/l=en?p=produits_exalead-desktop_screenshots Freeware, Windows 2000 or later, 8.7MB [5] http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/index.html Freeware, Windows 98 and later. 3MB

Best Free Popup Stopper

Best Free Popup Stopper The need for popup stopper utilities has fallen away in recent months as many browsers such as Firefox now have this function built in. If you need a separate popup stopper and have good PC skills I suggest you try The Proxomitron. It operates by filtering and transforming all your Web pages on the fly. As a result you can not only stop pop-ups but pop-unders, ads, flash animations, status bar scrollers and just about anything else. Besides, next time you are asked what pop-up stopper you use, you can answer; "why, I use The Proxomitron" and how cool is that ;>) The product's author Scott R. Lemmon unfortunately has passed away but support for The Proxomitron continues through its large enthusiast following. This is evident from the main download site [1] which offers several versions of the product including the last version Scott released before his death. The site also has setup instructions, resource links and lists of sites where you can test whether the product is working. There are a number of other enthusiast sites [2], [3] that offer additional information. If you are a novice PC user I suggest you try the Google toolbar [4] rather than The Proxomitron. It's free as well and has an excellent popup filter built in. It's nowhere near as flexible as as The Proxomitron, but it requires no setup. As a bonus it also makes Google searches easier.
Code:
[1] http://proxomitron.info/ Freeware, All Windows versions, 1.38MB [2] http://accs-net.com/smallfish/prox.htm [3] http://www.sankey.ws/proxomitron.html [4] http://toolbar.google.com/

Best Free Spam Filter for Experienced Users

Best Free Spam Filter for Experienced Users There are many different spam filters available employing lots of different techniques. In my experience "learning" spam filters that use the Bayesian statistical approach out-perform most other types of filters I've tried. Not only are they better at detecting spam they are also less liable to classify your real mail as spam. This effectiveness takes a little time to develop as the filter has to be trained to recognize your spam from your normal mail. It takes a week or so before results start becoming accurate and best results may take a month or more. POPFile, a free, open source spam filter, was one of the first Bayesian filters and is still one of the best. It works as a proxy mail server so that means that it can be used with any POP email client. Setup is reasonably straightforward for experienced users but beginners may be better off with Mailwasher. If you use Outlook there are several excellent free Bayesian spam filters available including SpamBayes and K9. Both are simple to install though, like all statistical filters, they need to go through a training phase before they reach full effectiveness.
Code:
http://popfile.sourceforge.net/old_index.html (4.3MB) http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/ (3.6MB) http://www.keir.net/k9.html (113KB)

Best Free Spam Filter for the Average User

Best Free Spam Filter for the Average User This is a difficult category as ordinary users need products that are easy to use and frankly, most free spam filters are way too complex to set up and use. The best products in this class are in fact, shareware not free. That said, MailWasher [1] is for most folks, the best free option. MailWasher is an email preview utility that allows you to check your email on your mail server before you download it to your PC. The advantage of this approach is that you can kill unwanted messages including spam, viruses and large attachments before they get anywhere near your computer. MailWasher flags for you any messages containing possible spam and viruses for you to quickly check. It's a simple idea but quite effective and one which average users find easy to understand. At the Mailwasher site you can download a free or "Pro" commercial version. The former lacks quite a few of the features of its commercial cousin. the most limiting of which is the ability to a access multiple accounts. However the last free version of MailWasher before it went commercial is still floating around the web [2] and it will handle multiple accounts. It too lacks many of the advanced spam detection features of the current commercial version but is still very effective. Alternatively, try XTerminator [3] which works much the same way as MailWasher and is totally free. I must say though, I prefer MailWasher's user interface. If you use Outlook or Outlook Express for your email you have another choice, an excellent one actually, if you are prepared to have a small advertisement appended to the end of your outbound email. SPAMfighter [5] is a network based spam filtering system that uses the opinions of over two million users worldwide to help classify spam and what's not. Like all network based spam filters it requires no training: it's ready to go the minute you install it. Each email is checked after it is received. If the email has been classified as spam by a lot of other users on the network then it deleted from your in-box and placed in a spam mail folder. It works like a charm and is a commanding choice or Outlook users. If you can't tolerate the ads in your email you can have them removed for $19.95 a year.
Code:
[1] http://www.mailwasher.net ( 3.05MB) [2] http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/page2.html#Mailwasher (1.57MB) [3] http://www.artplus.hr/adapps/eng/xterminator.htm (1.87MB) [4] http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-antispam.htm <=brief review of the best spam blockers [5] http://www.spamfighter.com Windows ME and later, Outlook Express 5.5 and later or Outlook 2000 and later, 842KB,