There is however one thing that makes me hunt for the software on download sites, and not on the developer website. Some developers like to display surveys or registration forms to users who want to download their applications. While it is their right to do that, I personally dislike this. If I like the software a lot, I’d come back anyway and register an account to keep tabs on the development and closer contact to the developers. Forcing users to fill out forms leads in my opinion to a higher drop rate which in turn means less users that download and install the software.

Whenever I come to a site where I’m forced to fill out a form I’m immediately appalled, and tend to search for the program on portals like Softpedia or Betanews. It is not always possible to find those programs on those sites, but if I do, I download them from there instead.

One example: I recently tried to download the excellent free to use virus scanner Dr. Web CureIt from the developer site. Before I could do so, I was asked to enter my name and email. Thinking this was all, I complied, only to be greeted by a survey on the next page. Even worse, I failed to enter the captcha on that page correctly and was taken back to the start form as a consequence.

Fed up with it, I decided to search on Bing for the download and found it on Softpedia. I downloaded the program there without having to fill out a form or give away my email address. I tend to use temporary email addresses for this anyway whenever possible.

What I would have liked to see on the Dr. Web page is an option to directly download the software, and an optional registration, not the other way round.

Where do you download your software? What’s your experience? Let me know in the comments.

Here is my offer for software developers and users alike. If you have a software that you would like to be hosted on the Internet, you can do so here on Ghacks. Just send me the program and I will host it on my server. You can link to the download directly from your website if you like, or to a post here on Ghacks that reviews the application. A link back would in both cases be appreciated.

You can also contact me if you are not a developer but have software on your hard drive that is hard to find and without developer homepage. I upload the program to the repository here so that everyone can download it more easily.

All programs are tripple-checked with online and offline antivirus applications to make sure that they are clean and do not contain malicious code. I have created a temporary download page here on Ghacks. Plan is to beautify it a little bit, as it looks pretty awful at the moment.

You can access that page by following the software downloads link.

Please note that Ghacks is not offering hosting for web pages, only for software downloads at this point in time. This might change as well if enough software developers show interest in this opportunity. For now, if you have coded a program but do not know where to upload it to, let me know about it.

I’d also like to point out that we cannot host certain type of files, including cracking or hacking related applications.

Use the contact form at the top of the page, or leave a comment in this thread to discuss this further.

The acquisition announcement on the SUPERAntiSpyware website may have come as a shock to many long time users of the free or paid version of the application.

Information are scarce at this point in time, the only useful bits from the announcement are that the whole team will join support.com in the near future. The post mentions that “some things will change” but does not go into details what those things might be. The press release at support.com includes additional information.

Support.com has paid $8.5 million in cash for SUPERAntiSpyware and plans to “expand SUPERAntiSpyware’s business with increased distribution and product enhancements”.

When you look at support.com’s offerings you will note that they provide tech support to consumers and businesses alike. Services include one-time fixed prices for support requests, or subscriptions plans for round the clock PC support.

Services include installing hardware, troubleshooting computer problems or removing viruses and spyware. SUPERAntiSpyware will be added to the list of programs the company offers directly to consumers and small businesses.

But what about the free version of the software? Will it still be around after the acquisition? According to SUPERAntiSpyware founder Nick Skrepetos it will.

Of course we will honor lifetime licenses and the free edition isn’t going away

So, users who have a lifetime license will keep their licenses and will continue to get updates, and free users will still get access to a free version of the application.

I’d give the company the benefit of the doubt, but we have seen acquisitions in the past were promises were made but not kept. Lets hope that this is not one of those cases.

It is relatively uncomfortable to add, remove or edit large hosts file in a text editor. Software often offers better manageability and sometimes even additional features like flushing the DNS cache or optimizing the hosts file by removing duplicates.

All programs mentioned in this overview are freeware, most portable that require no installation.

Hosts Man

Hosts Manager has been around for a very long time. It is one of the most sophisticated, feature rich programs for hosts file editing. It’s feature set include everything one could be looking for, from downloading popular hosts lists from the Internet over hosts file optimization to remove duplicates to a hosts file editor and backup options.

It is possible to use multiple hosts file lists from the Internet and merge them into one big list sans the duplicates easily with Hosts Man.

• Homepage: http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman

Host Profiles

A new software program that adds the option to run multiple hosts file on a system. Users who work with Host Profiles can switch between different hosts files. This basically replaces the existing hosts file with another file. One possible option would be one hosts file for web development, and one for general Internet surfing, or browser specific hosts files.

The editing capabilities are limited to plain text editing. The program has controls to flush the DNS cache, and display the current hosts file.

• Homepage: http://hostprofiles.codeplex.com/

Advanced Hosts Editor

The program offers some of the best editing capabilities of all hosts file managers. Problem is that it is currently offered as a beta version which does not play well with large hosts files. Users will get an unresponsive window when they try to load the program for the first time.

Advanced Hosts Editor is well suited for users with a hosts file that has a few hundred entries. The software displays all hosts and websites that have recently established a connection with the computer, which makes it an effective tool for users who want to add servers to their hosts file while they are using the Internet.

The hosts file size limitation is the biggest drawback of the application.

• Homepage: http://ahe.devs-on.net/en/

HostsXpert

HostsXpert is a regularly updated hosts file manager that offers editing and handling of the file in Windows. It supports backup and restoration of the hosts file, and can download a popular list from MVPs and HP.

Editing is not as straightforward, everything is displayed in forms which means it takes longer to edit multiple entries than it would be in programs that display the entries in a text editor like interface.

• Homepage: http://www.funkytoad.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=13

Hosts Manager

Hosts Manager can be used to switch between multiple hosts files in Windows. The program is not an hosts file editor, which is probably the biggest weakness. It is also the only program that requires installation and the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.

• Homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/hostsmanager/

Closing Words

Did we miss a hosts file software? Let us know in the comments.

OSFClone is currently offered as a free solution, which is likely to change after the current beta test. The program is offered as an ISO image that can be burned to CD or DVD, and as a version for removable storage devices like Flash storage.

The software is self-booting which means that it is independent of operating systems installed on the system. It is based on Tiny Core Linux and boots into a command line interface and not a graphical user interface.

Your first task is to burn the ISO image to DVD, or to copy the contents of the zip file to an USB drive. The USB installation requires additional steps, like launching ImageUSB.exe once you have copied the files to the drive. The steps are explained in detail on the developer homepage.

You end up with a self-booting image that you can start instead of the installed operating systems. This can also be handy if the operating systems are not starting anymore.

The program loads its basic interface and displays the available options in a text menu. You can use the keyboard to select an entry from the available options.

OFSClone can create raw images of a selected drive or partition, or disk images in the Advance Forensics Format. You need to have enough free space available to create the disk image.

Another interesting option is the ability to verify that the cloned drive is identical to the drive source, which is done by comparing hashes between the clone and source drive.

You can then mount the created image on the same or another computer to analyze, access or recover its contents.

OSFClone is easy to use. That, and the fact that it is OS independent make it an interesting tool for users who want to copy or clone a hard disk on a computer system. The program is currently free of charge, and it remains to be seen if this stays this way, or if the developers have intentions to charge for it in the future.

It’s main features include…

Convert PDF to Word
Convert PDF to Word with all text and Graphical data.
Convert PDF to RTF
Convert PDF to Rich Text Files. You can edit all text and graphic by Windows Wordpad.
Convert PDF to TXT
Convert PDF to plain text files. You can edit text by Notepad.
Convert PDF to Images
Convert PDF to BMP, JPG, GIF or TIF files.
Convert PDF to HTML
Convert PDF to HTML files and automatically generate the Index file.
Convert PDF to SWF
Convert PDF to Shockwave Flash Animation files which can be published on websites.
Page Selection
Convert all the pages, or partial pages of PDF file.
Easy to use software
Add a PDF File -> Select the Output File Format -> Click on Start Converting button, then just have a cup of coffee :)

This software is normally $29.95 but is completely free until February 5th 2011.  You can download your copy here where you will also find a product code.  The best thing about all this is that it’s just a simple download and there’s no need to register with the website and give away all your marketing details.

So for free software, this utility to make your PDF files editable again is an absolute must have!  You can download your free copy here.

The Open Source software has a size of less than 300 Kilobytes on the hard drive after unpacking and can be started from any location of the system. Reports can be saved into different locations which means it can not only be run from writable storage devices but also CD or DVDs.

The program can be executed with a double-click, or by running it from the command line with optional command line switches. Switches include the option to run a silent audit without user interaction.

Windows Build Audit generates the report and saves it as a HTML file in a selected location on a connected storage device.

The report creates item groups which reveal detailed information about the computer system. Included in the report are information about the users of the system, the installed software, plug and play devices, the computer bios, hardware that includes the cpu, computer memory and network adapters as well as the operating system and version.

Reports are offered in one single file and havee a size of less than 100 Kilobytes.

Windows Build Audit is offered at the project’s Sourceforge page. Alternatives to the open source application are PC Audit and Win Audit

The internet is filled with numerous software downloads and it is easy to get confused, as everyone claims that they are trustworthy. The only things you want to watch out for when downloading software is that you are being safe and getting the right kind of programs on your computer. Make sure that you have found the best which the internet has while downloading any kind of software. You don’t have to worry if you are downloading any kind of internet software from a reputable website. But if you are downloading something from a site which you are totally unaware of, then you need to be cautious before downloading. You also want to make sure that you have good antivirus software on your computer. If you are not familiar with the file extension that you are downloading, then doing a little research about it is always safe.

You should not download something which is illegal. There are people who download programs illegally and they never face any consequences, but still it is not safe to do that all the time. To be safe, you should always download software from a legitimate site were you have paid money or download free software programs from internet.

There are numerous sites on the internet which offer free software and most of these free software programs are in the trial form. That means you can use the limited version of the software until that trial period ends. After that period you will have to buy the software from the website. In a way, this is a good option. You can try the software for a week or so, and if you are satisfied you can go ahead with purchasing.

There are some internet software programs which come without any strings attached. Software developers often make such programs because they want to give the users a better way to do something. Free software can be obtained from different sources. A simple search on the internet will help you to find the sources of these programs. This way you will be able to see a program and compare it with other competitors as well.

You can get better information on software programs and downloads from software experts and junkies. If you join software networks and online discussions, you will get a chance to talk to different people and get all the information about the internet software that you want to download. These are the right people to ask about free software downloads. They will help you to go in right direction when you want to download something specific. You will also get the information about the latest software downloads from these sources which are worth getting.

If you are safe, downloading software can be fun. To enjoy the software that you are downloading, you should make sure that you have found the best product. There are many websites which claim that they are the best software download site on the web, but how to know that which one is really best for you? Going through ten websites and signing up for each of them to find single software which you want to download will be a waste of time. And if you are not familiar with the site, downloading something from that site could be dangerous to your computer.

A good software download site will offer you a free trial package so that you can test it before buying it This will give you enough time to see if the site has all of the software you are looking for and it will also give you time to analyze the user tools of the site and see if they are easy to use. If the site is complicated to use, then you should move on to the next site that is available which is more friendly. Once you find a site that you are happy with, you should make sure that the site is providing a legal service. Because, downloading copyrighted software via file sharing is illegal and according to law it is punishable too. So this is something very important to be considered.

You should compare all software download websites with one another, read reviews about the particular software download site that you are thinking of using, and make sure that you will be safe and secure download is available through that site. There is a chance that you may download malicious software from the site without knowing it. So make sure that you have quality antivirus before downloading any software from any site. Antivirus will protect your computer from threats and malicious software programs.

There is nothing wrong with user comments and ratings as long as they do not influence a software’s visibility on a website.

Softpedia for instance allows users to vote for software, but does not use the overall rating to determine where and how a software is presented on their site, as this is solely determined by the number of downloads.

That’s not so with Betanews. If you take a look at the software listing you notice that ratings play an important role on the site. They are displayed prominently and trigger the popularity listing as well.

betanews

That alone would not be a problem, but the system could be used by individuals or companies to increase the ratings and reviews of their products, with the purpose to gain visibility on the site.

Remove It Pro SE for instance currently has a rating of 4.2 (of 5) with 213 votes. That’s a lot of votes for a program that is not well known. It has for instance roughly the same amount of votes as PC Wizard, PHPmyAdmin or Audacity and at least twice as many as MemTest 86+, Gspot or HashTab.

remote it pro review

The amount of ratings is an indicator, but not proof that something is wrong with the program’s listing. If you take a closer look at the reviews you notice huge differences. Some users have rated it with 1 or 2 stars, with the following comments:

Took Removeit for at test run, found 16 files and tagged them as dangerous, only problem, every single file are good file, and if I’d had quarantine the files I would have crippled my system.

Nothing but FALSE POSITIVES.

This is Crapware, almost bordering on Rogue (IMHO)
Got a handful of false positives from this one.
Best was when it detected my PPPoE protocol driver (RasPPPoE) as a Trojan.
I know people say prevention is the best protection, but not letting me on the internet (had I deleted PPPoE) is just too much for me.
Too bad the lowest rating is 1. I would rate it 0 if I could.

I find it suspicious how it ALWAYS finds something on your system the first run, probably a false positive too. Seems mainly designed to scare people into getting their ‘paid’ support product.

I gave it a 2 for effort….but still too many false positives.
On my system were three (supposedly dangerous) files identified (2 were part of Tune Up Utilities 2007 and one belongs to BoClean 4.25/Comodo Firewall)
After uploading these files to Virus Total where they were scanned with 31 AV engines everything came back clean. So I recommend you get a second opinion before becoming all panicky and trust the findings of this scanner too much.

The majority of voters on the other hand rated the program with five stars, the maximum available. Let’s see what they have to say:

I have tried just about every Antivirus Antimalware program on the market. But RemoveIT Pro has always proven to be more efficient in removal of Virus attacks….Fantastic Program

After using adaware, malwarebytes and avg, only RemoveIT Pro fixed malware problem. Great tool! :-)

It is the best malware removal tool ever, works well and fast!

Light, user friendly and very effective in removing malware.

The trend is obvious. The low rating commenters mentioned false positives, the high rating commenters how fast, efficient and great the tool is.

Let’s give the program a test ride, shall we? First problem, the program only starts if it is executed with administrative rights.

Scanning of the system started and it quickly found the first trojans and malware on it. First up was googleupdate.exe, identified as Win32.Unknown.Random.X, then several system32 folder files, heck, even the Windows Screensaver that ships with the operating system was detected as a virus.

RemoveIT Pro SE detected 27 threats on the computer system, that Kaspersky missed, apparently.

remote it pro

Next step was the verification of the findings. Opened Virustotal.com and submitted every single file for inspection. All 27 files were clean, according to Virustotal and the 41 different malware scanning engines it uses.

false positives

The confirmation that RemoveIT Pro detected false positives added weight to the user comments who stated that, and all who did rated the program with 1 or 2 stars.

The positive ratings, especially those stating that the program removed malware that no other program was able to find could be attributed to those false positives in some cases. RemoteIT Pro does actually detect malware that no other program detects, problem is, they are all false positives.

The amount of five star ratings on the other hand could also indicate a campaign to artificially increase the program’s rating on the site, and likely on other software sites as well.

How do you handle user ratings on software download sites? Let us know in the comments.

And then there are applications that do not have either option. To update those the user would have to visit the developer’s website or a software portal to see if an update is available.

The portable software Web Versions aids the user by providing the means to automatically check websites for updated versions.

It basically works by configuring a website with update information and an element on that website that defines the latest version that has been released. It is possible to use the developer’s homepage for those checks or a software site like Betanews or Softpedia as long as the page does not change for the individual program.

The program is filled with about 120 different programs, most seem outdated and it is probably best to clear the whole list (pressing Del key) to start with a blank list. A right-click in the application’s interface and the selection of new will open the new record window.

Here it is that the website and parameters are defined for the look up. Mandatory fields are the application’s name, the web address and the new WebVersion. The website address should be a page that contains update information and the new WebVersion the latest version that is displayed on the page. Lets use the popular open source encryption software True Crypt as an example.

True Crypt is entered as the name on the top. My version can be used to enter the current version of True Crypt that is installed on the computer system. The address of the True Crypt website that lists the new releases is the True Crypt homepage at http://www.true-crypt.org/. The newest version of the program now needs to be entered into the New WebVersion field. A click on find loads the source code of the page. The program will automatically try to find the version number entered on the page and display a suggestion to the user. The result can then be saved with save to list.

It can happen that the first occurrence of the version number is not the correct one. It is then necessary to click on Advanced Options to enter the right html elements that appear before and after the version manually.

Additional programs can now be added to the listing. These lists can be loaded or saved in case they need to be transferred to other computer systems as well. A click on the Web Update button in the main window will check all configured websites for program updates and indicate the updates to the user.

A double-click on a program name will open the website of that program in the default web browser.

Web Versions is a portable software for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the OS and available for download at the developer’s website.

Users can either create their own stick by storing portable applications on it or use one of the available packages or suites that contain many of the most popular applications. These suites often come with their own program launcher to make that process more comfortable as well.

WinPenPack are collections of free software packages that can be stored on removable devices. The compilations cater to different needs from school or web related collections to games and a complete collection that fits on a 2 Gigabyte stick.

The programs included in each package vary but usually include some of the most popular portable programs like Open Office, Sumatra PDF reader, the RSS reader RSSOwl, Firefox and Thunderbird, winSCP or Eraser.

Each software pack is provided as a zip file and executable. A listing of all available programs is also linked from each page to provide users with essential information before they start downloading a package.

The program launcher displays all available programs in a category listing by default. Programs can be directly launched from there. The launcher offers a search as well in case a program cannot be located this way (which is unlikely).

The files can simply be moved to the USB stick and the launcher started from the root directory whenever it is needed. The programs can also be launched directly from their directories whenever needed. All different editions of WinPenPack can be downloaded from the project website.

That’s not such a big problem on today’s computer systems on the other hand who have enough power to handle those programs. But there are many programs out there that provide great functionality and design without going over the board size wise.

This list is dedicated to those programs. It lists 50 software programs for Windows that use 100K or less. Best of all, the programs are functional and should be useful to many Windows users.

All programs have been tested on a Windows 7 Professional test system.

• Audioplayer: A fully functional music player that supports MP3, MPGA, WAV, MIDI, AU, WMA and ASF sound files as well as WPL, ASX, WMX, WAX and M3U playlists. Internet media is also supported and no install is required (64K) (homepage)
• Resize Enable: lets you turn usually non-resizeable windows into resizeable windows. (42K) (homepage)
• Picture Watermarker: Picture Watermarker is a simple and user friendly software that allows you to put text or image over your images and brand them. Picture Watermarker will allow you to open any .jpg, .bmp,.jpeg image and add text or image across the image. (16K)(homepage)
• Backup Utility: This program will copy all the files in a certain directory of a specified type into another directory. Effectively, it is a very simple and easy to use backup utility. Backup jobs can be saved, and you can specify restrictions such as file size, date, and type. (40K) (homepage)
• CD Recover: This is a lossy disc copying program. Designed for recovering as much information as possible from a corrupted file. The program is optimized for recovering corrupt video data from CDs. Supports multiple file retrieval methods. Say goodbye to CRC errors at the end of a file copy. (40K) (homepage)
• CPU Speed Adjuster: Ever tried to play an old game, or run an old program on a modern PC? Notice how everything runs way too fast? This program lets you slow down your PC so that you can run all your old programs again at the speed that you require. CPU usage can be limited to within a percentage. (30K) (homepage)
• Hoe Key: Tiny hotkey program, configurable with an .ini file. (26K) (homepage)
• Clipomatic: Clipomatic is a clipboard cache program. It remembers what was copied to the clipboard and allows you to retrieve it, even after you’ve copied something else to the clipboard. Clipomatic only works with text (96K) (homepage)
• Encopy: This utility is designed for data rescue from damaged mediawhen standard system copy fail, freeze and or reject medium. This software try rescue data from media like these and even in some cases of serious damage might restore data. It is not possible to rescue everything perfectly, but in most cases this way might be useful. (30K) (homepage)
• Roadkil’s Undelete: Allows you to undelete files that you have accidentally deleted from your drives. (51K) (homepage)
• Lens: Magnify any portion of the screen while you move the mouse cursor. (6K) (homepage)
• Minute Timer: Minute Timer (MinTimer) is a general-purpose, simple desktop count-down timer and alarm. (39K) (homepage)
• Windows Pinner: This utility allows you to “pin” a window to the top of all other windows.
  The idea for this tool arose when I had to do a documentation for some program. Instead of repeatedly switching from one window to the other I thought it helpful to have my word processor staying in front of the other one… (63K) (homepage)
• Dir Graph: DirGraph provides a graphical view of the space used by your files and directories. It allows you to navigate around this view – zooming in to see greater detail and zooming out to see the bigger picture. (35K) (homepage)
• Raw Copy: This program copys a disk as a raw image from one drive directly to another. This utility is designed for people who have faulty drive and want to transfer the data directly to another drive without doing a file by file copy. This saves the need for operating system re-installs and allows drives with an unknown file system to be copied (including from console game machines, data recorders, mac etc).(66K) (homepage)
• Roadkil’s Disk Speed: Performs disk speed test and provided details about how fast your disks can transfer data. The information provided includes data transfer rate for linear reads, random read transfer rate and the seek time of the drive. (48K) (homepage)
• Disk Wipe:Securely erases the contents of a disk replacing it with random data or leaving the drive completely blank. Numerous passes can be performed to ensure data is totally unrecoverable. Program works on hard and floppy disks aswell as USB/Flash drives. (49K) (homepage)
• File Splitter: FileSplitter is a freeware and open source, no frills tool to split up files into a specified number of chunks. Whether you’re on dialup and need to transfer large files over the internet without worrying about timeouts or disconnection; want to send that large presentation or document via email or even put that movie file on rapidshare (11K) (homepage)
• Dead Pixel Buddy: This is a dead pixel test program. It allows you to easily test your LCD screen for dead pixels. (26K) (homepage)
• Pitaschio: Pitaschio is a freeware which makes it convenient to use Microsoft Windows. (61K) (homepage)
• My Uninstaller: MyUninstaller is an alternative utility to the standard Add/Remove applet of Windows operating system. It displays the list of all installed application, and allows you to uninstall an application, delete an uninstall entry, and save the list of all installed applications into a text file or HTML file (45K) (homepage)
• Notify: Runs hidden in the background until it detects any kind of change in a directory it has been told to monitor. When a change occurs (e.g. create, delete, modify a file) it visually alerts the user. Can be used, for example, to detect incoming information over a network or to detect tampering of files. Uses very little memory and practically no CPU time. (15K) (homepage)
• Mail PassView: Mail PassView is a small password-recovery tool that reveals the passwords and other account details (56K) (homepage)
• RegScanner: RegScanner is a small utility that allows you to scan the Registry, find the desired Registry values that match to the specified search criteria, and display them in one list. After finding the Registry values, you can easily jump to the right value in RegEdit, simply by double-clicking the desired Registry item. You can also export the found Registry values into a .reg file that can be used in RegEdit. (52K) (homepage)
• CurrPorts: CurrPorts is network monitoring software that displays the list of all currently opened TCP/IP and UDP ports on your local computer. For each port in the list, information about the process that opened the port is also displayed, including the process name, full path of the process, version information of the process (product name, file description, and so on), the time that the process was created, and the user that created it. (62K) (homepage)
• Dizzy: DIZzy displays DIZ, NFO and other confusing, ASCII-extended text files in a pleasing graphic format. It supports drag-and-drop, file associations and command line. DIZzy is an amazingly small, self-contained, flexible and free program. (8K) (homepage)
• Surecrypt: SureCrypt is an ultra small encryption program designed for fast processing of extremely large files. It can encrypt or decrypt files as fast as Windows Explorer can copy them. SureCrypt presents a flexible user interface with detailed record of all operations. (9K) (homepage)
• Metapad: Once upon a time, one of the most useful programs for everyday use was known as Microsoft Notepad. I realized that Notepad was quite powerful and did a lot of what I wanted in a simple text editor. Yet I found the user interface to be unlike most 32-bit Windows applications and actually quite poor.. (39K) (homepage)
• Capster: Have a program run at the startup of windows, but only if your caps-lock key is down at the time. (5K) (homepage)
• Startup Monitor: StartupMonitor is a small utility that runs transparently (it doesn’t even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. It prevents annoying programs from registering themselves behind your back. (60K) (homepage)
• Color Cop: Color Cop is a multi-purpose color picker for web designers and programmers. It features an eyedropper, magnifier, variable magnification levels, 3 by 3 and 5 by 5 average sampling, snap to websafe, color history, and a 42 color complementary palette. (61K) (homepage)
• CPUID: Displays information about your computers processor(s). Speed, cache size, features, clock multipliers, codename, brand plus much more information is displayed. (47K) (homepage)
• Tiny IRC: Are you tired of IRC clients bloated with features you never use? Your search is over! TinyIRC Pro packs the common features you need for day to day IRCing into a small package. If you want to take your IRC client on the road, with TinyIRC Pro its as simple as copying it from your hard disk to a floppy or USB key. (60K) (homepage)
• Kill disk: powerful and compact software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It’s a hard drive and partition eraser utility. (58K) (homepage)
• YourCPL: Some of the items in your Start menu really belong in Control Panel. YourCPL puts them there. Anything you can run from a command line can be added. (6K) (homepage)
• Startup Control Panel: Startup Control Panel is a nifty control panel applet that allows you to easily configure which programs run when your computer starts. It’s simple to use and, like all my programs, it’s very small and won’t burden your system. A valuable tool for system administrators! (34K) (homepage)
• ‘Reso: Make a shortcut to run an app at your favorite resolution. (9K) (homepage)
• Emunge: A very simple program designed to take a piece of text from the clipboard or entered into the program’s left window pane and perform a series of regular expression search and replace operations, producing the output text in the other window pane. (19K) (homepage)
• Hash: Hash is a small GUI tool designed to perform MD5, SHA1and CRC32 hashing functions on a number of files. The file size and modified date is also optionally shown. Results displayed in the window can easily be copied to the Windows clipboard or saved to a text file. (16K) (homepage)
• Volumouse: Volumouse provides you a quick and easy way to control the sound volume on your system – simply by rolling the wheel of your wheel mouse.
  It allows you to define a set of rules for determining when the wheel will be used for changing the sound volume. (51K) (homepage)
• File Compare: Compares two folders of files in binary (recursive) to see if they are identical. (41K) (homepage)
• FoldersReport: The FoldersReport utility scans a drive or a base folder that you select, and displays essential information for each folder that it finds: The size of all files inside the folder, The real files size on the disk, number of files inside the folder, number of hidden files, number of compressed files, and number of subfolders. (27K) (homepage)
• Text Merge: Gives the user the ability to easily merge selected text files into a single file. (21K) (homepage)
• Serps Finder: SERPs Finder is a free SEO (Search Engine Optimization) utility that allows you to find rankings of your pages in all major search engines. SERPs Finder can easily check search engine position of your site for a given query in Google, Live Search, and Yahoo! Search. (37K) (homepage)
• TinyResMeter: A small tool that displays useful information about system resources in real time, but it also gives much more detail when you right-click on the displayed fields. (48K) (homepage)
• Mini Explorer: A fast and tiny alternative to Windows Explorer. (36K) (homepage)
• Boss Key: BossKey is a simple virtual desktop program. Create hot-keys to switch between the desktops and have one set of windows/applications on one and a different set of windows/applications on another and flip between them instantly with a single keypress (7K) (homepage)
• Memtest: A thorough, stand alone memory test for x86 architecture computers. (75K) (homepage)
• Win32Pad: Win32Pad is a feature filled text editor that is written with a programmer in mind. Its main purpose is to provide enough functionality that is missing from notepad without sacrificing file size and performance. It’s very fast and powerful. This editor is written so that you can install it and start using it. (39K) (homepage)
• Wireless Net View: WirelessNetView is a small utility that runs in the background, and monitor the activity of wireless networks around you. For each detected network, it displays the following information: SSID, Last Signal Quality, Average Signal Quality, Detection Counter, Authentication Algorithm, Cipher Algorithm, MAC Address, RSSI, Channel Frequency, Channel Number, and more. (44K) (homepage)

TGUP, which stands for The Great Unattended Project, is a Windows software deployment application that can be used to install popular free software in Windows. The program can be used to either download and install the selected software or to only download it and create a silent installer. The second method can be used for multiple installations on different computer systems or to prepare the setup for a computer without Internet connection.

TGUP is a portable program that will launch a command line window upon execution. The program will automatically identify the operating system and language. Options in the main screen are to download and install software silently (1), download software and create an installer (2) or to change the program’s options (3).

A list of programs will be pulled from the project’s server. Programs are listed under different categories like graphic, system, Internet, multimedia or office.

Checkboxes define if a program will be downloaded or not. A click on an entry will display a description in the right window. The listing contains many popular free programs like Winamp, VLC Media Player, Thunderbird, Opera, firefox (with a selection of add-ons), 7-zip or ImgBurn. The programs offered are usually the latest official versions of the program.

The download will be started with a click on the next button. Each program that has been selected by the user will be downloaded and installed if direct installation has been selected.

TGUP offers a very sophisticated and straightforward method of deploying popular programs in the Windows operating system. The only thing that is missing is an information about the size of the selected programs.

The software can be downloaded from the project’s homepage. The website contains a listing of the included applications. The software deployment tool is compatible with many Windows operating systems including Windows 7.

The results of this year’s New Apps for a New Year are with 23 coders having created 26 different applications. The contributions include online and offline applications and even some games which means that it is likely that people who visit the results page will find some applications they like.

A special treat in this year is the introduction of short video screencasts that review the application. The screencasts give a better overview of each application than text or images can.

Here are our favorites out of the 26 applications:

Anuran a simple but effective personal text log that supports hotkeys, reminders, filtered searches and archiving functionality.

Subdiv is a portable software program that can sort files in a directory structure into folders based on their creation date. This is for instance useful to better organize download folders or other folders that are filled with lots of files.

Page Countster was already featured at Ghacks a while ago. It is a printer management and inventory software which provides a quick overview of the printers in a computer network.

Those are just three of the applications that have been released. Screencasts have been created for all major releases of the coding challenge and they are usually a good way of getting to know an application after reading the short introduction and before opening the application’s profile page at the Donation Coder website.

Users of the service were able to pick programs from the list. Volery would create a custom installer which when executed would download and install one program after the other on the operating system.

The service to create custom software installations is now out of beta and has been renamed to Ninite. But that’s not the only change introduced. The service is now publicly available for everyone with no registration required to create a custom software installer for personal use.

Even better is the increase in software programs. The developers have tripled the amount of programs supported by the service.

The applications are now also divided into categories to make it easier for users to pick the programs that they want to include in the custom installer. Many of the software programs that we use and recommend at Ghacks are now offered for download including Thunderbird, Aimp2, Paint.net, uTorrent, ImgBurn, 7-zip or WinSCP.

The software will be installed silently in the background with toolbars and other add-ons that are considered “junk” not installed with the programs.

Ninite offers a comfortable way of installing software in bulk. This is an excellent option after the installation of a Windows operating system or the purchase of a computer. Interested users can visit the Ninite website to create their own custom software installers.

The customization is as easy as it can get. All the user needs to do is to pick the programs that should be included in the installer. This installer can then be downloaded to the local computer system. The installer itself has always the same size of 159 Kilobytes. It currently contains the names of all programs that get installed. The developers should probably rethink that naming convention as long names can cause all kind of difficulties on some systems (next to looking confusing and slightly spammy).

The installer will then start downloading the programs which means that an Internet connection is required. The programs are then installed one by one on the local computer system. The benefit of this approach is that users can customize programs that they want to install. Silent installs are used and all the usual add-ons like toolbars or other questionable content is not installed in the process.

The service is currently in private beta which means that only beta participants can try it out. The amount of applications that are currently offered are limited but the developer’s promise to add additional programs to the service in the near future. Users who want to try the service can try a temporary account by signing up for the service at this url (99 invites remaining). It should be noted that the accounts and the installers will stop working in a week’s time.

It would have been nicer if beta users were allowed to continue using the service. This severely limits the service right now.

Update:

Got a reply from Volery about some of the issues that I addressed:

You’re right about the one week period being too limited. Although the site won’t be updated to say it until later, we’re going to allow all beta accounts and installers to work through our whole beta period. This change applies to all existing and new beta accounts.

For the long filenames issue we currently limit the name to 128 characters. We may need to lower this further if users run into trouble.

Good news is that the beta accounts and installers will now work longer than the initial seven day period.

That’s usually not a very pleasant thing to do as it takes lots of time to download and install all these programs. The Smart Installer Pack tries to reduce the time it takes to install popular software by providing an interface to download and install dozens of popular software programs.

The program will display a full screen interface after installation that can be used to select some or all of the included software programs which will then be automatically downloaded and installed (one after the other). Included are programs like Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Filezilla FTP Server, Digsby, Skype, RocketDock, Picasa and iTunes among dozens of additional programs.

The latest version of the selected software programs will be downloaded according to the developer’s of Smart Installer Pack. One limitation that is currently in place is that the software programs are listed in groups of eight on individual pages and that it is only possible to download software from one page at a time meaning it is not possible to go through all pages to select all software that should be downloaded and installed.

It is also a good idea to check the version of the programs downloaded with the latest version on the developer’s website (or through an existing update function in the software) to make sure the latest version has indeed been installed.

Smart Installer Pack would be more user friendly if all software programs would be listed on one page to streamline the process and make it more comfortable to the user.

Probably one of the most important pieces of software you think about when looking to keep your PC healthy is anti-virus software. You have the option of purchasing top of the line software that will provide excellent protection, however unless you’re running a business where damage caused by a virus could be potentially expensive, there are many free anti-virus programs that provide great protection too. Avast! and Avira are two very well regarded anti-virus programs which, if you so desire, you can pay to receive even better protection with their premium versions. If you want even better protection it is recommended you download a spyware and adware removal program, the best ones quite unanimously being Spybot and Ad-Adawre, both free programs as well.

If your PC’s hard disk has Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (or S.M.A.R.T) you can enable it through your PC’s BIOS in order to monitor your hard disk by having it report on factors that affect your hard disk’s reliability. In order to see the results of this you need to download a free program called Active Disk Monitor, which can easily be found through Google or any other major search engine. Installing this will allow you to see the health of your hard disk so you will be able to anticipate failures so that you can purchase a new one and make appropriate backups before you lose all of you data.

Browsing the internet, running programs, deleting files and other typical activities on your PC causes many temporary files to be created on your PC. This can cause your computer to run slow and valuable hard disk space to be taken up. To remedy this there are two easy to use pieces of PC software that you can download and run for free. The first program is known as Clean-Up. Clean-Up will go through your computer and delete many of these unnecessary files and the best part is it works very fast and only requires the press of a button to run. The other program is called CCleaner. This program will also delete those unnecessary temporary files. It is best to run both of them so you can maximize the amount of files that are deleted. CCleaner also has another function though: it will clean up your registry. While having a registry with broken and useless keys doesn’t normally cause a big problem, it doesn’t hurt and sometimes if there are a large amount of problems it can cause problems. Also, to make sure you get rid of as many unnecessary files as possible you can also open up your internet browser, such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, and chose to clear the cache, delete cookies and other such things.

Obtaining PC software for maintenance can be a chore at first, but it is very important and in the long run can help yo

In many applications the desktop software allows you to take advantage of more than one function at a time on your computer screen. Instead of only having ‘one’ display for a spreadsheet or a document, you can open them in smaller windows that ‘overlap’ your other windows programs and can be viewed at the same time in separate windows on the monitor.

From this point, you can arrange your work just like you would if you were working on an actual desktop. The convenience is fantastic. You no longer have the need to reload programs or reformat any of your data. It doesn’t mean that these programs don’t encounter any problems though.

Say you were using your desktop software and had a spreadsheet application open separately on your screen. By having it displayed in a smaller window, you’re dealing with a much smaller portion of the spreadsheet than you would be if you were using it as a full screen size display. But this is remedied by the software, as it allows you to zoom in to one certain window while it ‘hides’ the others until you choose to leave it.

The whole purpose behind the desktop software is to take that limited screen area and expand it and give the user a better viewing capability and much more functionality. It’s designed to help you do a better job of putting information together.

To understand it further, let’s look at your context. The software is about helping you to retain it. You can be in the middle of a document, and find you have need of an online calculator, or some information at another site. Without the ability to use more than one window at a time, you have to open another screen page, find your information, then come back to the original screen. But while you view your new information, the original information is gone, or hidden. You can lose your place or forget something you needed from the original, and have to go back and consult it by bringing it back up. You want the original to ‘follow’ you to the new information source.

Working on a basis of ‘interrupt’ is how we as humans work. We start our work, then have the need to interrupt it and grab something from somewhere else. With these desktop applications this can be a smooth experience. And in today’s computer world, there are many different types of desktop software becoming available, and each with some unique functions designed for specific types of uses.

Whether your type of desktop software is for contacting your computer from a remote location, or used to sync with Blackberry programs, or for integrating multiple applications and being able to move data between them, there’s surely a desktop software available to suit your needs.

There are whole communities for open source software. These are legally created programs that have been designed by programmers who are tired of the strangle hold certain industry giants have on the market. They are called “open source” because the source code is transparent and can be redesigned by anyone who wants to improve or alter the program. However, if you aren’t a programmer, this isn’t necessary. The programs are constantly being improved. Linux is one such site and program. Linux is a computing platform that replaces Windows. Many consider it to be easier to use than Windows, less cumbersome and of course, it is free.

There are also websites that provide feedback and links to various types of free software. One such site is PC-WORLD. If you navigate to their site and click on “downloads” they have categories like; utilities, anti-virus and security, office, etc. If you click on one of these links you will get a whole list of screened software. Some of the software is for sale, some is “shareware” and some is free. Most of the free programs are just as good as the programs for sale. You should stay away from “shareware” as most of it requires you to sign up for a website or allow tracking cookies to be placed on your computer. Compromising your security isn’t necessary. The free software is usually well written, user friendly and often takes far less of your computers thinking power to operate. For example, there is a search utility called “Agent Ransack”. It is completely free, is tiny compared to Microsoft’s search feature yet does a MUCH better job at quickly searching your computer.

Of course there are the free software programs that are becoming quite famous and are readily available. Internet browsers are the most common because they can easily pay for their development by selling advertising. Mozilla’s Firefox is a very popular free browser. Google Chrome is another. There is a full office suite called Open Office that is becoming more common that replaces Microsoft Office while still being compatible. Open Office provides word processing, a spreadsheet program compatible with Excel, basically everything offered by Microsoft office but it is completely free.

What you get from commercial software is a look. Commercially sold software is almost always bloated and saps computing power because it has a very sharp color scheme and looks really slick. If you aren’t hung up on looks, free software performs as well or often better. And with the more popular free software like Firefox, their graphics are becoming higher and higher quality. One word of caution: When searching for free software, go directly to the download site. Don’t download from the many “free software” sites that offer pages of links. You often have to compromise your privacy or security to use these sites. Find the name of the software then go directly to their site to download directly from the developers. And no matter what, always scan you new software with an anti-virus program before opening and installing it.