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Software Reviews
by Shaggy
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.
- Freeware
98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista
Feature limited trial version 
1st AutoRun Express version 3.0
- Interface: 4
- Features: 1
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 1
- Overall:
This program LOOKS great, but you should definitely consider it to be a "feature limited trial version" of the non-free program. The SnapFiles description says it all, in that any menu you create will only work on the PC that it was created on, which is nearly useless, except for testing purposes. If I were reviewing the non-free version, I'd give this 4 or 5 stars in a heartbeat, because it's a very useful, intuitive, and powerful tool for creating clean autorun menus that look professional. I'd say it's a bit of a cheap trick to offer this as freeware, but then again, maybe a trick that works. I'd recommend this as a look, but don't fool yourself into thinking this is a great piece of freeware, because it falls short.
Review date: May 14, 2009
- Freeware
- 2000/XP/Vista
Not what it used to be!
McAfee SiteAdvisor version 2.9.258
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 3
- Overall:
When I first found McAfee Site Advisor, I thought it was a cool idea. And when I found that they supported Firefox, I was in. It worked well according to my expectations for a good long time. Then, a few months back, some "update" they issued caused the Site Advisor software to leech itself into Internet Explorer (IE), even though I had never used it in IE before, and did not want to. I don't remember being asked to allow this change to take place. I was less than thrilled, and stopped using the software immediately, as I no longer trust the program to "stay where I put it", which was in Firefox ONLY. What kind of software does something you dont' expect, and when you least expect? Sounds like the kind of software I was using it to guard against. Hmmm. For people that don't mind this behavior, I still recommend its functionality. But this isn't the only product out there that does the same thing. Look around before settling on this one.
Review date: Mar 08, 2009
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Hit or miss
SimpleOCR version 3.5
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 3
- Overall:
The program size is misrepresented as 576 kb, when it is actually a 9511 kb install package. This was a little disappointing, as I generally hunt for smaller apps. The 576 kb piece is really just a downloader for the actual installer package, kind of cheap. I downloaded this for a specific task, and it didn't perform very well with it. I would estimate less than 50% accuracy. I understand that this has much to do with the quality of the source, but the program supposedly has the ability to read non-cursive hand-written notes, which is not what I was feeding it. Rather, I was giving it typeface, so I expected slightly better results. I have not compared the results to any other OCR apps, so I can't tell you this worked better or worse than another, all I can say is that it didn't do what I needed it to in my specific case. So I can only give it a middle of the road review and say go ahead and give it a try, your mileage may vary.
Review date: Sep 30, 2008
- Freeware
- 2000/XP
Audio/video not synchronized
AVS DVD Player version 2.4.1.121
- Interface: 3
- Features: 1
- Ease of use: 1
- Value: 1
- Overall:
I've tried AVS DVD Player on a few different computers, all in the mid-range as far as computing power goes (P4 ~2GHz+, 512MB), and I found DVD playback to have unsynchronized audio/video. In other words, the soundtrack did not match the action. It was off by at least a few seconds. It was bad enough to make this player unusable, which is really too bad. Incidentally, another free player worked fine on the same computers (VLC). I like the looks of this player, and the idea of a free DVD Player program that requires no additional codec is splendid. But its performance leaves it flat. Another downside is that the DVD decoder doesn't seem to be shared, so don't plan to install this app then be able to watch DVDs in Windows Media Player (if you couldn't already), unless you have another compatible DVD decoder installed.
Review date: Mar 01, 2008
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista
Perfect for my needs.
avast! Home Edition version 4.7.1029
- Interface: 3
- Features: 4
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 5
- Overall:
Avast! provides just the right amount of protection without consuming lots of system resources. It's ideal for me, but I don't necessarily think it's ideal for the average user, as the average user normally isn't aware of the risk they pose to themselves. It's an excellent product if you understand it's limitations, and in turn your own responsibility for safe computing. It's lightweight, dependable, and of course, free. If you generally practice safe computing, and have other products employed for different types of threats (i.e. firewall, anti-spyware, etc.), then avast! is an excellent choice for traditional virus protection. I would give it 5 stars if not for the fact that it's a bit cumbersome to configure avast! to ignore certain files appropriately and consistently. I've tried other antivirus products, paid and free, but I've stuck with avast! for the past three years or more. In general, I highly recommend avast!
Review date: Jul 28, 2007
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Convenient and useful utility
TreePad Lite version 3.0
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 5
- Overall:
I have been using TreePad Lite for a couple of years now and I find it to be very, very handy. It's small, fast, and can used in a portable scenario (like run directly from USB drive). It's not overly powerful, it lacks virtually any advanced features, such as encryption, rich text, etc. It supports hyperlinks in its own limited way. Overall, it's still a great little app that I will likely continue to use. However, I am disturbed by another review that cited poor customer service from the TreePad developers. For this reason I would avoid giving them my money. I'll stick with TreePad Lite. It's a good and free way to organize nearly any kind of information in a hierarchical fashion. And last time I checked they also offered a free utility that will compile your TreePad files into EXEs.
Review date: Jan 17, 2007
- Freeware
- 2000/XP/Vista
Great bit of software!
TrueCrypt version 4.2a
- Interface: 4
- Features: 5
- Ease of use: 5
- Value: 5
- Overall:
I love TrueCrypt. I was previously using Cryptainer LE, which is also really great software, but it has a 25MB limit on encrypted containers. Once I found TrueCrypt I switched permanently. There is no limit to container sizes, and it's a breeze to use. I use TrueCrypt to secure all my client data on my laptop in case, heaven forbid, it should ever get lost or stolen. It's also perfect to secure data on a USB drive. If you are looking for an excellent and free way to secure your data, look no further than TrueCrypt.
Review date: Jan 02, 2007
- Freeware
- Win (All)
Where's the rest?
Matador Spam Fighter version 1.0.0
- Interface: 3
- Features: 1
- Ease of use: 2
- Value: 2
- Overall:
Matador Spam Fighter looks promising, but it's unfortunately an immature and incomplete tool. Half of the program doesn't work. There are no options to configure, and no help file. It attempts to train itself on first use, but after feeding it thousands of messages, I expected a better success rate. I would look forward to the next version, but more than two years later, I doubt one is coming. The author stopped responding to people in the feedback section of his website long ago. There are much better anti-spam tools out there, pass on this one.
Review date: Dec 25, 2006
- Freeware
- 98/ME/2000/XP
Worked ok, but...
SpamBayes version 1.04
- Interface: 4
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 3
- Value: 4
- Overall:
I found SpamBayes to be decent at identifying spam, although the success rate was not nearly as high as a proxy-type spam filter that I tested previously. I didn't care for its system of putting some items in a "spam" folder and others in a "suspected spam" folder. I would have preferred that it all go to the same place, but this is configurable. Getting SpamBayes to work like other anti-spam products (intuitively), I found to be a very tricky proposition. I contacted their support for assistance. They responded promptly, but I thought they were more defensive about their spam categorizing philosophy than they were helpful at getting it to work the way I wanted. When I uninstalled, it had some leftovers, namely the SpamBayes toolbar was still available in Outlook. Although useless now, I can't make it go away permanently. Maybe the authors expect that nobody will ever uninstall this product. Anyway, SpamBayes is certainly worth a try.
Review date: Dec 25, 2006
- Freeware
- 2000/XP/2003/Vista
Just too slow
SpamAware version 4.4
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 2
- Value: 3
- Overall:
I can't use this because it's just too slow at what it does. I am also not impressed with it's success rate, but it's so slow that I can't bear to wait to see if it gets better. It's terrific that it's free, and it has some decent features, but I'm not a big fan of blacklists. Today's spam landscape makes blacklists next to useless. I also prefer a "SPAM / Not SPAM" classification instead of the "To Blacklist / To Whitelist" that this program uses. I can't say that I'd recommend this to others, sorry, it's just not for me.
Review date: Dec 22, 2006
- Freeware
- 2000/XP
Full screen -yes, cnn -no
TVUPlayer version 2.2.1Beta30
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 4
- Overall:
The SnapFiles description says no full screen, but I was able to get full screen. It may not be obvious how to activate it, but it's there. Also, the description says that it has a CNN channel, but I'm not seeing that as an option. This was disappointing because had I known there was no CNN, I might not have downloaded this. I'm kind of a news junkie, but there are other news channels. Overall, this is a handy way to view real TV programming on your PC without having to connect your PC to your coax cable, or installing any new hardware, like a TV/Capture card, etc. I agree that the channel selection is limited, and I look forward to when more channels are added, but the existing selection is a good start. The video quality comes and goes I've found, but the stream was always fluid and voice/video were in sync. I have a fairly fast connection (7 MB), so it would be nice to see a higher bit rate. If you are new to TV on your PC, this is definitely worth a look.
Review date: Nov 13, 2006
- Freeware
- 2000/XP/Vista
Lacks ability to load existing playlists!
Playlist Creator version 3.0.3
- Interface: 3
- Features: 3
- Ease of use: 4
- Value: 4
- Overall:
This software is simple and easy to use. I don't get a nag screen as others have reported, but that could have been in an earlier version. I'm using v3.0.3 which seems to be stable and works fine for me. Drag-and-drop is great. I recommend this software, but I have some suggestions. The most important one being that it MUST be able to import/load existing playlists! It would be an enormously more useful app if it could do that. I have other suggestions too, but I'll send them directly to the software author. If you want to make some quick playlists from scattered music files, give this one a try!
Review date: Nov 09, 2006
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