Best Free Web Mail Accessory

Best Free Web Mail Accessory It's a real plus to be able to collect your Hotmail, Yahoo! or other Webmail using your POP3 email client. It used to be simple but these days most Webmail services only provide POP3 access for premium paid accounts. However it's still possible to do it though by using a special utility designed for the job. If you use Yahoo! mail then head straight for YPOPs! [1] that allows you to download your Yahoo webmail from within your POP3 email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird or Eudora. It's free, easy top set up using the instructions on the web site and is simple to use. I use it on multiple Yahoo accounts and it works wonderfully. The second suggestion is a free utility called FreePOPs [2]. It's a much more flexible product than YPOPs! and will download mail from HotMail, AOL, Yahoo!, Juno, Libero and a myriad of other webmail services as well. It's power and flexibility can confuse new users but thankfully there is a clearly written tutorial for beginners [3] . FreePOPS is for receiving email only and has no sending capabilities. A third possibility is the Open Source program MrPostman [4] which offers similar functionality to FreePOPs and allows access to email accounts on MS Exchange 5.5 as well. It needs a bit of fiddling to work correctly but you'll find a couple of links below [5], [6} that will help you. My only reservation is that product development seems to have ceased. Note that MrPostman requires the Java Runtime Environment to be installed on your PC. Another webmail accessory you might useful is POP Peeper, a free utility that lets you know when new mail arrived in your Webmail account. It installs a little tray icon that alerts you to new mail in your Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo, Mail.com, MyWay, Excite, Lycos.com, or RediffMail accounts. It's particularly useful for users who have multiple webmail webmail services. It won't though, download your mail to your POP3 email client. To do that you need one of the products above. It does however, allow you to read and even respond to your mail within the product without opening your email program. This makes it very attractive to Webmail users who don't use a regular email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird.
Code:
[1] http://www.ypopsemail.com/ Free GPL license, Win95 and later, 1.48MB [2] http://www.freepops.org Freeware, Windows 98 and later, 813KB [3] http://www.freepops.org/en/tutorial/index.shtml [4] http://mrpostman.sourceforge.net/ Free Open Source, 1.5MB [5] http://2mod2.com/mohot/ <= Installing Mr Postman [6] http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=68124 <= MrPostman forum [7] http://www.poppeeper.com/ Freeware, Windows 95 and later, 818KB

Best Free Email Client

Best Free Email Client Thunderbird [1] is a free open source POP and IMAP email client developed by Mozilla.org, the same folks who brought you Firefox. Feature-wise it sits somewhere between Outlook Express and Outlook which means that it offers an upgrade to Express users and a downgrade to those who use the more advanced PIM features of Outlook. All Outlook Express users should seriously consider switching. You’ll be rewarded with a more advanced product including built- in spam filtering, built-in RSS reader, message color coding, fast email search, anti-phishing measures, spell check as you type, inbox filters, Kerberos authentication, automatic updates and the ability to view your mail in conversational threads. On top of that, the product is more secure than OE and unlike the latter, is still being actively developed. Further features can be added through free extensions. Notable among these is Webmail [2], an extension that allows POP3 access to webmail services operated by Yahoo, Hotmail, Lycos, MailDotCom, Gmail and Libero. Thunderbird email files can be indexed by the Google, Yahoo! and Copernic desktop search programs. Switching from Outlook Express is made easier by the fact that Thunderbird looks and works similar to OE. Tools within Thunderbird also allow you to easily import OE account settings and stored email. If you need assistance check out this excellent guide [3] from Mozilla. If you want an alternative to Thunderbird then try Foxmail [4]. Despite the name it's not related to Firefox but comes out of China. It's an impressive product with features matching or exceeding Thunderbird and it's also really easy to use. My only real beef is the quality of the help files. Yes, they have been translated to English but rather poorly. So poorly that they are actually quite amusing. Don't let that deflect you though, Foxmail is a top product with eight million users world-wide and is a real alternative to Thunderbird. If you need help there's a good FAQ here [5]. Note: If after installing, the program comes up in Chinese, all you have to do is delete the file chinese.lgb in the installation folder.
Code:
[1] http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird Free Open Source software, Win 98 and later, 6.0MB [2] http://webmail.mozdev.org/index.html [3] http://opensourcearticles.com/introduction_to_thunderbird [4] http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/E-mail/E-mail-Clients/Foxmail.shtml Freeware, Win 95 and later, 5.5MB. [5] http://www.hazeleger.net/psjs_faqs/index.html

Best Free File Manager

Best Free File Manager Windows Explorer is fine for simple file management activities but when you have some serious work to do, you need a two pane file manager. I use Directory Opus which is IMHO, the best product in this class but costs $59. A good free alternative is xplorer² [1]. It offers a good part of the functionality of Directory Opus and is totally free. As a bonus, its user interface is very similar to Windows Explorer, so most users will find this tool easy to learn and use. XYplorer is another strong contender. It uses a tabbed view rather than a two pane view which is better when working with multiple folders though not quite as efficient as the two pane approach when working with only two. XYplorer is packed with features included one of the best file-finders I've seen. It's one of those products that impresses more with use. In fact I suspect that if you use it for a month, you'll end up using it permanently. Until the 21st March 2006 it was freeware but has now morphed to shareware but the last free version is still available from the vendor's site [3] and various freeware sites [4]. Some folks just love Free Commander [5], a classic two pane Norton Commander style manager. It's certainly powerful but I find the interface a little dated. However it's free for both private and commercial use and that's a big plus.
Code:
[1] http://zabkat.com/x2lite.htm Free for private use, Win 95 and later, 899KB [2] http://www.xyplorer.com/ Free for private use, Win 98 and later, 623KB. [3] http://www.xyplorer.com/download/xyplorer_full_lfv.zip All Windows versions, Free for private use, 633KB [4] http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2006/PL2006FILEUTILITIES.php#FileManager [5] http://www.freecommander.com/ Freeware, Windows 95 and later, 1.61MB

Best Free Software Suite

Best Free Software Suite The Open CD site [1] offers for free a wonderful collection of just about every application software product you need to run a PC including the latest version of OpenOffice. Many of these freebies substitute admirably for expensive commercial products. There is Abi Word as an alternative for MS Word, OpenOffice for MS Office XP, Thunderbird for Outlook, The Gimp for Adobe Photoshop, 7-zip for WinZip and many more. If you then add to this collection some of the other utilities from my "46 Best-ever Utilities" collection you will have all the software you'll ever need without spending a cent. Note: All of the Open CD utilities can be downloaded for free as a CD ISO image. If you have a slow connection you can purchase the CD for a as little as $1.99. In addition to the Windows versions, the CD also contains the same collection of programs implemented under a version of Linux called Ubuntu that can be booted and run directly from the CD. That way you not only get to try all these great programs you can try Linux as well, without interfering in any way with your current Windows installation. Update: the folks at Ubuntu [2] are now giving away free CDs containing the latest version of Ubuntu Linux together with most of the programs on the Open CD. They will send you the full Ubuntu installation CDs plus a live CD where you can run Ubuntu directly from the CD. You can order as many CDs as you want and you don't even have to pay the mailing costs! When you get your CDs read this this simple introduction to Linux [3] before starting.
Code:
[1] http://theopencd.org [2] https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ [3] http://www.paulstamatiou.com/2005/10/24/how-to-ubuntu-linux-for-novices/

Best Free Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use

Best Free Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use These days all users face a real risk of malicious programs secretly installing themselves on your computer. Anti-virus and anti-spyware products dramatically reduce the chance of infection but are not perfect. In particular they are prone to miss new malware products not yet included in their signature databases. They can also fail to detect malware programs that are cleverly disguised to avoid detection. To prevent these malevolent programs from slipping by your AV and anti-spyware programs you need additional defenses such as a Host based Intrusion Prevention program (HIPS). These programs pick up intruders by their behavior rather than by their characteristic fingerprint. They are not limited to detecting specific malware products but can target a wide range of interlopers. For the most part HIPS programs all work in a similar manner; they stop any suspicious behavior and then ask the user whether they want to allow it. This, as we shall see, can be a mixed blessing. Unfortunately most HIPS programs, including the popular free programs WinPatrol and Prevx, generate a lot of warning messages many of which are quite cryptic. These messages tend to alarm many less experienced users who feel there is something wrong and simply don't know how to respond. That's why these products are only suitable for the very experienced (and very patient). Thankfully a new generation of HIPS programs has emerged that use white lists, black lists, policies and behavior analysis rules along with other techniques to reduce the number of messages and the load on the user. A prime example of this class of product is the free Cyberhawk program from Novatix. I use it on one of my PC's and it only occasionally issues warnings and even then the warnings are usually real and need to be taken seriously. In essence it provides a vital additional layer of protection to my AV and anti-spyware scanners at little cost in terms of annoyance and no cost in terms of my wallet. It is the stand-out free product in the HIPS category. Note: A number of readers have reported browsing performance problems after installing Cyberhawk. I've not found that myself but be aware that this may be a problem on some PCs. There are some solid other contenders. Blink Personal from eEye [2] is a HIPS with a firewall as opposed to products like Comodo and ZoneAlarm Pro that are firewalls with HIPS. It's a useful tool for advanced users though I found Cyberhawk to be more effective and yet simpler to configure and use. Blink is also only free for non-commercial use.
Code:
[1] http://www.novatix.com/cyberhawk/ Freeware, Windows 2000 and later, 4.7MB[2] [2] http://www.eeye.com/html/products/blink/personal/index.html Free for personal use,Win2K and later 26.7MB

Best Free Rootkit Scanner/Remover

Best Free Rootkit Scanner/Remover Rootkits are a special kind of software tool used to hide trojans, viruses and other malware from your anti-virus scanner and other security products. Unfortunately, they are extremely effective which means that some of you reading this will be infected even though you believe your PC to be totally clean. Thankfully there is a new class of security product now available called rootkit detectors that use specialized techniques to detect these dangerous intruders. Most of these detectors require quite a bit of technical skill to interpret the results but one of the simplest to use is also amongst the most effective. It's called BlackLight [1] and is currently available as a free beta from F-Secure. The beta will expire on the 1st of October, 2007 but you can use it freely up to then. I suggest everyone download this product and scan their PC. The chances of you being infected are small but for five minutes work it's not worth taking the risk. BlackLight will detect most rootkits missed by AV scanners but is can't provide perfect detection; no rootkit detector can. That's why its' advisable to use more than product. If you are an experienced user you should check out SysInternals RootkitRevealer [2]. It uses a totally different different technique to BlackLight so by using both products together you'll be getting excellent overall detection. RootkitRevealer is however, harder to use than BlackLight and is a bit prone to false positives so take care before deleting detected items. If in doubt, consult the SysInternals RootkitRevealer forum. [3] Another useful rootkit detector for experienced users is GMER [4] though please read the documentation carefully before using this one. I like this product a lot but it's not for everyone. So if you are the type that simply likes to press the "scan" button then stick with BlackLight ;>) Currently the biggest guns in the rootkit detection war are two free Chinese products called IceSword [5] and DarkSpy [6]. They are not really detectors like the other products rather they offer a set of tools that can help reveal the presence of a rootkit. These tools include a special process viewer, startup manager and port enumerator that are not fooled by rootkits. It's left to the user though, to interpret the results. In the hands of an skilled user, these are amazing tools but not much use to beginners. The Chinese download sites are slow so I've given local download links [5], [6]. The reality is that at the present time, full protection against rootkits may require the use of multiple products. For details see my article on rootkits [7].
Code:
[1] http://www.f-secure.com/blacklight/ Free beta, Windows 2K/ XP/Vista, 879KB [2] http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html Freeware, All Windows versions, 231KB [3] http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/default.asp [4] http://www.gmer.net/ Freeware, Windows NT/ 2K/XP, 480KB [5] http://majorgeeks.com/Icesword_d5199.html Freeware, Windows NT/2K/XP, 2.1MB [6] http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/DarkSpy-Anti-Rootkit.shtml Windows 2K/XP/2003, 626KB [7] http://www.techsupportalert.com/rootkits.htm <= How to deal with the threat of rootkits

Best Free Trojan Scanner/Trojan Remover

Best Free Trojan Scanner/Trojan Remover My top recommendation here is AVG Anti-Spyware [1], a product formerly formerly known as Ewido until it was acquired recently by GriSoft. Ewido started life as an anti-trojan scanner but has been repositioned as an anti-spyware scanner by the new owners and the new name reflects that re-positioning. Whatever ever it is called it is an excellent anti-trojan and a fine anti-spyware program as well. In my tests Ewido/AVG Anti-Spyware emerged as was one of the few products that could detect polymorphic and process injecting trojans that were totally missed by many anti-virus products. Unfortunately the free version of AVG Anti-Spyware doesn’t have a memory monitor and this omission significantly reduces the level of active protection provided. However the on-demand scanner is excellent. I recommend that all average PC users who don't have an anti-trojan scanner download AVG Anti-Spyware and scan their PCs weekly. I suspect you may be surprised at what you will find. AVG Anti-Spyware is also pretty good at removing some spyware infections so bear that in mind next time you encounter a spyware product you can't remove with normal anti-spyware products like Ad-Aware. Note that AVG Anti-Spyware only works with Windows 2000 and later so Win 9X users should consider the free version of a2 (a-squared) anti-trojan as an alternative. It's not quite as effective as AVG Anti-Spyware but is still an excellent product. High risk PC users such as P2P file sharers and frequenters of hack sites, should however consider Trojan Hunter or the full version of AVG Anti-Spyware both of which offer the active protection they need. Note: The free version of AVG Anti-Spyware is actually the same as the paid version but after 30 days the active protection (i.e. memory monitor) becomes non-functional, automatic updates are disabled and kernel level self protection is turned off.
Code:
[1] http://www.ewido.net/en/download/ (6.17MB) [2] http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/ (13.2MB)