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Software Reviews
by Ronbur
The reviews and opinions below are posted by SnapFiles visitors. They do not necessarily reflect our opinion, and are solely based on the experience of individual users.
- Free Trial ($40.00)
98/ME/2000/XP
One of the best 
VoptXP version 7.22
- Interface: 5
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 4
- Overall:
I have Diskeeper and a year ago decided to try VoptXP.Now I just have to keep them both,'coz VoptXP is much more faster,its result is great (Diskeeper can't find anything to defragment after this Prog) and its size is 20 times less. Why I need them both? Answer is simple: VoptXP doesn't do a boot defragmentation. But,on the other side,Diskeeper can do it only with Windows XP and if you stil run Windows 98,in any case,you'll be without this feature. So what's the point in installing huge Prog if you can get the same excellent result with tiny VoptXP. As soon as they add boot defragmentation,I'll uninstall Diskeeper. It's the best choice for people with an old PC.
Review date: Sep 01, 2006
- Freeware
- 2000/XP/Vista
Too limited
Shrink Pic version 1.3
- Interface: 3
- Features: 2
- Ease of use: 2
- Value: 4
- Overall:
Prog does exactly what it's said,but I found its function is too limited.Problem is I don't like to send several resized photos without archiving them in one file at first,but this Prog doesn't allow to save them to somewhere,just automatically attaches photos to your e-mail. It's good for people who doesn't want to spend extra time to arrange their stuff in better way.
Review date: Aug 26, 2006
- Freeware
- 2000/XP
Useless
Ideal Calorie Intake Calculator version 1.0
- Interface: 2
- Features: 1
- Ease of use: 2
- Value: 2
- Overall:
When counting your calories input, the program takes into consideration only your weight, but how about height? Can you imagine a skinny giant and a fatty dwarf - they will still need the same calories according to this program.
Review date: Aug 26, 2006
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP
Excellent small program!
JPEG Resizer version 2.1
- Interface: 4
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Standalone EXE file (740 kb) doesn't mess with Registry and smaller than other 5 Resizers I tried.Don't be put off by a dull Screenshot:it's just one of dialog boxes,Prog looks OK with very simple interface (4 buttons for easy 4 steps).Can't compare speed as I don't usually work with hundreds of pictures,only 5-10 to sent with e-mail.But you won't need anything else for this kind of job as JPEG Resizer does it perfectly.I've recommended this Prog to all my relations and now hardly ever have e-mails without lovely pics. Highly recommended!
Review date: Jun 23, 2006
- Freeware
- 2000/XP/Vista
Absolutely must!
Spider Player version 1.58
- Interface: 5
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Have you ever made your own CD compilations with CD-text?If so,you'll know what I mean:you hardly can find Prog which is capable to see it.To get your CD-text in Windows Media Player or Musicmatch Jukebox you'll have to use special Progs to import all this info in .INI file,famous Winamp still can't do it even this way.It's amazing that this small FREE Prog can see all CD-text entries,play music with pretty good quality and support Unicode:no trouble with Cirillic (in Russian song names),can edit both ID3 tags and has lively Apple look.It's my main player now. Get it as soon as possible!
Review date: May 09, 2006
- Free Trial ($30.00)
- 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista
Stay away from their website
The Form Letter Machine version 1.00.09
- Interface: 1
- Features: 2
- Ease of use: 1
- Value: 1
- Overall:
Nothing particularly interesting in this Prog to go through all this troubles.To remove a nagging screen you'll have to visit their site,register and get "free" reg.key which is valid only 6 months.After that you'll receive 2-3 e-mail a month asking for a donation (the name of the site, by the way,is "DonationCoder"),even if you haven't checked any checkboxes allowing them to send you messages. This guys are just spamers!
Review date: Feb 13, 2006
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP
What's happened with british pound sign?
Bitlets
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Prog is quite handy in some situations.I mostly use it after a holiday to write reviews for Websites.I look in my dairy and begin collecting bits and pieces of info,which I can organize straight away into Tabs with different subjects.For a more complicated job it's better to use KeyNote. 2 complaints:1)spell checkers don't work in this Prog (but work in NotePad);2)I was surprised to find author's UK e-mail address as I was sure that it's an American Prog.When you use "",it's shown on the screen,but as soon as you save it,"" will turn into "?".Very uncomfortable.My Keyboard layout is for Brithish English. But nevertheless,I still use it a lot.Thank you.
Review date: Feb 01, 2006
- Freeware
- 2000/XP
Not reliable
Aurionix FileUsage version 1.1.0
- Interface: 3
- Features: 2
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 2
- Overall:
It doesn't show correct size,e.g.TreeSize and Windows Folder Properties estimate Folder size as 661 mb and Nero-670 mb,but Aurionix FileUsage v1.1.0 shows it as 775.8 mb(110 mb difference!).This is a crucial mistake as you'll think that it won't be possible to burn full Folder and maybe will be forced to throw away some useful stuff. Bad an uninstaller,after uninstallation: 1) Column "Keywords" appeared instead of Column "Total Size" (which was removed).This Column has never been used before! 2) Windows couldn't show Folder size in Bubble Popup (when hoovering on a folder) and gave a funny message: "Size is bigger than 440 mb" for folder which size was 670 mb. Fortunately after opening this Folder Properties dialog box several times everything was back to normal,but it proved that Prog somehow damaged the Windows configuration and can not be trusted.
Review date: Jan 30, 2006
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP
Handy to have
Word Counter Free version 1.2
- Interface: 4
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 5
- Overall:
I don't want to say that you won't be able to live without this Prog,but it's definitely useful in some situations. I tried to find such a Prog for a while with only one purpose - to count characters when writing reviews for the sites that limit your space,e.g. Snapfiles. As I usually do it in Notepad and don't want to open Word, I can't check it. All Notepad replacement I've come across don't have this function as well.The only drawback is that, for such simple task you need to install not only Prog,but .NET work (huge file),but taking into consideration that more and more modern Progs demand .NET work now,it's worth to install it anyway.
Review date: Nov 25, 2005
- Freeware
- XP/Vista
Greate viewer
Picasa version 2.1
- Interface: 5
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
I've installed and tried Picasa2 first time only recently.My first intention was uninstall it straight away as I hate Progs which try to push me to do something that I don't need (I don't use Hello,Blogs and etc.),but then I discover couple of very important things that I couldn't find anywhere else: 1)Last year I spoiled my holiday photos by setting wrong quality settings and get pictures with 640x480 pixels.Other Viewers show them as a small square surrounded by black background and only Picasa managed to open them as a full screen slideshow with a reasonably good quality. 2)Very handy function is "Straighten Image",others just rotate canvas. 3)Stars,Labels system is a really great idea. Pity that editing features aren't great at all.Look at this Prog as a Picturer Organiser/Viewer only,but believe me it's definitely worth to try. I know exactly that if I run out of space I'll uninstall something else, but leave Picasa.
Review date: Nov 08, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Must have
Xenu Link Sleuth version 1.2g
- Interface: 3
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Brilliant.You'll be able to make an order in all this URL mess! Prog looks so modest and simple that I really was amazed by quality of report which it produced.Works extremely fast:200 URL for 10 sec.Most important findings are:1)broken links with an explanation about what's happened with them; 2)redirected URLs,which still can get you to the needed website but take longer,'cos it's already not correct address.The only problem is that you'll be overwhelmed by this huge job to correct them.My suggestion: export Bookmarks from browser not all at once but folder by folder to get several HTML files and each time when you go to Internet,you'll ask Xenu to check one of them and then will correct links.Don't forget to save it as .XEN or it'll be difficult to sort the result.
Review date: Nov 03, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Don't use this tweak
CopyToXP version 1.2
- Interface: 2
- Features: 1
- Ease of use: 2
- Value: 2
- Overall:
This tweak has a bug. It's messing with media files.After installing it,when you try to open several music files you'll get popup dialog boxes asking where you want to move/copy files and it's quite boring task to close them one after another.Complaint about this tweak was on different forums last year.Only after reading Info there I realised what was the cause and removed tweak. I don't know maybe the author has already fixed it.But if you run in this kind of problem,remember this message.
Review date: Oct 25, 2005
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista
Prog doesn't make exif comments
FastStone Image Viewer version 2.22
- Interface: 5
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Agree,it's a really nice viewer,one of the best.Very comfortable to use Full Screen with popup menus,where you can jump to any picture you like and see all properties without leaving Full Screen. Modern look with several skins. But unfortunately it's missing an important (at least for me) feature: EXIF Comments. It can write only JPEG (Image) Comments but this type of comments are not readable by most other Progs. If you use only Faststone,it doesn't matter,but if you want to open the same image (with JPG comments already there) using, say, cam2pc, comments column will be empty. Strange enough that such a good Prog lacks it as all others [..] have.
Review date: Oct 24, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Free replacement for turbolauncher
Fast Launcher version 3.11
- Interface: 3
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Excellent Prog with a very good level of customization:you can do whatever you want without hovering cursor all over the screen,just using a mouse wheel. By the way, before v2.2 it was shareware,but now it's even better! The only thing I'd like to change is its look. Big buttons take too much space.If change design,it would be possible to make two rows of buttons for each group. And I'm not sure that icons for Groups are very important, maybe Name is enough (Like in TurboLauncher)? Otherwise,a great job. Thank you. Highly recommended.
Review date: Oct 22, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
2 extra functions which are very handy
Cathy version 2.22
- Interface: 2
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
2 extra functions which are very handy and can't be found in many paid for Progs: 1) Cathy can make excellent Directory List(important for making inventory of your CDs with Progs),which can be easily transferred into Excel.Before, after trying 5-6 Progs,I found that only DriveZ could do this job. 2) Ability to sort Columns by clicking on their headers as well as using different colours for Folders and Files and show them in two separated groups allows you to read search result easily. It would be nice if Prog can arrange Catalogs in different groups not to mix Progs' CD with Music. I have to confess that I downloaded Cathy a year ago,looked at its interface and removed as I thought that it's too old for XP.What a mistake!Now I'm switching to Cathy from my commercial Prog.
Review date: Oct 18, 2005
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP
Excellent time saver
MyPopupKiller version 1.23
- Interface: 4
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Extremely useful Prog. Doesn't need installation,just unzip in any folder.I put it on my USBpen and use when work on library PC (their Firewall isn't so good as mine so you end up with a lot of Tabs for stupid Ads and it's a very hard job to close them one by one!). This Prog does it in sec and then won't allow them appear again. Shame that I discovered it so late. Highly recommended.
Review date: Oct 17, 2005
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista
Spybot has serious flaws
Spybot - S&D version 1.4
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 4
- Overall:
I agree that its scanner is very useful and trustworthy,but I can't say the same about Startup Scanner.I've been using SpyBot for 3 years and when run it first time Prog managed to persuade me that one of Norton startup files was a fake and recommended to delete it.After removing it,e-mail check stopped working.Each Prog has bugs,but amazing thing is that this fault hadn't been corrected until v1.4 (nearly for 2 years) and even v1.4 still has another one which I reported to their Forum long time ago. Entry in question is "ctfmon.exe" in system32 folder,which according to SpyBot favorite "Paul Collins Startup list" is "CoolWebSearch parasite related virus/spyware".But actually it's very important System file which is responsible for switching between Keyboard languages and it's very easy to check,'cos you'll have this entry just after clean Windows install as soon as you configure second Language.
Review date: Sep 09, 2005
- Free Trial ($14.00)
- Win (All)
Not free anymore
dBpowerAMP Music Converter version R11
- Interface: 2
- Features: 2
- Ease of use: 2
- Value: 2
- Overall:
Prog doesn't support MP3 encoder anymore,has only 30 days trail.If you want to get it,pay $15.For the price you can find something better!
Review date: Sep 07, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Support for unicode is what i needed
Notepad2 version 1.0.12
- Interface: 5
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 5
- Overall:
I tried Metapad,NoteTab,Notepad++,Win32Pad,Copywriter and realized that neither of them can read Cyrillic (Russian and other Clovenian), displaying letters as question marks.It was first Prog which managed to do it.It's important,'coz I usually visited Russian/English websites and copy interesting Info about new Progs,so I can use only text editor that is capable to save them in UNICODE ,otherwise all info from Russian sites will be lost. Windows Notepad was irreplaceable,but now I've got alternative!Thanks a lot! I'd prefer to get from this Prog another 2 things: ability to save Bookmarks to see them when you open your text next time and highlight selected text (like Copywriter does).I don't use it for HTML jobs,so don't know,if some improvements can be done there as well.
Review date: Sep 05, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Don't use it for a serious job
FolderBox version 1.20
- Interface: 3
- Features: 2
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 3
- Overall:
I had to withdraw my previous review with grade "excellent",'coz after trying this Prog for a while I realized that it's not stable. When you try to move two or three files it works well,but as soon as it is about moving around a lot of stuff (e.g.rearranging CDs with Progs), this Prog will crash your Explorer and sometimes even Windows. More over I completely lost two folders during a drag-drop operation ( they disappeared from one place and never arrived to another). The only Prog which can be recommended for this kind of job is Total Commander,very reliable and fast,don't be put off by its design.
Review date: Mar 01, 2005
- Free Trial ($29.00)
- 98/ME/2000/XP
Don't use regcleaner
Ace Utilities version 2.42
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 3
- Overall:
I agree that it's nice Prog stuffed with useful utilities which work well. But be careful with its Regcleaner. I checked it after cleaning with my 4 best Progs (Regsupreme,Registry Rescue,Registry Mechanic,Awin SysCleaner) and got a list with 135!!! wrong entries,some of them I investigated and was absolutely sure that was nothing wrong with them.Of course I didn't delete anything. I can recommend this Prog,but for your registry use Progs dedicated for this task.
Review date: Feb 19, 2005
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Must have! brilliant.
Splitter Light version 4.01
- Interface: 4
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Must have! Brilliant. Doesn't need installation,can run from floppy.Doesn't need WinZip/WinRAR installed to split their files.Works unbelievably fast. You can download a big file in Library (where there is no USB connectors or CD writers and usually you're not allowed to use them,but nobody bothers about floppy) ,split it,put on floppies and reassemble it at home. Attractive,unusual interface.Prog doesn't need updates';coz it already has everything you need.
Review date: Feb 17, 2005
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP
I'm surprised that this prog with only 1 ...
DriveZ version 1.0.18
- Interface: 3
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 4
- Overall:
I'm surprised that this Prog with only 1-2 *. I needed Prog to print list with all Progs which I put on CD (more than 100).Tried 6 similar and always something was wrong in their text output files (too many unimportant technical details or not suitable folder structure). This Prog is brilliant.It'll give you a neat list with all entries which you straight away copy to Excel and can arrange in way you want.I test many Progs and all my 8 CD were made with this Baby. Small and so efficient.A must have!Give it more stars,please.
Review date: Feb 16, 2005
Create interactive Flash movies and tutorials to show how applications and systems work.
A powerful, yet easy-to-use tool to automate any series of tasks you can do on your computer.
