Harlan

User Reviews by Harlan

The reviews and opinions below are posted by SnapFiles visitors. They do not necessarily reflect our opinion, and they are solely based upon the experience of individual users.

Start Menu Reviver (Free)
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SmartDeblur (Free)
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Phrozen Keylogger Lite (Free)
NetDrive (Free)

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Software Showcase

Manage your remote servers Remote Desktop Manager lets you manage all your remote server connections from a single interface. Supports Microsoft Remote Desktop, Terminal Services, VNC, LogMeIn and Team Viewer and many others.

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Bandizip

Best zipper available

Small, light on resources, very fast, flexible, comprehensive format support, good user interface, no bugs that I've seen. It doesn't get any better. I've uninstalled PeaZip and 7-zip, although they are each good programs (7-zip, regrettably, has become a poster-boy for inward-focused development). The interface could be improved to excellent by: 1. Offering a portable version; 2. Making the settings options less cryptic or providing explanations for the options; 3. Better choices of context menu options; and 4. More extensive toolbar. A changelog would be nice, as well as more communication from the developer on his forum.

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PeaZip

Good zipper, but this is a crowded field

PeaZip has been much improved over the past few years. It still has an unusual interface (which can be changed now to a more typical one), but it provides support for nearly all formats, works reliably, offers separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and installed and portable versions, and it is regularly updated and improved. I think of zippers as applications that do their jobs in the background, surfacing only when needed. PeaZip has always struck me as wanting more of your attention than I think a zipper deserves. So, although I have no complaints abut PeaZip, I prefer others. My current favorite is Bandizip.

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Ghostery for Firefox

Works well for me

I use it with Pale Moon, an optimized Firefox derivative. I block all beacons, but not much else. I have never run into a problem accessing a website because of Ghostery. If you block everything, you can expect to run into problems. If you try to be very detailed in what you block, it will take a lot of time to go through the extensive lists of candidates, and you will have to keep updating what is blocked.

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7+ Taskbar Tweaker

Does what it says, but not very useful

Installed easily and then worked fine for me on Win7 Pro 64 bit. Options settings are a bit confusing, and help is not very helpful. I used it for a few days and then deleted it. I didn't find it did much that standard Windows 7 didn't do already, and the features it added to the toolbar weren't of much interest to me.

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NetWorx

Excellent, and not just for techs

This is a great program I've used for years. It tells me if my network connection is OK, or if nothing much is happening. The activity light in the system tray is too crude to be useful. The previous version (5.2.5) ruined the "Deskband" for me. The new version (5.2.6) has restored it! Highly configurable, with many capabilities. The publisher offers several other well-written freeware applications; the RAM Disk is especially good.

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Rapid Environment Editor

Handy and well written

Not needed often. Handy for changing environment variables, of course, but even handier for seeing what variables have been set by applications. I was able to correct a couple of problems in this way (where applications complained that they could not find a file because of an invalid or missing environment variable).

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Q-Dir

Excellent: small, fast, portable

It does what you would expect from a multi-pane file manager. It's not as comprehensive as MultiCommander, or as pretty as NexusFile, but it has a ton of features in a small package that is constantly updated. Its only deficiency is the complex command structure, which is an inherent problem for all of the highly-capable file managers. Being able to work with up to 4 panes at once is usually more than I need, but occasionally it has been very handy. The portable version is identical to the installed version, and is the one I use. I highly recommend it.

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PDFsam

Does its job but very clunky interface

Does what it is supposed to: splits, merges, and rearranges pages of PDF files. Interface is confusing and will be frustrating for occasional users; visual reordering is particularly labor-intensive with large files. It was designed to rely on plugins to extend its functionality, but it hasn't attracted any interest from other developers. There are several other free PDF split-and-merge utilities available, and this one, which has been largely unchanged for a long time, is showing its age. Since there are also several free PDF applications with a much broader range of functions, users should look elsewhere.

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Desktops

Works fine, but too basic

Like all Sysinternals programs, it does what it says in a tiny, reliable package. But as the review implies, this is so basic and lacking in features that I don't know why anyone would use it except to see what a multi-desktop setup looks like. Dexpot is a top-rated freeware alternative.

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Desktop Media

Works very well, surprisingly handy

This is similar to DeskDrive, and is similarly surprisingly handy. It is better than DeskDrive in that it offers hardlinks as a more efficient way to access temporary drives, and it seems to be free of the intermittent crashes that even the newest version of DeskDrive suffers from. DeskDrive conveniently highlights the icons it creates, and the icons it creates for USB drives include information on capacity and free space; Desktop Media does not do either of these. DeskDrive uses less memory but more pagefile space than Desktop Media. Neither program has much documentation. Both programs are very good.

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PointerStick

Distracting and annoying to use

This developer provides lots of well-written small, portable, free tools. Pointer Stick shows that no one is perfect. The mouse pointer remains distractingly visible along with the stick. What makes this unusable for me is the way the stick abruptly changes orientation as I move around the screen. It makes me seasick. Wait for the next version.

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Desk Drive

Handy if you use usb or cd-dvd drives a lot

At first glance this seems like a small convenience, but if you frequently plug in and remove USB drives as I do, this easy access via a desktop icon is addictive. It is also handy when using a multicard reader with memory cards from cameras, cell phones, and media players. I have installed it on both machines I use. The current version includes a third-party add-on, which earns a few cents for the developer. I usually decline, but I like this enough to accept it, if only for a few days.

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SageThumbs

Works well, handy, generous license

Does what it says. IrfanView and XnView have similar capabilities through addons, but neither is free for commercial use. Some users will prefer to view images through a viewer/editor program, but I like to browse directories through the context menu.

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NexusFile

Lots of functionality and colorful, too

This is my favorite portable file manager. It has every function I use, and I like the colorful interface. Cramming lots of options in a small space makes the UI very busy, though. I would suggest hiding some of the functions in menus, instead of putting so much on the screen at one time.

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Sumatra PDF

Ok, but most users should look elsewhere

I've tried Sumatra several times. I like the idea of a lightweight PDF viewer that starts up and renders quickly, and I am willing to give up a lot of extra features in exchange for speed. But Sumatra is not much faster than others that DO come with extensive features, AND provide more flexible printing and file-handling, AND include conveniences such as remembering previous file save locations. I have gone back to PDF-XViewer (available on Snapfiles).

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Pale Moon

Fully compatible with official FF, but faster

This is an unofficial version of Firefox. It eliminates some features that most users don`t use, and results in a version that is fully compatible with Firefox while being noticeably faster to load and to respond. It is so compatible that all Firefox addons seem to work as is. If you like Firefox, you should try this. I can`t think of any downside.

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CleanMem

Works well and causes no problems

Like a lot of users, I consider memory "cleaners" to be pointless. Any freed memory is immediately grabbed back by whatever applications took it to begin with. CleanMem is a unique exception. It frees memory invisibly and without creating any problems, and the memory STAYS freed at least for a while. Adding more physical memory provides a lot more benefit than even CleanMem, of course, but CleanMem is a great tool to running in the background.

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Don`t Sleep

Excellent little program

This author writes highly functional little programs. I use aggressive power management to stretch my laptop battery's life, and Don't Sleep is great for keeping everything active when I'm viewing a webcast, for example. It has several other capabilities in a tiny package. Highly recommended. DesktopOK is another gem from the same site.

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Quick Zip

Sent me back to using 7-zip

This is a nice concept, but it is too hard to use. First, it didn't associate itself with any file types. Second, it crashed when I tried to create a 7z archive. Third, the Windows Explorer- style interface seems like a good idea, but it requires too much work to get to where you need to go. The minimalist interface is attractive, but it gave me no clue as to what settings were available or how to access them. In particular, I wanted to specify a default file access path and the 7z compression parameters.

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DriveGLEAM

Handy little program

Very handy for laptops without visible activity lights, such as when they are in docking stations and an external monitor is being used.

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PDF-XChange Viewer

Excellent alternative to Adobe Reader

Displays and prints properly, plus has lots of tools to edit and annotate PDFs. The more sophisticated features are only in the Pro version. A minor negative is that it is no faster than Adobe Reader, especially if you use Reader's default installation with auto-starting speed-up routines (which then consume resources at all times). Keeping PDF-XChange Viewer open but minimized or "trayed" makes it operate even more quickly than the sped-up Reader (again at the cost of consumed resources).

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UltraDefrag

Adequate

There are lots of defraggers available, including the one that comes with Windows. This one works adequately in every way. It is small and appears to work properly, although not too thoroughly. It can defrag at bootup, a minor advantage over some of the others. Considering the basic functionality, though, the interface is poorly implemented (for example, incomplete color legend, incomplete help files, options changed by editing .lua text files, choice of lengthy report files or none at all), and the speed is nothing special. Optimization is slow and hard to cancel out of. MyDefrag is a widely-used alternative (don't waste your time trying to learn and use its overkill scripting language), although it is confusing enough that several people have written GUIs for it. Anyway, unless your disk is almost full and you have massive fragmentation, defragging will provide little, if any, perceptible improvement in system speed.

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SnapaShot Classic

Good for quick small screenshots for e-mails

I use V2.2 for quickly grabbing rectangular screenshots and pasting them into e-mails to illustrate something. It loads instantly, so I load it from a Quick Launch shortcut when I need it. I have not found any problems with the rest of my WinXP system. It is not meant to replace other programs that provide sophisticated region selection, editing, and online sharing. One complaint: the selection area frame displayed on the screen is larger than the actual selection area, sometimes requiring a second attempt.

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TreeSize

Good. free version not for networked drives.

Works well, somewhat slowly, but better than any other free disk space analysis program I've ever tried. Not as much fun to use as some graphics-oriented competitors, but it is still my favorite of this type. To discourage commercial usage, the free version does not allow access to networked drives, a nuisance for those of us with home networks we want to centrally manage.

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NTFSRatio

Very handy to have available

Not needed too often, but handy to have when needed. Works well, and can substitute as a disk space analyzer. Interesting to see which directories compress well and which don't. Helpful when targeting directories to slim down. Integrates with right-click context menu, which is handy but may be undesirable, since it clutters the menu with an option you rarely use.

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DesktopOK

Perfect

I use it all the time (manually; I don't like the automatic saves, since I rarely change my desktop layout) when I switch screen resolutions. Works great and has never created a problem under WinXP.

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Google Earth

Excellent, but automatically installs Chrome

Doesn't ask, just installs the Chrome browser. Doesn't hurt anything, but I didn't need or want another browser. Google Earth itself is one of the reasons the internet is so great. Be sure to check out the available "layers" filled with information that you can add and delete as needed. Google could help with more information on what resources are available, but seeing what's there is a fun way to spend an hour.

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OneLoupe

Excellent...works well and causes no problems

Tiny and effective and does not interfere with anything else and uses minimal resources. I prefer it to ZoomIt, my previous favorite screen magnifier.

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SpaceSniffer

Makes a boring task great fun

This is neat to use. Frankly, I think old-fashioned text-based space usage reporters with printable outputs are more practical, but I still use this more than any other just because the responsive graphics are so much fun.

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Pitaschio

Features poorly implemented and cryptic

I wanted to like such a small multi-featured program. It's light on resources and doesn't cause problems, but none of its features are very effective and some are hard to figure out. Switch to a different browser (Avant and Maxthon are IE-based) and get more features in a better package.

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Microsoft SyncToy

Simple to use, reliable, compatible, free

I've used every public version of this, and they have all worked well for me. Never crashes, never creates system problems, never behaves strangely. Will not sync open files, however, at least not under WinXP Home or Pro.

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XP Syspad

More convenient access to XP features

It works just as described. There are no new capabilities here, but access to all the built-in features and programs is convenient both because of its simplicity and because you don't have to remember the various places Microsoft has hidden the goodies.

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AMP Calendar

There are better

Slightly better than a printed calendar, but it used 11Mb on my machine. Nicely formatted but basic display. I thought it would be handy, but lack of holidays and appointments made me replace it quickly. Worked OK on my XP Pro/SP3 machine, but there are lots of desktop calendars available.

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EaseUS Partition Master

Did not work for me

I have the Pro version, and it didn't do the one thing I wanted: to shrink an existing partition and create a new partition in the newly-freed space. This is exactly the sort of unusual capability I would expect to find in a partition manager that aims to replace FDISK, and it wasn't up to the task.

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Copernic Desktop Search

Nice, but doesn't index .pst files

I tried using this for a few weeks, mostly to index e-mails and Excel spreadsheets. I used both manual indexing and scheduled indexing. In both cases, CDS periodically cleared the index and rebuilt it from scratch, but without the e-mails stored in my PST files. PST files are an important way to prevent server overload and to free yourself from reliance on server availability. I uninstalled CDS because it couldn't handle this.

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Unlocker

Excellent

Stays out of the way, pops up when it thinks you need help, works perfectly whenever called on. Small and reliable. It couldn't be better.

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FontRenamer

Simple and cute...but dangerous

Helpfully turns cryptic names into plain English. BUT...some of those names (*.FON, mostly) are hard-coded into Windows and Windows applications, and changing their names makes them unavailable. Windows and other programs will instead use some other font, and as a result many dialog windows will be misformatted. This isn't just ugly, it prevents you from selecting action buttons, selecting from lists, etc., so you'd better be prepared to restore some files to their original names. Since there won't be any error messages from the affected programs, you may have to do some guessing.

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ZipGenius

Ok, but there are better on snapfiles

I've had this for a year. Works well, but it is huge and its interface is confusing. Views but DOES NOT EXTRACT files from archives created by LHA. Author is enthusiastic, and program is regularly updated, but the emphasis seems to be on pretty screens rather than on producing a fast, compact, and intuitive program without bugs. The "Suite" version includes an FTP program and a file splitter, both OK but nothing special. There are lots of other well-reviewed freeware archiving programs on this site that strike me as more practical.

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