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