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Software Reviews

by pcs800

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.

EASEUS Todo Backup
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Very nice but missing features  qright

EASEUS Todo Backup version 1.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

I must disagree with the previous reviewer in that this is nowhere near as good as Acronis, but for free it is a great option. Features it is badly missing are scheduled backups, differential and incremental backups which saves huge amounts of space and certainly time when scheduling backup tasks. Paragon also recently came out with a free version which does the same thing this does. Great for home users who can click the backup button every so often, but for business (this products web site says it's for home and small business) this is no good without scheduling.

    Review date: Jan 12, 2010

Classic Start Menu
  • Free Trial ($19.99)
  • WinXP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Not great but better than 7  qright

Classic Start Menu version 3.54
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 4

It's better than the 7 menu if you hate that new style like I do. But this app is lathargic and cannot seem to keep it's settings straight as far as how I set it to sort the menu items. It also has a major flaw where the tray icon has a hide tray icon selection, but there's no way to get it back unless you manually edit the registry. Still, better than dealing with the new vista/7 menu system.

    Review date: Jan 04, 2010

WebDwarf
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista/7

qleft  For free? Yeah you should grab it.  qright

WebDwarf version 2.91
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

Granted it's crippled compared to the big boys but if you just need something to create a page at a time and you don't mind that the pages all have the html file extension, then this is for you. It couldn't be easier to use. Add images or whatever from any folder on your computer, when you publish to another folder, it makes copies. There are also ftp and other publishing options. The only thing I don't like is that there are no functions for changing the file extension of the rendered pages, and there is no way to edit/add meta tags like keywords and description.

    Review date: Nov 20, 2009

Portrait Professional
  • Free Trial ($99.00)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Cutting edge enhancements  qright

Portrait Professional version 9.0.14
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 5

This software is awesome, with tons of controls and options yet still very easy to use. I would go buy it if it were priced a little lower.

    Review date: Oct 13, 2009

WebcamMax
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • WinXP/Vista/7

qleft  Everything's great, except...  qright

WebcamMax version 5.3.5.8
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 4

I tried this out and it was tons of fun and worked great, went to buy it and saw the whole subscription thing and changed my mind. I don't rent software. If I buy it, it needs to be mine.

    Review date: Sep 19, 2009

Photology
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Shaky results  qright

Photology version 2.0.117
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

It's a great idea, one I was looking around for a couple years ago. but it doesn't work well. I filter by water, and I get a bunch of images with no water in them, I filter by face, i got pictures of a ladder on my house. Just not stable technology yet.

    Review date: Aug 18, 2009

OpenOffice
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Awesome product  qright

OpenOffice version 3.1.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Reading through the reviews here I am surprised to find anything but 5 star ratings. This office suite is worlds above any other freebie and just hairs behind MS office in only certain aspects. OpenOffice.org is a great product that people would do well to adopt as their go to office suite. Opens and saves MS file types too.

    Review date: Aug 18, 2009

DVDVideoSoft Free Studio
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Nice  qright

DVDVideoSoft Free Studio version 4.1.3.60
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

Been using these tools for a while now whenever I come across a small job I need to do like download a youtube vid or extract an mp3, etc. Not the most comprehensive tools on the market but definitely worth having for freebies.

    Review date: Aug 14, 2009

Flash Music Studio
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Awesome, never had a problem  qright

Flash Music Studio version 1.21
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is one of many products for publishing your mp3 files to a web site with a flash player, but this one is less complex for noobs and has very sleek looking player choices. The only complaint I have is that they do not update it very often, I would like some new player skins after having it for the past 2 years.

    Review date: Jul 13, 2009

DownTester
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Missing something  qright

DownTester version 1.12
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

It works fine and is easy to set up, but does not test upload speeds, which is very important to certain people, especially servers or gamers who want to know where they stand for online gaming.

    Review date: Jul 02, 2009

Explore and Burn
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Very nice, convenient burner  qright

Explore and Burn version 1.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Downloaded, installed on 64 bit Vista, no reboot, right clicked a folder and burned it to a DVD. Excellent.

    Review date: Jul 01, 2009

Orca Browser
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Perfect clone of Avant  qright

Orca Browser version 1.1 build 7
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have used Avant exclusively on many pc's for years, it is hands down the best browser I have ever used. Now for you rebellious anti-MS troublemakers out there, there is a Firefox version, same great browser without the MS to annoy the kids.

    Review date: Jun 30, 2009

Efficient To-Do List Free
  • Freeware
  • Win98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Very nice  qright

Efficient To-Do List Free version 1.32
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Wow I cannot believe you guys (snapfiles) gave this a "fair" rating, I usually agree with your ratings. I was looking for a product for a to-do list and tried this, it is almost identical to outlooks tasks accept for a few features, works great and it's free. The developer tells me a LAN version is coming in September, I will probably buy that one.

    Review date: Jun 17, 2009

FeedDemon
  • Ad Supported (Free)
  • WinXP/Vista/7

qleft  Best of the best  qright

FeedDemon version 2.7
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

When I first got into RSS readers, I tried many of the freebies here at snapfiles. I ended up using Greatnews for years but it seemed to get buggier as time went on and the dev team have not put out a new version in an extremely long time. So I went to this one and wow what a difference! Feed Demon has a lot of non-techie user options and features. There are a couple things I would add to it if I were the developer so i emailed them and got nice responses. Great program with good support and current releases = Great choice.

    Review date: Jun 11, 2009

InfraRecorder
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Very cool  qright

InfraRecorder version 0.46.2
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I know there are other freebie burning apps out there and I probably have three quarters of them installed already, but i am a junkie so I downloaded this one anyway. Not only does it work just fine, but has quite a few options such as data disk, audio, video, ISO support and copy disk support. And the number one cool thing about this software is..it smokes when you burn a cd! Cool!

    Review date: Jun 09, 2009

Dataland CD Label Designer
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Behind the times  qright

Dataland CD Label Designer version 3.6.3
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 3

I have had a Neato labeler app for several years that is just about the same thing as this one, I would think newer is better rather than a different face for the same functions. No lightscribe support and the list of label types is extremely limited. I am sticking with ... which has hundreds of label types and supports lightscribe, oh and currently supplies a total of over 5000 images.

    Review date: May 15, 2009

virtualStudio
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Not for Vista 64-bit  qright

virtualStudio version 1.0.37
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

I have Vista 64 bit (I know, I am sorry too). This app crashed when i tried opening a photo the first time. The second time it was fine, but then crashed again while editing the photo. Seems like a nice looking and feeling app and probably does fine on 32 bit OS's. One thing I was unable to find is a way to resize a selection area after dragging it out, which is crippling for a photo editing app IMO.

    Review date: May 06, 2009

Everything
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Definitely light and fast  qright

Everything version 1.2.1.371
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

I have always liked the "idea" of a desktop search tool but tried bunches of them and hated every one. Either they are very bloated and weigh down my system heavily, or they are extremely complicated or take forever to index, or SOMETHING I don't like. This one is different, it is extremely fast, extremely light weight and takes only seconds (seemingly) to index your drives. I am not quite understanding why it comes with an ftp and http server, but why not I suppose.

    Review date: Apr 30, 2009

BB FlashBack Express
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Top notch  qright

BB FlashBack Express version 2.6.0.1103
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This program is awesome, and free! I am sure I will be looking at the paid version due to the probability that it is even better than this one. This program holds it's own against the big boys like Demo Builder, Camtasia, etc.

    Review date: Apr 22, 2009

J. River MEDIA CENTER
  • Free Trial ($49.98)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Extremely impressive  qright

J. River MEDIA CENTER version 13.0.115
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I had used the free version of this for some time and was very impressed, it is not crippled at all. Then I found this version which is so comprehensive, so complete, it is almost unheard of. Though I use it quite often, I am constantly finding new functions that make the product worth well beyond what I payed for it.

    Review date: Feb 05, 2009

Personal Folders Backup
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Perfect  qright

Personal Folders Backup
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I don't know what the other guy is talking about, we use it for a local Government, several buildings and hundreds of pc's, it works perfect and we have recovered many PST files because of it.

    Review date: Jan 21, 2009

Your Uninstaller!
  • Free Trial ($39.99)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Awesome tool  qright

Your Uninstaller! version 6.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have always used an alternative uninstall tool, mainly because I want to be able to sort by installation date. This one goes much further than my old faithful by seeking out and removing registry entries and orphaned files left behind from the uninstallations. I could do without the cookie/temp file cleaner though, too typical and there are tons of those tools available.

    Review date: Nov 23, 2008

Jet Screenshot
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Great for what i need  qright

Jet Screenshot version 1.1.1
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

Although this is certainly not the best or most feature packed screen shot software I have, it is great for when i am doing tech support and need to take shots and upload quickly. The url to the image is automatically copied to the clipboard for pasting into an IM or email. Very cool.

    Review date: Nov 23, 2008

Virtual Font Folder
  • Free Trial ($15.00)
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Good idea but.....  qright

Virtual Font Folder version 1.04
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 2

This is a good idea, but the problem I have with it is that they require you to buy multiple licenses if you want to sync multiple pc's on a network. I have about 10 computers on my home network, i am certainly not going to spend $150 for something that I can do with windows file sync or something free like Syncback.

    Review date: Nov 21, 2008

FTPEditor
  • Free Trial ($49.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Nothing special for the price  qright

FTPEditor version 4.0
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

Not only can you use PSPad to do the job of this and it is free, but I downloaded this anyway to check it out, and could not get it to connect to my server. Even though i had passive unchecked, it still timed out and said passive mode failed. $50 and it is buggy? Hmm, no thanks.

    Review date: Nov 20, 2008

Easy Button and Menu Maker
  • Free Trial ($19.85)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Love this one  qright

Easy Button and Menu Maker version 1.4
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have many menu makers, button apps, etc. This one make the whole process very easy and the results are extremely professional looking. My hope here is that the developer continues adding features, templates, button styles, etc.

    Review date: Nov 17, 2008

PSPad Editor
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  As if it needs more praise  qright

PSPad Editor version 4.5.3 (2298)
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Obviously this app has something everyone likes, me included. I love the integrated ftp client for editing right on my servers. Options galore, context menu integration, tons of languages supported, notepad replacement, the list goes on.

    Review date: Nov 09, 2008

Screamer Radio
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Excellent little app  qright

Screamer Radio version 0.43
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have 3 or 4 other apps in this category, even a couple I paid for. This one is no less in quality than they are and it is smaller, so I say it is a pretty great little app with lots of functionality.

    Review date: Oct 13, 2008

SMTP Mail Sender
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Works just fine  qright

SMTP Mail Sender version 1.0.0.1
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I did not see any reason that snapfiles gave this a rating of "fair". It works exactly as it is supposed to. Remembers your SMTP settings and is quick and lightweight.

    Review date: Oct 13, 2008

Pazera Free Audio Extractor
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Couldn't be better  qright

Pazera Free Audio Extractor version 1.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is right up there with quickmediaconvert, can't beat it for free.

    Review date: Sep 23, 2008

Paragon Drive Backup Personal
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Excellent software, confusing support  qright

Paragon Drive Backup Personal version 9.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

My company has used this product since version 7.0 and we always buy the upgrades. The one complaint we have is that when it comes time to upgrade, their web site is extremely confusing. Login>my account> ummm? upgrade button, says buy now, shows full price, ummm. Contact support, wait til tomorrow.

    Review date: Sep 18, 2008

NetWorx
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Very nice  qright

NetWorx version 4.0
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

The only problem I found is that it crashed explorer when I first ran it. Run it again and all is fine. I like the network speed gauge it has, great for testing my GB NICs and switches.

    Review date: Sep 15, 2008

RarmaRadio
  • Free Trial ($39.00)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Great stream recorder  qright

RarmaRadio version 2.20
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Other than the fact that Snapfiles spelled the name wrong, this app is awesome as far as streaming radio recorders go. Comes with tons of presets and all kinds of options. [Editor: The name is spelled correctly, it has been changed by the author and the previous name was very similar (RaimaRadio).]

    Review date: Sep 10, 2008

Google Chrome
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Not in the running yet  qright

Google Chrome version Build 1583 beta
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 2

I would expect a company like Google to really put some work into anything they release. This browser is basic and function limited. Definitely a far cry from my default (avant). No mouse gestures, clutsy tab open/close, missing menu items, no favs import, no online storage. The only thing this browser does have is that it starts very quickly and has a very clean interface.

    Review date: Sep 04, 2008

Phantom CD
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Works but not the best  qright

Phantom CD version 1.5
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

This app does exactly what it is supposed to do, no problems there. The issue is that there is another popular app of this kind that is free, allows multiple virtual drives and does not toss ads at you. Can I say it? Virtual Clone Drive

    Review date: Aug 19, 2008

Web Wheels
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Easily bypassed  qright

Web Wheels version 2.0.1.14
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

Two issues I found right away. One, from within Yahoo Kids, I was able to go to yahoo's home page and then type in non-kid words for searches and end up at a porn site. Two, I was able to kill the app with task manager without having to know the exit password.

    Review date: Jul 02, 2008

TimeStamp
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Too basic  qright

TimeStamp version 1.20
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 1
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

It is a nice simple interface, but i work for a company online and I need the time sheet exports to be more comprehensive than just a simply time in/time out. There needs to be time totals, including total for the time sheet and calculated wage.

    Review date: Jun 24, 2008

GetFLV
  • Free Trial ($59.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Very nice  qright

GetFLV version 5.2
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 5

This one is quite a nice app. I regularly use another one which is free, but absolutely nowhere near the options or functions that this one has. I find it difficult to pay $40 for this since it can all be done with other freebies, but since it is all integrated and done quite well and conveniently, maybe I will.

    Review date: Jun 21, 2008

Pixifex
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Filling a gap in the market  qright

Pixifex version 2.10
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This is an extremely cool little app. It fills a gaop for me where I used to use the big flash authoring apps just to get a simple transition between a couple photos in an swf format. There are only a couple things that are in need of attention with this one. 1 - the swf export is rather large (file size) compared to other software. 2 - It needs a few more options as far as adding text, etc.

    Review date: Jun 20, 2008

SmartDraw
  • Free Trial ($297.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Great application  qright

SmartDraw
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 4

SmartDraw has always been above average, I have tried it many times over, but cannot justify the huge price tag.

    Review date: May 28, 2008

Secunia PSI
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Looks awesome - keeps crashing  qright

Secunia PSI version 0.9.0.3
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I agree with the above (below?) post, it does use a lot of ram when running, but i would not leave it running constantly anyway, I would like to use it every so often. Unfortunately, on my particular computer, it keeps crashing during the initial scan.

    Review date: May 28, 2008

Scanahand
  • Free Trial ($29.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Fun stuff  qright

Scanahand version 1.0
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 4

This is probably not a very good buy at 30 bucks, but then again I am frivolous with my paypal account. The resulting font is definitely cool and resembles your handwriting very closely. The only problem is that you have to install the font on any machine you want to see it on. People generally send an email saying "look at my cool font" but the recipient see's arial and has no clue what this crazy person is talking about. All in all, very entertaining and fun to use.

    Review date: May 22, 2008

Wise Registry Cleaner Free
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Easy to use but not great cleaning  qright

Wise Registry Cleaner Free version 3.2.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 3

I have ran this on a few machines and found that it doesn't find many registry errors that some other products do. After running this one and having it find a couple hundred errors to fix, I then run regsupreme which find thousands of errors still present. I have used worse, but it's not the one I would call my reg cleaner of choice.

    Review date: May 01, 2008

RegToy
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Very complete tweak tool  qright

RegToy version 0.6.1.1
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This is an excellent tweaking tool for XP or Vista, the interface could use some work but i am sure it will get better as new versions are released. This freebie does what the pay "Tweak" tools do and more, a lot more.

    Review date: Mar 27, 2008

LP Recorder
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • WinXP/Vista/7

qleft  Much too primitive for the cost  qright

LP Recorder version 8.8.0
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 1
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 2

For pretty much the same price, you can get [...], which will automatically split the tracks, name them according to a freedb lookup, place them in a folder named after the artist-album, create wav, mp3, ogg or wma, and burn to cd all in one go. This program falls way short of that for the money. I can do the same thing this does with any freebie recorder.

    Review date: Mar 27, 2008

MASH - Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Still the coolest!  qright

MASH - Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper version 7.5
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This app is so cool! I used it years ago and just rediscovered it, it still amazes me and is even better than ever! The files created are fairly small, which makes them fine for emailing or web use. Mostly I have used this app to create entertaining tutorials for simple windows functions. It has much more potential than that though. A must download.

    Review date: Mar 12, 2008

Photo! Editor
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Very cool!  qright

Photo! Editor version 1.8 beta
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

The software is very cool and has some features for enhancement and editing that I have never seen before. Vicman always puts out unique apps, but he really needs some more bandwidth on his server.

    Review date: Mar 07, 2008

Plug and Browse
  • Free Trial ($39.99)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Very good but not for me  qright

Plug and Browse version 5.1
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

This is one of the few network config changers i have used that works well. The problem i have with it is that it must run in the system tray in order to use it on the fly. Unless you want to go to start>programs>etc to run it every time you need it. While sitting in the tray, it used about 40MB of ram, which seems to be a waste if you only use it one time to switch your location. I use one of the freebie macro applications here at snapfiles.com instead and create an icon on my desktop which turns NICs on and off.

    Review date: Mar 03, 2008

Quick Media Converter
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Good program - bad English  qright

Quick Media Converter version Beta 3.40
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This program is very nice and packed with versatility. The only problem is the English version is really bad. I am volunteering right now to translate for the author. The most unique thing about this program to me is that when you start it, the window comes flying in from the icon location, I did that like 10 times in a row :-)

    Review date: Feb 29, 2008

Media Jukebox
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/Vista

qleft  The perfect media player  qright

Media Jukebox version 12.0.29
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have been looking for this for a very long time! I need a music player for my laptop which goes to bar gigs with me, between my band sets we play music through the PA system from the laptop. One huge issue has always been mp3 files being different volumes, one sounds fine, the next blows peoples ear drums out. This media player has built in normalization! Along with a good equalizer (so many don't have one), clean and simple interface, fast loading and glitchless operation, this is definitely the one to have. Even if this was shareware, I would have bought it.

    Review date: Feb 20, 2008

Mix-FX
  • Free Trial ($27.00)
  • Win98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Update?  qright

Mix-FX version 1.06
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

I have owned a copy of this program for years and years. It creates pretty cool little swf files, but it has this annoying "smack" sound every time you click anything in the interface, I was hoping that would be gone or at least an option to shut it off with this new version but....what new version? The link from snapfiles and from mix-fx web site both still point to the same old 1.04 i have had for years. Not a display of a responsible developer.

    Review date: Feb 04, 2008

LaunchIt NOW! Plus
  • Free Trial ($14.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  It's ok, not the best  qright

LaunchIt NOW! Plus version 2006 b0823 beta
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

I read the previous review and thought I had to try this. I have to disagree strongly. This program presents a large window with a mish-mash of shortcuts only after you click on it in the system tray (or leave it up all the time). This is no faster than just using the windows start menu. I have used Tray Commander for years now on all my computers, it is absolutely the best launcher I have ever used, and DOES have a backup and restore function.

    Review date: Feb 02, 2008

FTP Desktop
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • WinWindows Vista

qleft  Vista only???  qright

FTP Desktop version 4.01
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

This is the first software I have come across that would not install on xp or 2000. It said Vista or later. Wow, do they want to sell this thing or not? [Editor: Other versions are available from the homepage]

    Review date: Jan 20, 2008

Web Forum Reader Lite
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Just won't work  qright

Web Forum Reader Lite version 1.01
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

I have tried this app twice now, the first time was a few months ago and nothing has changed. It does connect to forums and pull in info etc. But the options are very limited. I would like it to auto-update at timed intervals, but there is no setting for that so you have to open it, click the sync button manually. Even then, it did not notice a change on a forum I had posted to a few minutes earlier. This app is a good idea but in my testing i have found that it is simply not ready to be released.

    Review date: Jan 17, 2008

CaptureWizPro
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • Win98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Not the easiest to use, but a darn good app  qright

CaptureWizPro version 3.A
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

I have 3 others I use regularly. this one I mostly use to capture myspace video as it plays. The interface is sort of confusing if you are not used to it, there are multiple screens to this app and each one has different sections. for example, the help screen on one window shows something different than the help screen in the configuration window. But I did like it enough to buy it, so there you go. I still use mwsnap for instant screen shots that save automatically.

    Review date: Jan 16, 2008

Glary Utilities Free
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  I can't believe i missed this one  qright

Glary Utilities Free version 2.4
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Being a download-aholic and a computer tech, I cannot believe i missed this gem for so long. It just replaced about 4 other programs for me. I like to have two registry cleaners on hand, there is my main one and now this one replaces the secondary one i had been using. I also like the context menu items it adds for wiping files (another one it replaced), and I like that you can choose which context items you want. I think if this author wants to sell the pro version, he/she may have to disable this free one a little more.

    Review date: Jan 09, 2008

CoffeeCup Form Builder
  • Free Trial ($39.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  I use it all the time  qright

CoffeeCup Form Builder version 7.6
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

I understand the complaints of the previous reviewer, there is some truth to what he says. But if you consider the alternative (creating forms by hand) this is a great time saver. The email field works fine if you check the required field box. The forms produced are much more professional looking than any others I have done by hand and for the most part, the tech guys are kind of rude, but if out talk them, they take a back seat :-)

    Review date: Dec 20, 2007

Inpaint
  • Free Trial ($39.99)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Works for me  qright

Inpaint version 1.0
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

Yes I agree with snapfiles review, it's not perfect, but after trying it, I purchased immediately. It beats the crap out of my old manual way of doing this. Once the program removes an object, you might see some sharp pixels that need to be blended, just use a blur within a graphics editor and it looks perfect. Saves me about 10 minutes per image. I am also keeping my fingers crossed for frequent updates.

    Review date: Nov 16, 2007

Speak-A-Message Free Home Edition
  • Freeware
  • WinVista/7

qleft  Very nice app  qright

Speak-A-Message Free Home Edition version 1.7.1.
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have used one or two others which record an mp3/wma/wav and attach it to an email, but this one has a few extras that make it a bit better than the others. Outlook integration is nice and helps remind me that i have the thing installed :-)

    Review date: Oct 30, 2007

MovieSnapshot
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Good for free  qright

MovieSnapshot version 0.4
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

Works fine, but is missing functionality. Like the ability to automatically grab and save 1 frame per second, etc.

    Review date: Oct 26, 2007

SiteUp
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Much too basic  qright

SiteUp version 1.1
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

It's ok for someone who has a simple page hosted somewhere. But if you need to be alerted while not in front of your pc, you need something like ServersCheck, which can sms, IM, and much more.

    Review date: Oct 24, 2007

Gmail Drive
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP

qleft  Perfect  qright

Gmail Drive version 1.0.10
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I guess the previous reviewers must have had problems with older versions, but I have it installed on two pc's, one at home and one at work. It works perfectly. It reminds me of "WebDrive" accept this one works.

    Review date: Oct 17, 2007

PC Decrapifier
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Ha!!!  qright

PC Decrapifier version 1.8.6
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is sooooo cool! I work on computers as a side job, and when people come to me asking to help configure a new dell or something before they order, I always tell them that when it comes in the mail, don't even open the box, just bring it to me and let me take off all the crap. This app does exactly what I am thinking! HUGE Kudos to whoever wrote this one!

    Review date: Oct 16, 2007

Wiki Clicky
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  I was waiting for something like this  qright

Wiki Clicky version 1.0
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

I seem to have a sixth sense about which web sites will become huge players on the net. I was waiting for some kind of Wikipedia instant search tool. Well, here it is, but I wish it were just a simple context menu selection rather than an app running in the sys tray. Other than that it is great for those who need this kind of thing.

    Review date: Oct 16, 2007

DriveSitter
  • Free Trial ($24.95)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Excellent tool  qright

DriveSitter version 1.5
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is a must have for people running Windows based servers of any kind. I like the fact that it will send email warnings for different scenarios, not just a complete drive failure. Auto updates, drives temps displayed in the sys tray in celcius, fahrenheit and other units I never knew existed.

    Review date: Oct 11, 2007

mYspike
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Could have been great  qright

mYspike version 3.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

If the author would have kept up on development of this software, it would be awesome. As it stands, it is still better than the other 3 I tried out today. But the "watch" function seems to not work along with directbid and it says all the auctions are finished, which they are not. It will not connect to a time server when you tell it to sync, and then it locks up. Bummer because it would have been a keeper.

    Review date: Oct 09, 2007

UpdateStar
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Very cool  qright

UpdateStar version 1.0.13
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This is actually a fresh idea, rather than yet another burner or photo gallery maker. I have tons of software I purchased online, regularly about 300+ programs, every so often I get the bug to go look for updates and now this thing does it for me, too cool! It even takes you right to the download url on most.

    Review date: Oct 02, 2007

Xion Audio Player
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Good but...  qright

Xion Audio Player version 1.0.82
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

The skins are very cool, lots to choose from. But, the playlist, eq and other windows do not get skinned. They remain win95 looking, ugly and outdated. I have tried so many players trying to get away from winamp, but none have the full package to compete. Jet audio has come the closest, but still has it's problems. As the snapfiles review board said, this is a good player but probably not for audiophiles.

    Review date: Oct 01, 2007

Flexdict
  • Free Trial ($19.90)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Heavy, baron, expensive  qright

Flexdict version 1.5.2
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 3

Another reviewer said "light footprint", if 13MB of ram used up with it sitting in the tray is light for an app doing nothing until you trigger it, then ok, light footprint (sarcasm). Not only that but the only other function I found was that it can speak the work if you want it to. But then again, with the MS voice engine, if you pronounce a word like that, people will think you have something wrong with you. This app is actually not terrible, but not worth $20

    Review date: Sep 25, 2007

Atelier Web Remote Commander
  • Free Trial ($69.95)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Slow and not much mo  qright

Atelier Web Remote Commander version 6.2
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

Yeah, I agree with the previous reviewer, this app is slow. Works fine as long as you have rights to the remote machine, just feels heavy and groggy. I did not try it on a machine which has no admin password set, but did try it via a dynamic ip domain name and it would not connect through the router. Maybe some ports it uses which I did not forward. But using UltraVNC has been a standard for me for years, it is simple port 5900 and it's extremely fast. This one also would not allow me to transfer a file via the clipboard buttons, where UltraVCN automatically transfers clipboard data (text, etc) and also has a file transfer action. Oh and the whole FREE thing puts UltraVNC to the top for me.

    Review date: Sep 24, 2007

Cerberus FTP Server
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Yet to find a con  qright

Cerberus FTP Server version 2.45
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have used many ftp server apps, mainly because I am addicted to downloading and trying software, even if I am happy with what I already have. This one is very fast, light on the resources, has features like autoban, and directories are extremely simple to set up per user. It is a great ftp server. So unless you are just trying things for the sake of trying them, look no further.

    Review date: Sep 21, 2007

TPlayer
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  I really wish for an update  qright

TPlayer version V1R10
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This player is great....for 2003. A few bugs that it has could easily be worked out, I guess the developer gave it up. If you do not mind occasional misread tags and improper grouping here and there, this is one of the easiest to use players for a random jukebox, dj gigs, etc. Again, if the developer would update it with bug fixes and a nice real time output normalizer, this would be the king of all players.

    Review date: Sep 12, 2007

Panorama2Flash
  • Free Trial ($49.95)
  • Win2000/XP/2003

qleft  Extremely lacking  qright

Panorama2Flash version 1.00
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 1
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 2

This app does work, but it lacks features badly. There are practically no options. It makes a simple flash panorama from an existing panoramic photo, creates a web page to display it in, and that's it. It does allow for multiple files processed at once, but I would think there would be template options, hot spot links to link the pano's together, etc. Too simple to be useful for me.

    Review date: Sep 11, 2007

Serv-U
  • Free Trial ($199.95)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Good but not great  qright

Serv-U version 6.4.0.4
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

I actually purchased this years ago and still use it on one of my servers. Since then I have found others that are much better. Compared to others like cerberous or filezilla, this one is quite clunky and slow. No export or import of user accounts, and you have to keep buying it in order to keep getting updates. The ban ip feature has never worked for me, if I ban an IP, then the service is inaccessible to anyone, not just the banned IP. Confusing to set up as well.

    Review date: Sep 11, 2007

Demo Builder
  • Free Trial ($199.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Worth the price  qright

Demo Builder
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

$200.00 may seem steep for what seems to be a screen capture program on steroids, but I have been using this for a couple years now, and it is worth every penny. The developer is right on top of things, updates and major upgrades are seen quite often. Features being added that I never thought of but now can't do without. Small, streaming flash files when the project is exported. Everything is customizable, the list of pro's is endless. if you need to create tutorials and how to guides, this is the one.

    Review date: Sep 06, 2007

FreeCommander
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Great for mp3 players  qright

FreeCommander version 2007.05a
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is just what i was looking for to replace the bulky crap software that comes with hardware mp3 players. The manufacturer integrates the install with the driver install, so most non-techie users think they have to use the 'super dooper mp3 copier to player bulk-o-matic" to populate their player with music. When most mp3 players will simply open within windows explorer. Music collection in one pane, mp3 player in the other, copy/paste, can't get any easier.

    Review date: Sep 06, 2007

jetAudio Basic
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Now it`s up to par  qright

jetAudio Basic version 7.0.3
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have tried this over and over within the past few years, always something that bothered me. But now it is much more advanced and is now my media player of choice (for audio, video freezes more than not), great free app, comes with jet broadcast which is extremely cool accept for a few bugs or needed enhancements. My old fav, winamp, is getting a bit pushy with the whole 3rd party installs unless you pay close attention when installing it.

    Review date: Sep 06, 2007

RecentX
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • WinXP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Why?  qright

RecentX version 2.0.13
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 2

I see no use for this at all. It is extra clicks to open programs, folders, etc. If you have folders and things you access frequently, don't you normally put shortcuts on the desktop that DON'T take up a bunch of system resource? It also did not see any web sites I went to, most likely because I use avant browser, not IE. No favs show up because avant uses online storage. When I closed the program, it crashed and wanted to send info to the developer to help them figure it out, not a bad thing, but it did crash on close which means everything I just did was lost (would matter if I liked the app)

    Review date: Sep 05, 2007

Tray Commander
  • Free Trial ($19.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Perfect for many jobs  qright

Tray Commander version 2.3
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Not only is this a perfect little shortcut organizer, but all the other functions that it allows, like clearing history, cookies, etc. all by just clicking the shortcut within the menu. Customizable to the max, with things like text pastes (which beats the crap out of others I have tried and reviewed), I purchased this and have used it every day since. It is now part of my windows installation and probably always will be. Unless I am forced into using that pile of junk called vista, and it won't allow TC to run or something vista-ish like that.

    Review date: Sep 04, 2007

MultiTranse
  • Free Trial ($19.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Ok, but not for the price  qright

MultiTranse version 4.5.1
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 2

I would expect this to be freeware since it basically just pulls in info from web sites that ARE free. It almost seems like it's using bablefish alone for it's translations. For a shareware product I would think it would have many many more languages.

    Review date: Sep 04, 2007

1st Security Agent
  • Free Trial ($69.00)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Ok, but not for the price  qright

1st Security Agent version 7.4
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 3

You can do everything this does by simply typing mmc into your run box, add snap-in group policy object editor. Probably not in XP home though.

    Review date: Sep 03, 2007

Koma-Mail
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Gone are the days when this app was mediocre  qright

Koma-Mail version 3.61
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I just tried this one again for the first time in two years. It is now my favorite portable email client. Extremely easy to set up accounts, calendar with reminders similar to outlook, rss feed reader (which is kind of primitive), tons of options, I even made it my default client on my laptop. Makes Thunderbird seem clunky (default client before this one took over today) though Thunderbird`s rss reader is much better.

    Review date: Aug 29, 2007

HFS - HTTP File Server
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  This thing is just too cool  qright

HFS - HTTP File Server version 2.2
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

What else can I say, this application is great. The only things I wish it had: An Installer version along with the stand alone, a better explanation of virtual vs real folders, and a disallow file type list for uploads. Other than that, it is awesome and the developer seems to keep working on it, so it does not seem as though it will be unsupported any time soon. All in all a great app.

    Review date: Aug 27, 2007

Comodo BOClean
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Good for certain types of users  qright

Comodo BOClean version 4.25
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 3

Ok, the first thing I think of here is why they call it BO clean, kind of funny. But on to the review. I have it installed right now for testing, I am always looking for apps like this to install on peoples pc's who come to me with virus/malware infections by the hundreds. This one is great for your general adult user who is not real computer savvy. But for teens who like to hit the p2p apps and the crack sites, I would recommed something a little more thorough like syware terminator. This one currently has a list of 34285 baddies it protects against, which is pretty good to cover the usuals that people tend to end up with. Cons I've noticed, footprint on system resource is huge, slow the pc down considerably. And during the initial installation it asks "have you installed a previous version or is this the first time" then has a yes or no button. Huh? Which question am I answering? That is minor, but does reflect on the quality of the product.

    Review date: Aug 27, 2007

EZ Wipe
  • Free Trial ($14.00)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Not worth paying for  qright

EZ Wipe version 2.0
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 1
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 2

As stated by the snapfiles review team, it is limited in a few ways. I cannot see paying for this one when it is not even close to the functionality of the free one (or ones). It seems that shareware companies should research what's out there before wasting time creating a half a** product that they plan to charge money for.

    Review date: Aug 27, 2007

MP3 Cat
  • Free Trial ($18.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  I see no use for this  qright

MP3 Cat version 2.13
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 1
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 2

After playing with it for about 10 minutes after letting it add all my songs to the database (which it had trouble with a few songs), it seemed like windows explorer with less functionality. I mean, I can right click and tell a song to play from just about any app. And looking up an album on amazon, why? Can't I do that manually? I don't see much organization other than a tree view by artist. There are freebies out there that put this app to shame.

    Review date: Aug 26, 2007

ImgBurn
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Excellent  qright

ImgBurn version 2.3.2.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

A pretty good alternative to winiso, and more. As another reviewer said, I can't believe it's free. I have found no bugs or odd limitations, burns and creates iso's well and accurate. Plus many other unexpected features. I like it :-)

    Review date: Aug 24, 2007

emailStripper
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Notepad shortcut  qright

emailStripper version 2.2
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

I can do the same thing with the replace all function in notepad. Not that a good shortcut isn't a good thing, but this one is just too useless for me.

    Review date: Aug 21, 2007

PhotoMeister
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Awesome  qright

PhotoMeister version 2.6
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Easy one button enhancement for us "just do it for me" people. Create flash or html web albums, screen savers, batch conversion/compression, pdf or printed photo books, slide shows, burn photo CDs. Very nice for free.

    Review date: Aug 20, 2007

Prism Video File Converter
  • Free Trial ($60.00)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Fast and works well  qright

Prism Video File Converter version 1.04
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I had some .3g2 files from my motorola phone I needed to convert, after not finding an app that would do it, I downloaded this one, changed the file extension on the video files to .avi, loaded them into this app and it converter them quite quickly to mpg, then i also converted them to wmv. Works great but leaves about 40 links to their other products in your start menu. Which is not bad for me because i am a shareware-aholic :-)

    Review date: Aug 07, 2007

Free Video to Flash Converter
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Simple, but it works  qright

Free Video to Flash Converter version 2.3
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 3

It does what it says, and it does it fast. You have the choice of flv or swf and it creates an html page along with the flash file. The only bummer about this app is that there are no play controls at all on the page it creates, no template choice at all either. But you can add the code from the html page to your own page and it's fine. For free? Yeah, it's a keeper.

    Review date: Aug 07, 2007

Internet Video Converter
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Works very well  qright

Internet Video Converter version 1.41
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

As an alternative to some other out there made available by bigger name shareware companies, this one does the same job and more. The only thing it is missing is more page templates, but if you know any html, you can simply make your own.

    Review date: Aug 07, 2007

Mozilla Firefox
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  What`s the hype about?  qright

Mozilla Firefox version 2.0.0.4
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 2

Personally, I have tried this several times thinking I must be missing something really cool because everyone raves over it. I am starting to think the rave is just to spite Microsoft. This browser is bulky and uncomfortable to me. I use Avant browser, have for years, it has much better features and it's fast. When will this FAD end?

    Review date: Jul 10, 2007

Stick
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Bulky novelty  qright

Stick version 2.6.1.1
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 2

There are a few things I do not like about this application. First, it takes a lot of system resource to run it, which means for an app like this which needs to run at startup if it is going to be useful, it slows the pc down considerably. Also, when I uninstalled it i got an error of some kind (yes, i exited the program first). The rss tab is kind of neat but you have to make it quite large in order to read the feed easily, which I can do in my browser anyway. The notes are ok I guess, but if anyone uses outlook, then why use this? The tabs are jittery when they roll up and down, there is no "global" tab settings, you have to set each tabs preferences individually. I like neat apps like this, but it's just not worth the resource it uses.

    Review date: Jul 09, 2007

Lingoes Translator
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Wow, cool!  qright

Lingoes Translator version 1.5
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Man is this ever a neat little thing! I work tech support for a software company and I get a lot of emails from people who do not speak English, this is a great help in that area. I love that it takes up minimal system resource and it's so fast, just hold shift and mouse over any word for a definition and other options. Very nice.

    Review date: Jul 06, 2007

Photoscape
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Must have  qright

Photoscape version 3.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I am by no means a graphic artist, but I do all the artwork for my web sites, cd covers, etc. I have always used a combination of a few programs to accomplish what I needed. There is a VERY old app called iPphoto plus that I have kept around since the windows 95 days because it has a couple simple functions that are much harder to do in todays higher end apps. But this Photoscape fills that gap. So many useful functions and so easy to use. this a must have for those of us out here who do not want to pay for expensive editing software, but can get what we need done with combinations of apps like this one. Excellent graphics app here, donwload and keep this one. One thing is ironic though, it is a graphics editor (among other things) yet the buttons are large, gray, square and cumbersome...looks like a win98 app.

    Review date: Jun 28, 2007

Zoner Panorama Maker
  • Free Trial ($9.99)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Better than most others  qright

Zoner Panorama Maker version 1.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I unfortunately paid almost $600.00 for some software which included a stitching app like this. The Zoner Panorama Maker works much better, faster, easier than the arm and leg app! So my plan is to buy this to do the stitching and then use the image in the arm and leg app to create the web tours. If this company completed the package by selling a panoramic tour making app along with panorama maker, i would return the other one and purchase theirs.

    Review date: Jun 27, 2007

PhraseExpress Autotext
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Has some glitches  qright

PhraseExpress Autotext version 4.1.12
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

At first I thought this was the best thing since pizza, but then I started noticing that it sometimes did not paste the text and I would have to do it all over again. Also, it nags you to buy the full version if you use it a lot.

    Review date: Jun 14, 2007

Image Eye
  • Free Trial ($19.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Great for windows 2000  qright

Image Eye version 7.4
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 4

I have been looking a long time for a program that behaves like the xp image and fax viewer. Simple, fast viewer with no frills. I need it for a win2k machine I have that is not all that fast but holds thousands of images. this works great for that purpose. I would not recommend it for xp since the image and fax viewer is fine, or for vista since it has a "semi-working" app for similar use. But for 98, me and 2000, this one is great.

    Review date: May 11, 2007

Motherboard Monitor
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP

qleft  Perfect for many uses  qright

Motherboard Monitor version 5.3.7.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

We here at my company build images of os/apps and ghost them to batches of pc's. the pc's are built here and every so often there is a bad one in the bunch that might need a cpu or something else changed. MBM is run as part of the testing process on every machine, along with Burnin Test Pro. We can immediately see if a fan is spinning slower than it should, or if a processor is running to warm. it's a great, highly configurable tool that is one of those that I will probably keep forever.

    Review date: May 11, 2007

Rapid PHP Editor
  • Free Trial ($39.85)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Love it  qright

Rapid PHP Editor version 8.0.0.74
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I use this for everything from editing php/html to viewing source and text editing. I love the "open from ftp" feature.

    Review date: May 10, 2007

WebDrive
  • Free Trial ($59.95)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Works but doesn't  qright

WebDrive version 7.31
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 1
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

I used this for about a year, determined to make it work right. Problems I had were things like cache. It always showed files that I had deleted. Even after messing with cache settings and even turning it off. I had tech support in on it for a while and I gave up. It would be awesome if it works right.

    Review date: May 10, 2007

SnipIT
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Too cool not to have installed  qright

SnipIT version 1.0.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

It's a small add-on, but a very neat and useful one once you get used to it being there. The format of the email that comes up is very nice and professional looking, and it even covers web based email accounts like yahoo, hotmail, etc. Neat little add-on, grab it!

    Review date: Apr 30, 2007

AIDA32
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Perfect for tech people  qright

AIDA32 version 3.93
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have this on a usb drive that I carry with me when i go on calls to fix pc's. It does an excellent job of telling me what is what on each pc. I mostly use it for a quick reference to hardware so I can easily find the latest drivers. But it's also great for finding out what is running and what is starting at boot. Great sysinfo tool.

    Review date: Apr 25, 2007

Spider Player Basic
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Good but not good enough  qright

Spider Player Basic version 1.87
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

It is a decent player, but lacks a few things. One of major issues I have is the equalizer spectrum is to narrow. Winamp and other high end players give a range of 60hz to 10k or better. This one give 80hz to 14k. So I will not be using this to test any recordings or when I want to hear a nice "thump". I do like the simplistic ripper though, and it is lighter on the resources than most others. It does lack in the skin department as well, the default spider skin is rather clumsy looking and the other wmp classic is too "windows 95" looking. Fix the eq and I'm sold.

    Review date: Apr 22, 2007

Viewpoint Toolbar
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  It`s ok  qright

Viewpoint Toolbar version 3.8
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 3

It's just another toolbar with novelty functions to cluter up your browser. More than that, it is a huge advertisement for fotomat, trying to get you to print pics online. I can say I have seen worse toolbars, but the functionality is just not worth the real estate it takes up. As far as the bookmarking goes, you have to export the bookmarks in order to get them to another pc. I use Avant Browser, have for years. It has online storage of all your bookmarks and autofills, so they are common to all computers you own and/or use. I'm gonna have to give this one the "It was fun for 5 minutes" rating.

    Review date: Apr 19, 2007

FTP Password Recovery
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003

qleft  Does what it is supposed to do  qright

FTP Password Recovery version 1.1
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 3

This is up in the air as far as yes/no is concerned. Yes it worked as a local fake ftp server and shows the user/pass for all accounts that I used to log into it. Which is great if you are switching computers and need to enter your ftp info into the new pc's ftp client. As far as recovering passwords for users of my ftp server, no it does not do that unless you let it run in place of the actual ftp server software, wait until everyone tries to log in, and collect the passwords. But that is not what is advertised, so it is not an issue. When you close this app, it launches your browser pointed to the authors web site. Ok I guess since this is a one time per new pc app.

    Review date: Apr 19, 2007

GraFX Saver Pro
  • Free Trial ($75.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Good program but ...  qright

GraFX Saver Pro version 4.01
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 3

Not so good support. The last time I got a new pc, they would not give me my registration back. But it is a nice application.

    Review date: Apr 16, 2007

Flash Video Studio
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Finally a good one  qright

Flash Video Studio version 1.7
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I recently (and regretably) purchased a program from another company for this same purpose. It doesn't convert any video. I tried it on 4 machines and it will not work. This one however, worked first time. And the options for watermarking and effects are great. The file was very small for the quality i chose to render and I am going to purchase this one as soon as I am done typing this. If you need to publish video to the web in streaming format, this is your tool.

    Review date: Apr 16, 2007

DTaskManager
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Yep, this is the one  qright

DTaskManager version 1.49
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

As I downloaded this I was thinking, ok if this one lets me set it as the default task manager, it is a winner. And guess what? It does! Stand alone file, no installation, so put it anywhere you want, and it now comes up whenever I use ctl+alt+del, or any other call for task manager. The options it gives you to manipulate and find info on processes are excellent, perfect for putting on a USB stick and using on other peoples computer that have a need to track down running baddies.

    Review date: Apr 09, 2007

WinSnap
  • Free Trial ($24.90)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Agreed that is a great screen capture app  qright

WinSnap version 2.0.5
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 4

But it only has one or two things that some of the free ones don't. Like MWSnap, which is fine for me. I do like this one, but not for the money they are asking. I mean, I could simply use print screen or Atl+Shift+Print screen for a window capture, and it's free.

    Review date: Apr 03, 2007

Exact Audio Copy
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP

qleft  Perfect and then some  qright

Exact Audio Copy version 0.95 beta 4
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I agree with everything said by reviewer "charlesk" below. To add to it, this program reads and corrects errors better than most so called cd data recovery applications(some support audio ripping). I have ripped disks with EAC that looked awful and would not play in most players. Just let EAC configure your drives on installation and choose for it to read as accurately as possible. Now you have the best tool you could hope for to save your scratched up cd's. Some people might hope for a prettier interface that has animation and such, but I am not one of those people. My XP machines even look like 98 on steroids :-) Less flash = More fast

    Review date: Apr 02, 2007

SoftCAT
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  What are you people comlaining about?  qright

SoftCAT version 3.10
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

As of this version, it will auto scan your drive in the trial version. It imports anything the files have embedded in them. Personally it would take me forever to enter everything, even with the auto scan feature, I have a lot of software :-) Even so, this product is great, it can auto backup your DB, use screen shots, and hundreds of other options that any software freak would love. I will most likely buy this one, probably so I can export to an html file and show off to my friends :-)

    Review date: Mar 29, 2007

Color Pilot
  • Free Trial ($26.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Works pretty good  qright

Color Pilot version 4.62
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 4

The first pic I did with it worked great, then I had trouble getting others to do much. It seems like certain conditions must exist before much of a change takes place. But it was very cool on the one it worked with.

    Review date: Mar 26, 2007

Easy HTML To Any Script Converter
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Didn't work for me  qright

Easy HTML To Any Script Converter version 3.0.0
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

I input the source from one of my html pages via the clipboard, generated php code, pasted it into a new php document, uploaded to me web server and then opened it in my browser to find......rubbish. A bunch of out of place tables, no images, code showing, etc. BUT, i do like the email address java encoder feature, it works fine and is a good way to keep spam spiders from getting your address off a web site.

    Review date: Mar 23, 2007

Easy Web Editor
  • Free Trial ($69.90)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Not so impressive  qright

Easy Web Editor version 2007.21.221
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

I have used a lot of web editors in the past several years, starting of course with front page, and moving on to many others. In this day and age, css and absolute positioning of objects (drag and drop) is the standard. less code, better seo. This app makes that hard to accomplish.

    Review date: Mar 16, 2007

Potaro
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003

qleft  It has potential  qright

Potaro version 1 Beta
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

Once installed, this looks like a great application with nice features and options. But I get an error when I try to do just about anything while it's server is running. I can get some music to play, but I have a library of about 5880 songs and it was scanning the directory at about 1 song per second, so how long would that take? I will try it again when it's out of beta stages.

    Review date: Mar 12, 2007

Quick 3D Cover
  • Free Trial ($67.50)
  • Win98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  I really like this one  qright

Quick 3D Cover version 1.31
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have tried many box shot makers in the past couple years. This one is the coolest yet, mostly because of all the templates. I love the cd/dvd/lcd/book/binder/box, and more! True, you cannot rotate the image as you can in other apps of a similar nature, but this one is still cooler in my opinion. If the company keeps adding templates, I am sold and will buy this one.

    Review date: Mar 08, 2007

Desktop Sidebar
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP

qleft  This is one cool add-on  qright

Desktop Sidebar version 1.16
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

Where to start; Firstly, I am not fond of things taking up my desktop space, so on my regular 19" LCD, this is too much space taken, but on my wide screen laptop it is just fine. It did crash several times as I was setting up the panels i wanted to display and changing skins. But once all that is taken care of, it runs fine. As for light on the resources; at first it showed only 6MB PF usage, but shot up to 23MB after a reboot. Not so light, but does replace my email checker, so there is a trade off. I love how outlooks folders are integrated in the sidebar, very cool to preview and even reply to emails right from there. The clock is cool, stock reports (if you are into that kind of thing), POP email checker for the rest of your accounts, which I have 12 being checked currently by poptray. One thing that steers me away is the fact that there are only 66 total add on panels available by other users, which makes me think the app has been abandoned by most.

    Review date: Mar 08, 2007

AbleFtp
  • Free Trial ($89.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Excellent software  qright

AbleFtp version 7.25
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

My company bought this upon my recommendation for a particular task. We use it to move video files off of a Codian IPVCR which we use for video conferencing. They get moved to a backup server on the lan if they are X-X-XX old. It works perfectly and very intuitively. And I love the fact that it iconizes the app rather than putting yet another icon in my system tray. By Iconize, it minimizes to a desktop icon that is actually running. I Recommend this to anyone who needs software for similar tasks.

    Review date: Feb 28, 2007

Any to Icon
  • Free Trial ($24.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003

qleft  Great concept  qright

Any to Icon version 3.32
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have been using this for years. It is better than any icon studio or icon editor app because you can simply use your favorite graphics editor app to make an image (any size) and then save it as a bmp or jpg, etc. then use any to icon to convert it to a perfect icon with any number of the different options available for color depth, etc. Can't get any easier.

    Review date: Feb 20, 2007

VinylStudio
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Not quite there yet  qright

VinylStudio version 1.13
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 2

I am a regular use of Spin It Again from Acoustica, so I though i would try this one out since it is similar. Problems for me are that it has no cleaning effects at all. Your recording is as dirty and full of crackles as it was on the LP. Also, the online lookup is nice but I still had to enter all track names manually. High quality mp3 (according to this app) is 172kbps, not my idea of high quality mp3 files. Although it will record to wave as well and I could convert to mp3 in a different program. It has no burning engine and uses IMAPI, so it will not burn a cd if you do not have Windows XP or Vista. The automatic track splitting did not work at all for the recording I did, and it was a plane jane music tape. Also, it did not warn me that my level might be too high until i was many minutes into the recording. So I just let it go anyway. The recording sounds fine, but I could have done the same thing with audacity or other freeware.

    Review date: Feb 19, 2007

Slide Show Movie Maker
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Incredibly slow  qright

Slide Show Movie Maker version 3.5.3
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 3

5 pictures with default random transitions. 15 minutes to render the avi? This is pretty cool for free, but I'm gonna have to pass on it because it is so slow.

    Review date: Feb 16, 2007

Helium Music Manager
  • Free Trial ($29.00)
  • WinXP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Options galore  qright

Helium Music Manager version 2007.0.0.5425
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This is a really nice looking program that offers loads of options for just about everything you would ever want to know, do or manipulate about an audio file. The learning curve seems a bit large, but I am sure once a person uses it for a few days it will become second nature. The only problem I had was that it froze on me when adding only 89 files to the database. They are all stored on a network drive, but this is a gigabit network so it should not be a problem. The program does a great job displaying info about artists and songs and other info you never would have thought needed, but is cool to have if you have the time to fill it all in. Definitely a must have for a serious music collector. I also find the equalizer a bit underdeveloped, but I am an eq freak so it may be just me. Worth a test or 15 (that's how many uses you get in the trial). I don't care if it calls home, I do not plan on using an illegal code so nothing to worry about.

    Review date: Feb 12, 2007

ZipGenius
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Why in your right mind would you...  qright

ZipGenius version 6.0.3.1130
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Spend money on a archive app when this one is available for free? I have been using it for years, i do not think it is overkill, it is much faster to unzip a file by simply right clicking it, rather than opening winzip and blah blah,etc. Now the new version has a separate ftp client (not the best) and a really awesome 'convert to exe" function which I simply love! The new file splitter thing, well, I could take it or leave it, floppies are out. Even if this app cost a few bucks, I would buy it over any other without hesitation. Kudos to the author!!!

    Review date: Feb 08, 2007

MP3Gain
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Works well most of the time  qright

MP3Gain version 1.25
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

I have been using this one for a couple of years now, it works well and works well with huge batch jobs, accept once in a while there will be an mp3 that it cannot work with for some reason. Also, I have noticed it sometimes leaves small "blips" in the resulting normalized audio file. Slightly destructive but good as long as you do not run it on the same file multiple times. My preference is to use the real time normalizer in my jukebox pc's sound card, it is basically a software compression unit.

    Review date: Feb 05, 2007

Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker
  • Free Trial ($21.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Best of the best  qright

Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker version 3.03
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Not only is this program easy to use with a very small learning curve, but it comes with tons of free art packs you download separately giving you thousands of images to use besides the ability to use your own. Also, having just gotten into the lightscribe world, this is perfect for me!

    Review date: Feb 03, 2007

Access Manager
  • Freeware
  • Win98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Only one problem  qright

Access Manager version 2.1.58
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

I have been spoiled by Avant Browser's online storage feature which stores all my info online. This means that any pc I log my browser into gets all my passwords and such. If this app had an online feature it would be awesome.

    Review date: Jan 30, 2007

EzPop
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Nice but not for me  qright

EzPop version 3.70 beta
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Very nice looking app, skinnable, popup blocker, some spam control and a few other functions. I have been using poptray for years and this one is much heavier on the resources so I will stick with old faithful.

    Review date: Jan 29, 2007

Free Hide Folder
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  I have no problem with it  qright

Free Hide Folder version 1.5
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I tested it, tried accessing the hidden folder many ways, including from a command line. Could not see the hidden folder. Anyway, this app will most likely be used by kids hiding porn from their parents. And most parents will not do an extensive search for hidden folders. All in all, it is fine for most needs of this type.

    Review date: Jan 25, 2007

Mobysaurus Thesaurus
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Great for writers  qright

Mobysaurus Thesaurus version 1.0.5
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I am a song writer and this app has been a huge help in creating intuitive lyrics for my latest cd. Thanks to the author!

    Review date: Jan 16, 2007

DJ Twist & Burn
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Very unique  qright

DJ Twist & Burn version 1.01_138
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is just too cool! Changing tempo without changing pitch, and vice versa, beat matching, this is like a dance club DJ's dream application. The default settings worked great for me too, and i love the loads of effects i can play with per song or per batch. The app also automatically boosts audio files that may be a little lower in volume.

    Review date: Jan 09, 2007

WYSIWYG Web Builder
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Best of it`s kind  qright

WYSIWYG Web Builder version 4.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Like a lot of people, I started off using front page, then went to Namo web editor (which I still use), then decided to give this whole CSS thing a try. After trying 5 or 6 apps, this one stuck out like a bar of gold in a crap factory. I bought it and love the drag and drop positioning. No frames? who'd of ever thunk it :-)

    Review date: Jan 09, 2007

Mystica
  • Free Trial ($15.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Tons of potential  qright

Mystica version 5.462
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

This is a really cool app for people who create things like web page backgrounds, video overlays and even bump maps for game creation. The one thing about it that I can't get passed is that any change to an image takes seemingly forever to render a view. So if you plan to tweak and tweak, you might also plan to wait and wait.

    Review date: Jan 09, 2007

WebShot
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Kind of cool I suppose  qright

WebShot version 1.31
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

Rather than taking a normal screen shot of a web page (as often as I need to do that?) This app will take the shot of the whole page, not just what shows in the browser. Has a few quirks, but still pretty neat for free.

    Review date: Jan 08, 2007

Acoustica MP3 CD Burner
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Wma files  qright

Acoustica MP3 CD Burner version 4.11
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

All Acoustica apps do support WMA files. But not DRM protected ones. No software can use, change, burn or manipulate in any way a DRM protected WMA file. This is NOT a limitation of this software, but a restriction placed within the files by Microsoft. If you purchase and download protected WMA files, it's your own fault that the only app that will do anything with them is Windows Media Player.

    Review date: Dec 20, 2006

Spin It Again
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Best of it's kind  qright

Spin It Again version 1.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

There are not many apps out there that specialize in this type of procedure, this one is so easy to use and the noise removal and equalizing effects are superb. I have transferred at least 40 cassettes, 10 LP's and even some audio from an old reel to reel, using this program. Perfect as far as I am concerned.

    Review date: Dec 20, 2006

Ad-Aware Free
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Why is this so popular?  qright

Ad-Aware Free version 1.06r1
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

I admit, when I was less experienced with malware and virus problems and how to fix them, I too downloaded adaware regularly. But compared to some of the power apps like Spyware Terminator, and what used to be Ewido, ad-aware is a kids toy. It misses tons of "baddies" and does a terrible job removing stubborn ones that it does find. On the good side, the developers do keep up to date as far as regularly updating the database. but this app just does not do the job well enough. Same review can be applied to the never dying "Spybot".

    Review date: Dec 20, 2006

MP3 Tunes
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Has a mind of it's own  qright

MP3 Tunes version 1.8.2
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 3

This seemed great at first, but when it is in auto play mode it will not allow you to play a song. it says there is already one loaded. So take it out of auto play, and tell it to play a certain song and it plays a different one every time. Bummer, because it seemed like a great auto dj.

    Review date: Dec 17, 2006

PolderbitS Sound Recorder and Editor
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Little more than windows sound recorder  qright

PolderbitS Sound Recorder and Editor version 5.0.94
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

Compared to top of the line apps for this purpose, like Acoustica's Spin It Again, this program lacks just about everything. I can do the same things in any app that will record. The noise removal functions are poor at best.

    Review date: Dec 13, 2006

Collectorz.com Music Collector
  • Free Trial ($49.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Too complex for the casual collector  qright

Collectorz.com Music Collector version 7.1.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

This is a great program but it lacks a few things. One, I buy ALL my cd's as downloads, so it really needs the ability to look up cd info via mp3 tags. Then let the user decide which songs he/she may or may not have from that disk. Secondly, I could not get it to download album art automatically. Then I ran across the plethora of options, inputs, etc. and decided it was just too much work in order to show off my cd collection.

    Review date: Dec 12, 2006

Acoustica MP3 Audio Mixer
  • Free Trial ($24.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Very nice for casual use  qright

Acoustica MP3 Audio Mixer version 2.471
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is not a super multi track recording studio app, but for mixing sounds, recording voice, instruments, etc. It is great! The company does have an app called Mixcraft that IS a super multi track recording studio app, which does everything this one does and tons more. The support at Acoustica is second to none as well!

    Review date: Dec 06, 2006

Folder Marker
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Excellent  qright

Folder Marker version 1.4
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I try a LOT of software, every day of my computer geek life :-) Most get uninstalled after a couple uses. This one is still here and still in use. I like that I can visually differentiate certain folders, using colors, icons and even custom imported icons. The restore to default works fine for me, I must have gotten lucky :-)

    Review date: Dec 04, 2006

MEDA CD Ripper
  • Freeware
  • WinNT/2000/XP

qleft  Best freebie but needs an option or two  qright

MEDA CD Ripper version 2.2
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I love the fact that I can rip to .ape format with this tool. Other than that, it is rather limited, but great for "option challenged" users. I needed to find an app that would rip to mp3 for an "option challenged" user. this one is easy and straight forward. I set the output folder for him and showed him how to click "rip". The only option I wish it had was to create a folder named after the artist or disk when ripping. As it stands now, all ripped songs go into the same folder (unless you specify each time, which is way beyond the user I mentioned) and are named title.mp3 so there is no artist separation. Fine for me, but can get confusing for him. All in all, a great app for beginners.

    Review date: Nov 29, 2006

FlyakiteOSX
  • Freeware
  • WinWin XP

qleft  Amazing  qright

FlyakiteOSX version 3.5
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have read the opinions of some who have trouble with this app. Which is understandable if you have had your XP machine running for a couple years and have made alterations. But I installed this on a new installation of XP Pro and it went perfectly without a hitch. It (surprisingly) takes very little system resource, and looks/feels just like a Mac! I am not a fan of OSX but wanted to see how well this app performed. Everything is great and I am writing this review from the XP machine I installed it on. Lot's of neat little tricks, cool toolbar, etc. I suppose if you like OSX's look but want the PC flexibility, install this immediately after a fresh install of XP.

    Review date: Nov 29, 2006

Bitmap to Icon Wizard
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  It works with some effort  qright

Bitmap to Icon Wizard version 1.3
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 3

In this day and age, we are as lazy as humanly possible when it comes to computing. This app would have won best app of the year in 1991, but i use Any2Icon for this task because you can simply save any image, jpg, gif, bmp, etc. Even save right from a web page, no editing. Load it and the app resizes it on it's own. With quite a few options. This one takes the effort of resizing images in an external editor.

    Review date: Nov 27, 2006

SyncBackSE
  • Free Trial ($30.00)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Great program, but ....  qright

SyncBackSE version 4.1
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

It is missing an important feature. Some people need to use it for source=FTP and destination= LOCAL. It has only the opposite. I realize that you can simply reverse the rules to make it behave as if the source was the destination and vice cersa, but it would be nice to have the option if i am going to pay for an app that was free a couple months ago.

    Review date: Nov 17, 2006

zFTPServer Suite
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Excellent but familiar  qright

zFTPServer Suite version 2.0
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This FTP server works great, I wish I would have found it earlier. The one thing that makes me wonder....FileZilla FTP server is free, and this looks like a fancy GUI built on top of Filezilla. No tool tips, add user, add group, everything is the same. Hmmm?

    Review date: Nov 14, 2006

ScanRnServer
  • Free Trial ($18.99)
  • Win2000/XP

qleft  Limited  qright

ScanRnServer version 1.0
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 3

I would say for people who use scanners for photo's primarily, this is a great program. But for those of use who scan directly to PDF, OCR to docs or other formats, this was just false excitement. I have long wondered why some company has not made software to enable shared scanners.

    Review date: Nov 14, 2006

Sothink Tree Menu
  • Free Trial ($59.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  I am always a sucker for nice menus  qright

Sothink Tree Menu version 2.00
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 5

I happen to like the tree type menu for web site navigation. This app comes with some really cool templates that are fairly easy to alter. I was pleasantly surprised that it allows you to "publish" to an include file to be used in php or other pages. I would have put the code in an .inc file anyway, but it did it for me. Nice app.

    Review date: Nov 07, 2006

Folder Guide
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Very nice accept one little thing  qright

Folder Guide version 1.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I was liking this as I added shortcuts to it, it was pretty cool and very easy compared to the traditional way of navigating to a favorite folder. But it took out one of my other favorite context menu items, which is "empty recycle bin". For some reason, those two do not want to exist on the same menu. So this one had to go. But it is still a neat little app.

    Review date: Nov 06, 2006

SpamExperts Desktop
  • Free Trial ($20.00)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Great anti-spam but...  qright

SpamExperts Desktop version 1.1.5.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I like that the app does not take over the computers network settings. Some of these types of anti-spam apps make your client point to localhost for mail retrieval. So that's a PRO. It learns fast and also replaces my periodic mail checking tray app, PRO #2. The only thing I see wrong with this app is that it is using over 35MB of ram as it sits in my tray. That is too much for me. Other than that, it's great!

    Review date: Oct 25, 2006

EssentialPIM Free
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Acts and feels like outlook  qright

EssentialPIM Free version 1.9
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

Someone did a very good job creating an outlook replica minus the email portion. This program looks, acts and feels like outlook. Takes up about 21MB of ram when running so I would not allow it to start with windows. I really don't see the point in using this if you have outlook. It is, however, very very nice.

    Review date: Oct 02, 2006

Avant Browser
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Best yet  qright

Avant Browser version 11.0 build 7
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have been using this browser for a couple years, and this latest release is the absolute best yet. I LOVE the online bookmarks syncing! Too bad it runs on IE or it could knock it off the map.

    Review date: Sep 28, 2006

Comodo Internet Security
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Would not work for me  qright

Comodo Internet Security version 2.3.4.45
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 1
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 3

When I saw this app I though "cool, something similar to the late, great Sygate"! It is fairly similar but it would not let anything access internet or network. After clicking allow on everything I needed, I went in to the advanced options and allowed certain apps full access......nothing. I even chose the "allow all" option which is supposed to turn off the firewall, but I still had no internet or network connectivity. After fighting it for about 15 minutes, I had to uninstall and go back to my trusty sygate.

    Review date: Sep 25, 2006

Stickies
  • Freeware
  • Win98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  For those without outlook  qright

Stickies version 5.2b
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This is a cool app, it seem to leave a fairly small footprint on your pc resources. The options are great, the networking and email functions are great to send stickies back and forth to people or PCs in your friends list, instant connectivity over a LAN. The only complaint I have is that after closing the app and re-opening, it revert my sticky titles back to their original before i edited them, which is the first line of the note. This is much too long. I titled my notes thing like "lunch" or "meeting" and after closing and re-opening, the notes now have the titles, "lunch at subway with Marianne and mari" and "Board meeting at 10am in the committee room, bring notes on project x". If not for this flaw, the program would be perfect for those without outlook, and it's own notes functionality with reminders and everything else this one has (depending on if you have an exchange server, or a third party pst share)

    Review date: Sep 20, 2006

Droppix Label Maker Deluxe
  • Free Trial ($23.50)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Great for lightscribe  qright

Droppix Label Maker Deluxe version 2.7.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 4

This is a great app for lightscribe users. I got nero with my LS drive and it's label maker is just terrible. So I looked for another that supports LS technology. There only a few since LS is fairly new and this one works great.

    Review date: Sep 13, 2006

DriverMax
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/Vista

qleft  Seems like it could be useful  qright

DriverMax version 1.2
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I had a program that was very similar to this a few years ago. I thought it was the best thing since pizza, but i never used it. I downloaded this one to check it out, it backed up all drivers to a zip file for me in under a minute. I would think this could be great for someone using win98 or some other pain in the a** OS. The only thing I find odd is that when you run it, it gives you 30 days to get your free registration code while you are in trial mode. I don't know about the rest of you out there, but I can install an OS in less than 30 days, and besides, the registry would be clean on the new OS installation, so your 30 days would renew. Unless it requires the registration code in order to reinstall the drivers, which I did not try.

    Review date: Sep 13, 2006

MP3 CD Doctor Lite
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  It works  qright

MP3 CD Doctor Lite version 1.0
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 3

But as stated below, a free burner is not hard to find so I can't justify keeping it. But I can recommend that after you try the suggestion below and then your computer is hosed up. .... uninstall RP basic, go get Ewido to clean the spyware it left behind, then grab a registry cleaner to get rid of the boat load of reg entries it leaves behind. Then grab CD Burner XP Pro, it's free and does much more than this one, and does not invade like RP does.

    Review date: Sep 12, 2006

ReNamer
  • Freeware
  • Win98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Only one i have ever kept after using  qright

ReNamer version 4.15
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Once in a while I needed to rename multiple files, so I would jump on the net and grab any renamer i came across. But this one I kept because it was so simple and works perfectly. I now purchase music files from a web site regularly and they come named some very funky way, so I use this with 3 rules stacked to take a bunch of mp3 files from a 40 character name full of underscores, dots and numbers, into just the song name.mp3 Does them alll at once and does them all correctly every time. I use Inno Setup as well for any app I write, it seems to me that the guy above has got some computer trouble and does not realize it.

    Review date: Sep 11, 2006

Web Update Builder
  • Free Trial ($199.00)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  This is an awesome app  qright

Web Update Builder version 3.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 5

For me, I host a lot of web sites, and some of the self proclaimed webmasters are clueless. This makes it so easy for them to edit their pages. And I can customize every aspect of what they can and cannot edit, which saves me from a phone call at midnight on a Tuesday from someone who needs me to restore a file they have screwed up. This is exactly what I have been looking for, for quite some time. I even tried to write my own app just like this using xml and VB. But I am not the worlds best programmer so instead I made a screen saver :-) The price seems high when just about every app out there is 40 to 50 bucks. But this pays for itself very quickly once I distribute the created EXE files to my customers since I no longer get calls to help edit sites, my time is worth money when I can be working on other projects.

    Review date: Aug 18, 2006

SpeedMenus
  • Freeware
  • WinNT/2000/XP

qleft  Different than others  qright

SpeedMenus version 2.0 beta 4
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

Pretty cool little launch app. It is kind of strange to set up at first, but once you understand it, you are off and running. I like the scrolling info at the top of each menu box. The one gripe I have about it is that it sits in the system tray and was using over 26MB of ram just sitting there. I am also not a big fan of extra stuff sticking out of the sides of my screen. But overall, it's an original idea for a launcher and would be great for some people.

    Review date: Aug 18, 2006

AudioGrabber
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  One complaint  qright

AudioGrabber version 1.83
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

The only complaint I have about this one is that it seems to have been abandoned. No update since 2004? FreeDB is in trouble right now, what will the author do if it goes down?

    Review date: Jul 25, 2006

BlazeDVD Professional
  • Free Trial ($49.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Good app but why?  qright

BlazeDVD Professional
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 3

Why would anyone pay $50 for this when they can buy a DVD-ROM or Burner for about the same price and get a free edition of Cyberlink Power DVD with it?

    Review date: Jul 19, 2006

MyUninstaller
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Under 5 stars? you're kidding right?  qright

MyUninstaller version 1.34
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is the most useful thing I have ever used, and have been using it for years. Not only can you do the plain old uninstall. But it also show items without uninstallers, and the best part is that it shows you where on the pc the files are located, what the web address is, the company name, version, etc. It is miles beyond the plain add/remove within windows CP. Oh, almost forgot. It is great for detecting spyware too, how??? It will sort the items by installation date, so if you just got some 3rd party crap installed with your new P2P app, just open my Uninstaller and sort by date, you will see what has been installed today and can start removing it from there, or at least know what was installed so you can fight it.

    Review date: Jul 18, 2006

Realty Mailer
  • Free Trial ($19.95)
  • Win2000/XP/2003

qleft  $160?  qright

Realty Mailer version 1.0
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 2

Yeah, you can edit (simple editing) images and send then via email, but I can do that with OE or Outlook or any other email client, and if I need to do some editing first, there are plenty of free quick editors out there that do a better job. This company is dreaming if they think people are going to pay this price. This program is hardly worth more than free.

    Review date: Jul 18, 2006

Eusing Free Registry Cleaner
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Not by itself but...  qright

Eusing Free Registry Cleaner version 1.1
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

This is a pretty good product, it makes a prenamed backup before cleaning what it has found to be bad registry entries. However, most people recommend you use more than one reg cleaner because they find different bad entries. I use this one, then run regsupreme, which then find a boat load of things that this one did not find. But both of them together seem to do pretty good.

    Review date: Jul 18, 2006

iColorFolder
  • Freeware
  • WinWin XP

qleft  I like it  qright

iColorFolder version 1.4.2
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

I was using Rainbow Folders for this task, but I like a few features from this app a little better. One feature is the choice of skins, so not only can I change the color of a folder but the style as well. RF does not do this, BUT RF does have a much wider spectrum of colors to choose from. The only thing I find about this app that annoys me is that when you apply a new skin, all your icons arrange by name on your desktop. So I have to put them all back where I want them afterwards. All in all, I like this one better.

    Review date: Jul 12, 2006

SendTo FTP
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Love it  qright

SendTo FTP version 2.8
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I thought I liked the "explorer" style from WSFTP the best of my ftp apps. But for a single or a few files, this one is really cool. Once you have it set up, it is a snap to transfer stuff with little or no effort. The program comes with only two extensions configured to send in ascii mode though, probably need to copy an ascii list from another ftp program and add them into this one to avoid corrupt files of certain types. That's the only thing I have found that's not perfect about this app.

    Review date: Jul 11, 2006

ScreenVirtuoso Professional
  • Free Trial ($39.00)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  This is awesome!  qright

ScreenVirtuoso Professional version 2.30
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have another tutorial creation program that does screen shots with animated cursors and other things, it's great, but sometimes I need actual video, and this program does the job perfectly. It allows me to speak into a mic while recording my screen capture, and when I'm done I have it convert to flash. This also creates a web page that has the flash movie already embedded, and it compresses more than I expected, which is a good thing. There are other options for converting, bitrate, sound/no sound, and many more. The author has updated it at least once per month that I can tell which tells me he/she is on top of things. The only complaint I have is that the flash conversion is very slow, but I am sure that will get better with future versions.

    Review date: Jun 27, 2006

SoftForYou Free Keylogger
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP

qleft  Full of problems  qright

SoftForYou Free Keylogger version 1.1
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 1
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 1

One, it doesn't log more than one window at a time. Two, I changed the "magic word" and now the interface won't come up, not even with the default word. Three, how the $#!%$ do you uninstall it? No help from the author, i emailed asking how to uninstall with no reply. I suggest running Ewido anti-spyware and saving the report, then you can see where the files reside, then use "remove on reboot" to remove the programs files next time you reboot. Terrible program

    Review date: Jun 23, 2006

Belkasoft Forensic IM Extractor
  • Free Trial ($49.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Or you could  qright

Belkasoft Forensic IM Extractor version 3.01
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 3

Simply look at the txt files that the IM uses to log the chat sessions. I could understand the use of this app if it was free, but $40 to read text files for you? I understand that it sorts conversation by user name, but you can do that by looking at the log files yourself.

    Review date: Jun 14, 2006

Shrink Pic
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Perfect  qright

Shrink Pic version 1.2
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is exactly what my family needs. None of them are techie like I am so I get 10MB in pics in the mail all the time. I will be installing this on all their pc's ASAP. And they don't even need to know about it :-), it will just resize without interaction. Great idea and a great job building it.

    Review date: Jun 09, 2006

HovText
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  This is perfect  qright

HovText version 2.0
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I work for a company where I update a website frequently. Most departments send me their updates in word.doc format, so I have to copy the text, paste into notepad to get rid of the formatting, copy again and paste to the web page. Obviously this app takes out a few steps for me. Great little green box to have in your clocks corner if you do web editing or anything else that takes copy/paste from one doc type to another.

    Review date: Jun 08, 2006

RK Launcher
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista

qleft  Ok for a flashy thingy  qright

RK Launcher version 0.4 beta
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

This is almost exactly like the Jet Toolbar launcher. It's flashy, it looks cool, it is 3D, but it's next to useless. I use a launcher that hold about 200 app shortcuts for me. Obviously this launcher would never handle that without being a mile long. It is also covering up part of my desktop which I hate. If you want cute little flashy desktop things, then grab it. If you are a power user who wants alphabetized or categorized shortcuts to many apps, then forget it.

    Review date: Jun 07, 2006

Jaangle
  • Freeware
  • WinXP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Better than most  qright

Jaangle version 0.9.427
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

I like this type of player/organizer for use as a jukebox to my huge collection on my central file server. The only thing it is really missing is an equalizer. Also would be nice if these type of apps normalized on the fly. A bug i encountered was that ever time I shut the app down it gave a memory error. But all in all it is better than others i have tried accept for the awesome pcjukebox. I love how this app displays info on the artist, and it's pretty in depth too. Also easily downloads lyrics as long as your tags are correct.

    Review date: Jun 01, 2006

iOpus File and Web Page Downloader
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  This thing is awesome if you have the need  qright

iOpus File and Web Page Downloader version 3.01
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I used this nice little app to automatically download (task scheduler) 10 of my dynamic php pages each day, and then upload them as static html files. This gave my site brand new content each day without having to do a thing! With this tool, you could possibly have an entire dynamic site downloaded, converted to static and uploaded (which the engines like). Nice unique application.

    Review date: May 30, 2006

Budget
  • Free Trial ($29.95)
  • Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Unique program  qright

Budget version 3.4.1
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 5

It took me a few months to talk her into it, but my wife (who pretty much hates computers) is now using this program instead of a load of actual envelopes in a firesafe. it's basically a virtual version of what she was already doing to budget our income/expense. the difference is that the program makes no mistakes, she does. Great app if you devote your full attention to actually using it to keep track of your finances.

    Review date: May 26, 2006

GreatNews
  • Freeware
  • WinNT/2000/XP

qleft  Best yet  qright

GreatNews version 1.0 Beta (Build 368)
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have tried probably 10 to 12 RSS readers and this one has been more stable and friendly than the rest so far. I have been using it for about 2 months with all the default feeds (accept the chinese blog one, what's up with that?) and about 20 of my own added feeds. One particular feed liked to get screwed up with some other readers but looks fine with this one. I particularly like the different views you are able to select, newspaper is my favorite though. Definitely grab this one while it's still free.

    Review date: May 17, 2006

Whisper FTP Surfer
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Nice ftp app with a couple bugs  qright

Whisper FTP Surfer version 1.07
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

I like how this app allows you to edit html pages right from the server, then uploads the edited file from your editors temp directory. But it won't do the same for php files that I can tell. The other thing is that while transferring 30-40 files at a time, it stopped on me and I had to force it to close, then could not delete a file in a directory I was uploading from because it was locked by the surfer.exe still running. Other than that, it is a pretty unique FTP client.

    Review date: Apr 18, 2006

MWSnap
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Almost perfect  qright

MWSnap version 3.0.0.74
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I do a lot of tutorials that require screen shots. There is only one other program I know of that works for me a little better than this one does. That is "UltraSnap" by Mediachance. It has all the same functions accept you can set US to automatically put a drop shadow under the screen shot, which make them look professional without extra editing. US also allows you to drag from the screen and drop on the desktop to automatically create a jpg file. But US does not have the "add cursor" feature that MWSnap does. Also, US is not free :-( I agree with Snapfiles that this is probably the best Screen shot tool available in the free category.

    Review date: Apr 13, 2006

Karaoke Anything!
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  People need to understand  qright

Karaoke Anything! version 1.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Removing vocals from a stereo mix is next to impossible. If a program such as this can do even a mediocre job, then it is doing great. To remove vocals from a song, software needs to remove certain frequencies from the overall mix, and in doing this, yes it is going to sound different. To actually remove the vocals, you would need the original recording in it's 24, 48, or whatever, channel mix, and simply shut off the vocal tracks. One common misconception about Karaoke is that you are hearing the original song with the vocals removed, when in fact you are hearing studio musicians hired to record the song without vocals. So for what this app is trying to do, it does about as good as you're going to find anywhere else.

    Review date: Apr 11, 2006

Copy2Clip
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Great choice  qright

Copy2Clip version 1.0.7
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

There are a few others out there that will give you similar functions, but this one has a configuration window so you can specify how you want the path/file name or whatever copied to the clip board. Works great.

    Review date: Apr 08, 2006

Moffsoft FreeCalc
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP/Vista

qleft  I love this!  qright

Moffsoft FreeCalc version 1.2.06
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

Two very cool features and a few other cool ones. The tape is great because you can then copy the contents of your calculations for pasting into other apps. The other coolest feature is the resizing, I like having a huge calc on my screen. The skin colors and things are ok too but not what persuaded me to keep this app. It responds to the keyboard number pad just like windows calc too.

    Review date: Apr 04, 2006

Easy File Sharing Web Server
  • Free Trial ($45.95)
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Just what i needed but...  qright

Easy File Sharing Web Server version 3.3
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 3

This software is VERY easy to install and does just what it says....almost. It is up and running literally within minutes. But when you choose to disable the forums within it, there still shows a link to the forums when a user logs in. If a user clicks this link the software tells them they might not be logged in, this is confusing for users. The forum link should be GONE if you disable forums within the admin interface. Another con is that you cannot specify file types to be uploaded, so how is a webmaster to know someone won't upload malicious content? I need to narrow my users ability to upload files to 4 types, this is the number one reason I have not purchased the software. Not to mention their support team just blew me off after 2 emails about the problems. Bad support = no sale in my book.

    Review date: Mar 22, 2006

KF Web Server
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  The perfect alternative  qright

KF Web Server version 2.5
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

KF Web Server had ended up replacing a server app i paid for, which caused me all kinds of problems. This one has performed perfectly with the 7 web sites I run from it. The features are great, it has a very light footprint, security is there and unique, no crashes as of yet, just can;t say enough. Great product.

    Review date: Mar 21, 2006

Mail Enable Standard
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP

qleft  Only one complaint  qright

Mail Enable Standard version 1.93
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

The only thing this is missing is a web mail interface, but I guess they have to leave something out or people will not tempted to buy the full version. Other than that is it perfect.

    Review date: Mar 21, 2006

Asterisk Key
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Yep, it works  qright

Asterisk Key version 7.7
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 4

So far in my testing it has displayed passwords for my google adsense account, email accounts in MS Outlook and a few others. It is already beating the tar out of the one I used to try once in a while when I needed this type of thing.

    Review date: Mar 18, 2006

SyncBack
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  No doubts about this one  qright

SyncBack version 3.2.10
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

If you need quality backup software, you can't beat this one for the price. I wouldn't use it on corporate networks or anything like that, but for a single pc or multiple directories across a small network it is great. I use it to back up about 3500+ and growing Mp3's, and also the contents of my FTP server's folders. It sends me an email every morning to let me know of any changes/success/failures. Another cool thing is that I back this all up to an external USB hard drive, which I can then take with me to plug into my laptop and have all the same music I have at home, always synchronized. Home users with single pc or small ftp/web/file servers will love this application.

    Review date: Mar 15, 2006

XYplorer
  • Free Trial ($42.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Good but buggy  qright

XYplorer version 4.50.0018
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 4

I like the features, but it crashed both time I opened it and tried to send my hard drive contents to a file. A little work and this will be a great app.

    Review date: Mar 07, 2006

Paragon Exact Image
  • Free Trial ($39.95)
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Blows away the old faithful  qright

Paragon Exact Image version 7.0
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This software is exactly what we were looking for when we needed to image a bunch of laptops. Norton Ghost 10 would not do it, their boot disk would not boot the laptop, I couldn't get Ghost to do squat. Paragons product did it while the OS was running! We also purchased the server version for our servers, now we do not have to shut them down to create imaged hard drives! Restore works perfectly as well, from the running OS or from a boot cd (not floppy) which the program will create upon command. The images are kept in what the company calls a "capsule", which is a partition on the secondary drive that is completely hidden from everything but this software, so even hackers can't see it to screw up your image. Not to mention that the entire 40GB drive of the laptop is compressed to about 6GB inside the capsule and only took 12 minutes to create! Scheduler works awesome on the servers too. I can't say enough to praise this software!

    Review date: Mar 07, 2006

GetCanon!
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Perfect  qright

GetCanon! version 1.6
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I just happened to buy a canon camera the other day and I hate the software it came with. Way too much crap going on with it. I wanted a simple program to grab the pics off the camera and delete them. With my old camera i just did it through windows explorer, but this one won't allow that. So I came across this app here at snapfiles and it's like someone heard me ask for it! Great job to the author. The only thing I could say being constructive is that it could use a thumb view in case some pictures are bad or blurry, they could be skipped. But I can also do that after they have been transferred so it's not a big deal at all.

    Review date: Feb 28, 2006

CubicExplorer
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Multipurpose  qright

CubicExplorer version 0.75
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I personally think this app should have had a rating of excellent from snapfiles, but whatever. It is not only a replacement for windows explorer, BUT, it has an integrated notepad type of thing, tabbed windows, and my favorite part of it is that I can set bookmarks. I build web sites, so I have a bookmark called "webs", which, when clicked, shows me all my web folders. Kinda like creating a shortcut to the webs folder on your desktop, but without the clutter. all in all, this is a cool app and deserving of the DL.

    Review date: Feb 10, 2006

Unlocker
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP

qleft  This is awesome  qright

Unlocker version 1.7.8
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I had a bunch of files on a server that were locked and would not delete, they had been that way for months. i never really looked into it very far and just left them. This app showed me what was locking the files, and i was able to delete them, What a cool tool!

    Review date: Jan 30, 2006

McAfee SiteAdvisor
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  This is what was missing!  qright

McAfee SiteAdvisor version 1.0.0.16
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This is what people needed along with scanners like spybot and adaware, to keep from getting the stuff in the first place. So many computers I fix for people and they ask me how to recognize spyware or "how did I get that?", and it's so hard to explain to them what NOT to do on the web. This app is going on all my family's pc's and I am telling everyone who get's knocked out by malware about it! This is perfect!

    Review date: Jan 19, 2006

Ashampoo Magical Defrag
  • Free Trial ($14.99)
  • WinXP/Vista/7

qleft  This is an awesome app!  qright

Ashampoo Magical Defrag version 1.10
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I am floored that someone else did not think of this long ago. I have purchased this app for multiple pc's in my home. How I know it works so good? I used windows defrag to analyze the drive before installing magic defrag, then analyzed a day after installing it. Perfectly defraged drives, all the time. I never have to take time out to defrag with the windows app. Also has a light footprint on the resources which is something I am very picky about. The only con to this is that the company has been nagging me to buy their photo commander app ever since i bought this one.

    Review date: Jan 19, 2006

Pixia
  • Freeware
  • Win2000/XP/Vista/7

qleft  Buggy program  qright

Pixia version 3.3a
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 3
  • Ease of use: 1
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 2

Within the first 2 minutes of trying out effects on a jpg file, the program froze on me. After messing with frustration for a few more minutes I forced it to close and went to uninstall it....no uninstaller in the start menu (I hate that). So I went to my trusty "Myuninstaller" and found it had created two entries, on uninstallable and one not. What is that about? So I uninstalled it and removed the other entry from the registry. Not gonna write home about this one. [Editor: The Pixia uninstall option is found in the standard Windows Add/Remove Software applet, as with most other products]

    Review date: Jan 09, 2006

BootSafe
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Why?  qright

BootSafe version 1.0.1002
  • Interface: 3
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 4
  • Value: 4
  • Overall: 3

Why use this when it has the exact same commands as msconfig?

    Review date: Dec 20, 2005

WinSock XP Fix
  • Freeware
  • WinWin XP

qleft  I can't believe they only gave it a "goo  qright

WinSock XP Fix version 1.2
  • Interface: 5
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

This software fixed every computers tcp/ip problems on a fairly large network I take care of at work. The idiot before me allowed anyone to do anything on the net so I had a lot of hosed up computers to fix. The one's that refused to connect to the new gateway were all fixed by using this software.

    Review date: Dec 04, 2005

EaseUs Disk Copy
  • Freeware
  • WinWin (All)

qleft  Ghost alternative  qright

EaseUs Disk Copy version 1.0
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 2

This app is a lot like Symantec Ghost. The differences are, it's free, and very slooowwww. It took this app over an hour to do what ghost did in less than five minutes. The options at the floppy boot screen are a bit confusing, but not impossible. Not for newbies I would say. Tested on NTFS, if it works for other file systems like Linux, then it is a great tool. If it only works on windows file systems then it just a slow alternative to purchasing ghost.

    Review date: Nov 10, 2005

Alligator Flash Designer
  • Free Trial ($149.00)
  • Win2000/XP/Vista

qleft  Not great  qright

Alligator Flash Designer version 5.0.20.8
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 2
  • Ease of use: 2
  • Value: 2
  • Overall: 2

This app is ok, not as good or flexible as others like ... but it's not too bad. Things I did not like are that the tool tips do not come up half the time, there's no timeline that I could find, The interface is rather primitive looking, and a few others. One good thing is that it did produce a very small file size when exporting an swf file.

    Review date: Sep 08, 2005

Junkanoo
  • Freeware
  • Win98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

qleft  Works fine  qright

Junkanoo version 1.26
  • Interface: 4
  • Features: 4
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 5

I have been using a small pop3 checker that sits in my tray for years now, and deleting spam by looking at the headers. This works just like that one did accept it has a bunch more features. I like that it has it's own little client you can send emails from rather opening a huge clunky program like outlook. And the white/Black list thing is cool too. The other spam filtering is a little basic, but it's better than nothing if you want a tray icon to check multiple accounts every couple minutes like i do.

    Review date: Jul 17, 2005

Xentient Thumbnails
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Not bad but not needed  qright

Xentient Thumbnails version 1.01
  • Interface: 1
  • Features: 1
  • Ease of use: 5
  • Value: 3
  • Overall: 2

Pro: It doesn't run in the system tray taking up resources Con: Looking at windows explorer and seeing all those different icons is sort of confusing. I am used to seeing jpg, gif, bmp, etc all as the same icon from the associated program. That tells me they are image files. With this app changing the icons, you do not know what app is associated unless you attempt to open a file. I will say that yes, it does work like it is supposed to, but I prefer the associated app icon. If i want a thumb then I'll switch thumb view within windows.

    Review date: Jul 06, 2005

wTicker
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Holy options batman  qright

wTicker version 0.3.1.1 Beta
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 5
  • Ease of use: 1
  • Value: 5
  • Overall: 3

This program is so full of configuration, options and windows, I was lost for 15 minutes trying to add a feed. Things pop up all over the place, it speaks in german (I think), and I ended up uninstalling it because it's just too complex to set up.

    Review date: May 20, 2005

HTML Quick Edit Bar
  • Freeware
  • Win98/ME/2000/XP

qleft  Good idea but...  qright

HTML Quick Edit Bar version 1.3
  • Interface: 2
  • Features: 1
  • Ease of use: 3
  • Value: 1
  • Overall: 1

The editor does not remember ftp settings, so every time you save you have to input settings again. Also, it completely changed my meta tags. Not only changed but they were formatted wrong and i had to re create them in a real editor. I would not use this to edit any pages that i wanted to stay w3c compliant either.

    Review date: Mar 07, 2005

Spytech SpyAgent

Spytech SpyAgent

A powerful monitoring solution to record PC activity, including keystrokes, email and more.

Demo Builder

Demo Builder

Create interactive Flash movies and tutorials to show how applications and systems work.

Remote Desktop Manager

Remote Desktop Manager

Manage all your remote connections and virtual machines from a single application interface.