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PCMAV is a free antivirus software created by PCMEDIA Magazine. PCMAV have 1194 antivirus signatures and can be joining with clamav antivirus signatures. Download PCMAV RC 22 Project Admins : pcmedia Operating System : All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP), License : Shareware Category : Antivirus

source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Want your PC to run faster? Need to know how to rename dozens of files at once? Then check out these top sites. Sites on this list were first published in my free "Support Alert" newsletter. If you would like to stay up-to-date with the latest sites, click here to subscribe for free Windows Tips Galore Active Windows offers a first rate combination of tips and tutorials along with some useful reviews. The PCStats site features an excellent collection of Windows tips taken from the PCStats forums. I particularly liked the registry patch for removing those annoying entries in the "Add/Remove programs" menu that hang around long after the program has been uninstalled. http://www.activewin.com http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1190&page=3 Tweak...

Notepad++ is a free source editor and Notepad replacement with the syntax highlighting. It also gives the extra functionality to the general user: colorize the user defined words. You can print your source code in color (or whatever you want) if you have a color printer (WYSIWYG). Furthermore, Notepad++ includes the multi-view feature, which allows the user to edit the different documents at the same time, and even edit the same document synchronously in 2 different views. Notepad++ supports drag and drop: not only you can drop the file from explorer to open it, but also you can drag and drop a document from a view to another. With all the functionalities, Notepad++ runs as fast as Notepad provided by MS Windows.Supported languages for the moment: (c/c++/Java/html/xml/php/asp/vb/vbs/SQL/Objective-C/javascript/ini/makefile/MSDos Display) Homepage: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/ Download: npp.v4.3.RC.zip File Size: 1.3 MB

GFP is a Personal Finance Manager that uses a different approach to help people organize their finances, it’s focus is the real account (bank account, account saving and others), while other software focuses on accounting accounts. So while in a typical finance manager you create accounts related with some aspects you want to control (expenses, gas expenses, food expenses, income, payment, and even real accounts like bank accounts) and make transactions with these accounts, in GFP these accounts are considered as categories, under the user perspective, and user can create real accounts and make transactions with them, providing a type for each transaction. In GFP: Real accounts: bank account, account saving and others Type of transactions: expenses, gas expenses, food expenses, income, payment. GFP user can get reports (not yet implemented) showing where, when, why and how (s)he’s making expenses. GFP is currently translated to Portuguese, English, French, Italian, German and Spanish...

Advanced Enterprise is a free ERP software designed to keep and track information regarding production orders and generate invoices when goods are shipped to customer. Advanced Enterprise integrated with production and accounting provides the ultimate control over order processing and production. Advanced Enterprise requires Microsoft SQL Server to operate. In can work with free MSDE Edition, but for full multi-user functionality we recommend a full version of Microsoft SQL Server. Advanced Enterprise Features Maintains Order Status: Draft, Production, Shipped, Invoiced, Autoinvoiced, Cancelled, Back Ordered Maintains Acknowledge and Planned Ship Dates Allows changing ordered item being in production Maintains list price for manufacturing goods Integrated Bill Of Material makes sure that only non-discontinued products can be ordered Homepage: http://www.advancedenterprise.com/software.asp Download: AdvancedEnterprise.exe File Size: 6.34 MB

The Official Pattern Release or OPR is Trend Micro´s latest compilation of patterns for identified viruses. It is guaranteed to have passed a series of critical tests to ensure that customers get optimum protection from the latest virus threats. Homepage: http://www.trendmicro.com/ Download: lpt741.zip File Size: 23.9 MB

RapidFinder is the newest open community for sharing your files. You can share your files by sharing your links. Simply, create an account, post your links and automatically are share it to the World. Is the ultimate application to find the files you want the time you want on all file hosters like RapidShare , MegaUpload , DepositFiles and more. You can also communicate with other users, add in favorites the links you want to keep, search with multiple ways. For every active post you get 20 points, collecting 5000 points upgrade your account to Premium otherwise you can pay a small amount for it. Homepage: http://www.rapidfinder.ws/ Download: RapidFinder2.exe File Size: 4.79 MB

OpenOffice.org is an Open Source, community-developed, multiplatform office-productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including Microsoft´s. Localizations of OpenOffice.org are available in 27 languages with more being constantly added by the community. OpenOffice.org runs stably and natively on Solaris, Linux (including PPC Linux), and Windows. Additional ports, such as for FreeBSD, IRIX, and Mac OS X, are in various stages of completion. Written in C++ and with documented APIs licensed under the LGPL and SISSL Open Source licenses, OpenOffice.org allows any knowledgeable developer to benefit from the source. And, because the file format for OpenOffice.org is in XML, interoperability is easy, making future develop...

Best Free Rename Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated 21st December, 2006 If you want industrial strength file renaming there are several great choices: First there's Lupas Rename 2000 [1]. This is a small utility for Win 98 and later that globally renames all the files in a directory and its subdirectories. It can convert names to upper/lower case, change the case of the first letter, add text, left crop, right crop and just about anything else you can think of. And unlike DOS based utilities, it will work on hidden files as well. Add in a nice GUI interface, an undo feature, full preview of changes, MP3 tag renaming, support for regular expressions and the fact that it's free and you have an outstanding product.

Best Free Outliner source : http://www.techsupportalert.com I'm not a great fan of outliners - my brain doesn't work that way. Some folks however, swear by them and if that includes you, then you should check out Keynote, a freeware program that has a dedicated band of followers. Its major design attribute is its ease of use. Words like "natural" and "seamless" come close to the mark but really don't capture the essence of what is really a great design. What do you do with it? Well to quote the web site “KeyNote is used by screenwriters to draft screenplays, by medical doctors to keep patient databases, by developers to store source code snippets - and to everyone it serves as a place to put all the random pieces of information that have no particular structure of relationship to other data, and do not fit easily...

Best Free Search and Replace Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com There are several contenders for this title but HandyFile's excellent Find and Replace program is my favorite because of tiny size and no nonsense simplicity. It's also fast, has a simple but effective user interface and some nice features including support for regular expressions. It started life as a free product before going commercial however the free version 1.2 is still floating around and can be downloaded from a number of sites including this one [1].

Best Free System Information Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com The freeware utility AIDA32 was the best system information / inventorying tool ever, regardless of price. It documented just about every aspect of your hardware and software configuration as well as checking networks and providing memory benchmarks. However the developer announced in March 2004 that the free product had been frozen and development work shifted to another organization where AIDA32 was re-launched as a commercial product called Everest [1]. You can however still find the old AIDA32 at the second link below [2] and the non-discontinued free version of Everest called Everest Home here [3]. The old AIDA32 works better across networks while Everest Home covers more modern hardware than AIDA32.

Best Free Process Viewer source : http://www.techsupportalert.com PrcView has long been my personal choice but Process Explorer [1] has pushed it aside. The reason? A better display setup coupled with more features and even more information. Process Explorer uses two vertical panes. The top contains all active processes while the second shows either all the handles opened by a selected process or, optimally, a list of DLLs and memory mapped files. A very handy search feature allows you to work backwards from named DLLs or handles to the owning process. The feature list is almost endless though only a few will ever be used but average users. The latest V10 release adds even more features including a faster refresh rate. Quite simply Process Explorer is an astonishing product and a freeware gem.

Best Free Registry Editor source : http://www.techsupportalert.com

Best Free Secure Erase Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Eraser [1] is a free, GNU license utility that will securely erase files, folders or even whole disks from any Windows or DOS PC. Eraser overwrites data area with selectable random data patterns and also wipes data in the paging file, Internet cache, temporary files, Internet cookies, unused disk space and a number of other places where data can secretly lurk. It handles FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS partitions as well. Erasing files with high security will always be a difficult and time consuming task and can never offer absolute 100% safety. However Eraser makes the task about as easy as it be, with a security level beyond most conceivable requirements. The author's site is sometimes unavailable but you can find Eraser at numerous download sites including MajorGeeks [2]. Be aware that the current version of Eraser has a bug that is evident if you select the option to erase unused disk space. Stay well clear of that o...

Best Free Sticky Notes Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 Some people hate these programs others swear they can't work effectively without them. I used to be in the first category but with so many things on my plate these days, I'm slowly being converted. The function that I find really useful is the reminder that pops up at a designated time and date. I use it for simple things like "put up the latest issue on the web site." ATnotes is a neat implementation that features configurable alarms, resizable windows, variable fonts and a host of other useful features. The product is remarkably similar to the class-leading commercial sticky notes utility called, TurboNotes, a case perhaps of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. NOTE: As of the 30th of May 2005, development work has ceased and the author's site pulled down. However someone has built a mirror of the author's site [1] where you can read about ATnotes a...

Best Free Resource Meter source : http://www.techsupportalert.com This is cute. TinyResMeter [1] is an itsy-bitsy system monitor. Unlike many other monitors, it doesn't consume a lot of CPU utilization in order to tell you your CPU utilization. In addition to CPU usage, you can optionally monitor cache, RAM, page file and swap file usage, running processes and threads, disk space utilization and a number of other parameters as well. Also built-in, is a screen grabber that saves the current screen to disk when you press PrintScreen. How the author fits all this into 92KB beats me. A new version is on the way offering even more functionality. If you are like something a little fancier than TinyResMeter then check out StatBar [2]. It's got more features than you could ever want though but at the cost of a higher resource overhead needed to run the program. Nice product though and easy to try out as the program doesn't require installation. [1] http://w...

Best Free File Cleaner source : http://www.techsupportalert.com My first choice here is CCleaner [1], a product that started off as pretty basic but has continued to improve to the point where it is now very close to the best in its class regardless of price. It's very effective in freeing up disk space by removing unused and temporary files, cookies, Recycle bin entries, Windows hot-fix files, sold prefetch data, history and cache files in many applications such as Internet Explorer and Firefox and much more. Additionally it will check the Windows Registry for invalid entries. There are some minuses: first the installation settings are quite aggressive so do check them carefully. Second the product installation, by default, includes the installation of the Yahoo Toolbar so if you don't want it, make sure you uncheck that option. Finally I wouldn't trust this product to do your Registry cleaning; that's a job for a specialist utility. Similarly if your aim is to remove ...

Best Free TCP Settings Tweaker source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 Whether you use a modem or broadband, you'll get a faster connection if you tweak your connection's TCP parameters. Among the most important of these is MaxMTU which, in simple terms, needs to be set to the largest value possible without your data being broken up into smaller chunks en-route. Most techies determine MaxMTU by trial and error pinging using different packet sizes but it's a tedious procedure and definitely not for beginners. TCPOptimizer from SpeedGuide.net is a free utility that will do the job for you automatically. Furthermore, it will use this value to advise you on your other TCP settings and then apply these values at the press of the button. There are commercial programs that will do much the same thing but TCPOptimizer does it just as well and is totally free. The only minus is the lack of in-program help however you'll find a useful FAQ at the SpeedGu...

Best Free Download/Upload Meter source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 NetMeter [1] shows upload and download speeds, along with cumulative weekly and monthly volumes and projected values. The program reminds me in many ways of Hagel's excellent $20 shareware product "DU Meter." It's freeware and works with all Windows versions. In essence, everything you really need for nix. A good second choice if you have the Microsoft .NET package already installed on your PC is BitMeter II from Codebox Software [2] . It's a little more feature rich than NetMeter but uses a tad more of your PCs resources to deliver those features. [1] http://readerror.gmxhome.de/ (601KB) [2] http://codebox.no-ip.net/controller?page=bitmeter2 (806KB)

Best Free Web Site Ripper source : http://www.techsupportalert.com HTTrack is one impressive product: it's easy to use, has an excellent user interface, offers every feature you could want, is blindingly fast and free of any adware as well. If you like to download web sites so that you can "browse them offline", this is the product to get. http://www.httrack.com/ Free GPL, All Windows versions, 3.3MB

Best Free Download Manager source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated 2nd November 2006 You have several good choices in this category. To me a good downloader is one that does the job, is well integrated into your browser and is not intrusive. That's why my top recommendation for some time has been Star Downloader [1]. Unfortunately the freeware version has been effectively frozen at version 1.44 with future enhancements restricted to the shareware version. It is however, still a fine choice. After trying half a dozen other products, I've settled on "Free Download Manager" [2] as my current top selection. It's fast, stable and integrates well into both Internet Explorer, Opera and Firefox though the later works best with the free FlashGot extension installed. "Free Download Manager" offers simultaneous multi-part downloads, easy restarting and recovery, a powerful scheduler, downloading from mirrors and just about everything else you need in a dow...

Best Free Search Toolbar source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Search toolbars allow users to do web searches without having to go first to the home page of a search engine. This really saves a lot of time. In the last year search toolbars have become a hotly competed product class and as result, users now have an excellent choice. The "best" in terms of features is probably Yahoo's Toolbar whose features include anti-spyware capabilities as well as popup blocking. It's for Internet Explorer but they are currently offering a beta version for Firefox. My only beef with the Yahoo product is that I prefer to use Google for my web searches rather than Yahoo and that's why I use the Google Toolbar which also offers popup blocking though no anti-spyware features. On the other hand it includes a useful web form spell-checker and a few other goodies not found in the Yahoo product. Google also offers a full Firefox version as well as the standard IE version. Some folks ...

Best Free Screen Capture Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Three recommendations here: The first is PrintScreen [1]. It's a prime example of the KISS principle. It does exactly what I want, in the way I want while avoiding the trap of providing lots of useless and confusing features. It's the little things that count like making the hot key PrtSc so I don't have to remember it, and automatically sequentially naming the output files for multiple screen shots. A second recommendation is Screen Hunter [2]. It's a commercial product but the "lite" free version is excellent, offering more features than Gadwin at the cost of a little added complexity. It's also small, a tiny 381KB. Also highly recommended is FastStone's Screen Capture [3] It doesn't require installation and yet has more features than you could ever want including the ability to capture scrolling screen shots across more than one screen page. It can also save in BMP, JPEG, ...

Best Free Folder Synchronization Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com This is getting scary. First I recommend Microsoft Defender and now I'm going to recommend another Microsoft product as the best in this category. Well, equal best. It's called SyncToy v1.0 for Windows XP [1] and, as the name implies, is only for XP - SP2. This program is more than a syncing program; it can copy, move, rename, and delete files between any number of folders and even computers. The program operates on the principal of pre-defined folder pairs. You define and name these pairs and then when you want to perform a sync or other task, you recall one of these pairs and carry out the operation. Syncing can be in either direction and covers all options from complete sync to updating newer files only. The handling of files with changed file names is exceptional as is the backup of overwritten files. Overall, pretty well everything you ever wanted in a sync utility. Note that SyncToy require...

Best Free Bookmark Cleaner source : http://www.techsupportalert.com AM-DeadLink scans your browser bookmark file for dead links or duplicate links. When I tried it on my huge favorites file I discovered 17% of my links were dead. I've now got a much leaner set of favorites and the comfort of knowing that the links actually work. Freeware, all Windows versions, Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox, 1.1MB. http://aignes.com/press/deadlink140.htm

The Best Free FTP Client source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 I used WS_FTP Pro as my principal FTP client for years. What started out as simple but effective product gradually with each new version became more feature-bloated and less effective for simple routine tasks. With the release of Version 9 it was clear to me that the product had totally lost its way so I started looking for an alternative. After trying seven different FTP clients I decided that the best for me was the Open Source utility FileZilla [1]. It uses a simple layout based on a two pane interface that looks a bit like the early versions of WS_FTP. But this simplicity is deceptive, it is actually a quite powerful product There's a full featured site manager, firewall and proxy support, SSL and Kerberos GSS security, restart, drop and drag and a lot more. The only significant feature that's missing is site-to-site transfer but that's of no importance to me. What is of importan...

Best Free BitTorrent Client source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 It's amazing how quickly BitTorrent has become one of the major download formats. With good reason, too: it's fast, equitable and efficient. If you haven't yet installed a BitTorrent client on your PC, you should as there are some great free clients available. I recommend the Open Source program Azureus [1]. It's beautifully implemented, well supported and, being Java based, is available for multiple platforms. It's very feature rich and supports embedded tracker so you can host your own torrents, UPnP, a distributed decentralized database for decentralized torrents and DHT (Distributed Hash Table) which distributes indexing responsibility across multiple clients rather than relying on a single web-based tracker plus many other features too numerous to mention. There are also a lot of plug-ins available for Azureus including a competent RSS feed scanner. One downside with ...

Best Free Registry Cleaner source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated 21st December, 2006 In my mind the best registry cleaner is one which reliably fixes problem entries but doesn't itself cause problems in the process. The products most likely to possess these qualities are those that are conservative in operation and confine their cleaning to removing definite and unambiguous errors. I say this because I have seen as many problems created by registry cleaners as problems solved. This view flies in the face of many who consider, for whatever reason, that the best registry cleaner is the one that finds the most problems. To me such products are dangerous and not worth owning. That said, my top recommendation is Toni Helenius' free EasyCleaner [1] . It's a good reliable, conservative performer that will fix all major problems with a low risk of creating problems of its own As a bonus, it will also detect duplicate files and help you clean up temp files to make more di...

Best Free Hotkey Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 For sheer power you can't beat AutoHotkey [1]. It can automate just about anything by capturing keystrokes, mouse clicks and even joystick movements and linking them to just about any action you want including application launching, surfing to a particular website or inserting text or code snippets. Combined this with a powerful scripting language and you have a product of awesome capability. Indeed calling this product a mere "hotkey" utility is like calling Westminster cathedral a chapel. This power does come at a cost; AutoHotkey is no product for beginners. That said, it is the product I use and an easy first choice for the technically literate. A good choice for average users is PS Hot Launch VVL [2] is a free utility that allows you to define your own hotkeys so that a single key press can launch an application, insert commonly used text, change your audio volume, or just abo...

The Best File Archiver/Zip Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com I checked out six utilities: QuickZip, ICEOWS, IZArc, TUGZip, ZipGenius and 7-Zip. The product that impressed me the most was the Open Source program 7-Zip. It was the only product in the group that could unpack a multi-part RAR volume embedded in a ZIP archive and the only product to give a meaningful error message when an attempt was made to unpack a 256bit encrypted WinZip archive. My only reservation is that it handles fewer archive types than some of the other products; it only supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB . If that's really important to you than I'd recommend IZArc. It can read nearly 50 archive types including media formats like ISO, BIN and IMG and can write (and convert) to 12. You couldn't go wrong with either product. 7-Zip is a little more robust while IZArc is a little more flexible. If you already use WinZip you'll find either 7-Zip or IZA...

Best Free Text Editor source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 There are lots of text editors. Some of these aspire to be Notepad replacements while other are full-on programming editors. My top choice in the first category is EditPad Lite [1]. It has a Notepad-like interface combined with tabbed document windows, the ability to open as many documents as you like, no file size limitations and unlimited un-do capability. It's main downside is that it's for personal use only. If you need a free Notepad replacement that you can use commercially I suggest NotePad2 [2]. It's small, fast but unfortunately lacks the tabbed Windows that are so handy in EditPad. NoteTab Lite [3] is another possibility but personally I find it a tad slow and the single level undo a severe limitation. If however you are looking for a text editor that can serve both as a Notepad replacement and a source editor you might like to check out Notepad++ [4]. It performs impressively...

Best Free Digital Photo Organizer source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 It’s rare for me to be utterly wowed by a product but this one certainly did it. When you first run Picasa it offers to scan your whole hard drive (or designated locations) for photos and videos. Scanning is surprisingly quick and when finished you’ll have all your shots neatly organized into folders on a time line basis. Now you can view you shots one at a time, in slideshow or traversing the time line. The editing features are limited compared to professional image editors yet they provide you with every function amateur photographers need including one click red eye reduction. Similarly adding labels to photos is a cinch while a simple but effective star rating system allows you to flag favorite snaps. Individual folders can also be password protected. Facilities are provided to import your images from your camera in multiple formats including RAW. You can send photos to your choice ...

Best Free Digital Image Editor source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 I use to recommend The Gimp [1] but after dozens of letters from newbies who couldn't manage to install it or work out the idiosyncratic user interface, I've decided to confine that recommendation to more experienced users. If that's you and you patient enough to learn the product's sometimes quaint ways then you may not need to consider anything else. If you are used to Photoshop you might like to look at GIMPShop [2] , which changes the user interface of GIMP to something more familiar though frankly, I prefer the original. For other less experienced users there is Paint.net, an amazingly sophisticated piece of work from computer science students at Washington State University. It's not quite as powerful as The Gimp but a lot easier to use and install. It's also getting better; the new V3 beta continues this product's impressive development record. However V2....

Best Free Digital Image Viewer source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Three good choices here. First there's the classic IrfanView. Irfan [1] is a first class product but one for which I have mixed feelings. That's why it's been in and out of my "46 Best Freeware" list several times. It's an amazingly capable product but it just doesn't work the way I want it to. Other users though, just love it. A product I feel more comfortable with is XNView [2]. Like Irfan it is very versatile; it can read and display nearly 400 types of graphic files and convert any of these to over 50 formats. It displays pictures very quickly and these may be viewed full screen, as slideshows or thumbnails. It's quite capable at processing images, too; you can adjust brightness, color, apply filters or effects, crop photos, re-size, convert format and more. These operations can also be carried out from a batch file, which makes it ideal for converting large digital photos to s...

Best Free Desktop Search Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com A couple of years back there were no contenders for this title. Today we have a wealth of choices. In a close race I would have to say X1 Enterprise Client [1] comes out in front because of the clear way it presents search results. It used to be a $99 product but as from mid 2006 is now free for non-commercial use. It's fast, reliable and can index the contents of 370 different file types including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Outlook, Outlook Express, HTML, text, ZIP and Adobe PhotoShop It also indexes files for most of the popular e-mail clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Netscape, Eudora and Lotus Notes. Note: If you want to use X1 commercially then you can download Yahoo Desktop Search Program which is actually powered by X1. Unfortunately the Yahoo product includes quite of other stuff as well including the Yahoo browser search bar though some of these "extras" can be disen...

Best Free Popup Stopper source : http://www.techsupportalert.com he need for popup stopper utilities has fallen away in recent months as many browsers such as Firefox now have this function built in. If you need a separate popup stopper and have good PC skills I suggest you try The Proxomitron. It operates by filtering and transforming all your Web pages on the fly. As a result you can not only stop pop-ups but pop-unders, ads, flash animations, status bar scrollers and just about anything else. Besides, next time you are asked what pop-up stopper you use, you can answer; "why, I use The Proxomitron" and how cool is that ;>) The product's author Scott R. Lemmon unfortunately has passed away but support for The Proxomitron continues through its large enthusiast following. This is evident from the main download site [1] which offers several versions of the product including the last version Scott released before his death. The site also has setup instructions, resource l...

Best Free Spam Filter for Experienced Users source : http://www.techsupportalert.com There are many different spam filters available employing lots of different techniques. In my experience "learning" spam filters that use the Bayesian statistical approach out-perform most other types of filters I've tried. Not only are they better at detecting spam they are also less liable to classify your real mail as spam. This effectiveness takes a little time to develop as the filter has to be trained to recognize your spam from your normal mail. It takes a week or so before results start becoming accurate and best results may take a month or more. POPFile, a free, open source spam filter, was one of the first Bayesian filters and is still one of the best. It works as a proxy mail server so that means that it can be used with any POP email client. Setup is reasonably straightforward for experienced users but beginners may be better off with Mailwasher. If you use Outlook there are s...

Best Free Spam Filter for the Average User source : http://www.techsupportalert.com This is a difficult category as ordinary users need products that are easy to use and frankly, most free spam filters are way too complex to set up and use. The best products in this class are in fact, shareware not free. That said, MailWasher [1] is for most folks, the best free option. MailWasher is an email preview utility that allows you to check your email on your mail server before you download it to your PC. The advantage of this approach is that you can kill unwanted messages including spam, viruses and large attachments before they get anywhere near your computer. MailWasher flags for you any messages containing possible spam and viruses for you to quickly check. It's a simple idea but quite effective and one which average users find easy to understand. At the Mailwasher site you can download a free or "Pro" commercial version. The former lacks quite a few of the features of its c...

Best Free HTML Editor source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated December 21, 2006 This is one of my most requested items but up until now I've not been able to give any product my endorsement. There have been any number of contenders: Amaya for example, impressed with its standards compliance but was incomplete while Selida looked slick but had too many bugs. Finally a worthy contender has arrived on the scene in the form of the Open Source Nvu. In reality Nvu is nothing new but rather a reworking of the old Netscape Composer. Composer was always a solid product and the revamp has lifted the product into another class. Here is an HTML editor and site manager that's easy enough for beginners to use but powerful enough to build large sites. It's closer in concept to Microsoft's FrontPage more than any other product but unlike FrontPage it, thankfully, produces standards compliant code. Its easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor will delight HTML newbies while HTML honchos can ...

Best Free Clipboard Replacement Utility source : http://www.techsupportalert.com The regular clipboard in Windows has limitations – one item at a time and no retention after logging off. Clipboard replacement utilities provide the ability to hold multiple items and store them for future use, even after logging off. There are many free clipboard replacement utilities available, including CLCL, Clipboard Magic, Clipboard Recorder, Clippy 2001, Ditto, DzSoft Paste & Save, and Yankee Clipper III. While none of these have the very extensive set of features of the class-leading shareware product ClipMate 6 ($29.95), they all offer the basic clipboard replacement features that 95% of us really want and need. If you just need a basic clipboard replacement utility, look no further than Clipboard Recorder [1]. It will store up to 99 items that can be easily selected and pasted from the popup history list by pressing the shortcut key (Ctrl-Alt-V by default). It supports a variety of formats (...

Best Free Web Mail Accessory source : http://www.techsupportalert.com It's a real plus to be able to collect your Hotmail, Yahoo! or other Webmail using your POP3 email client. It used to be simple but these days most Webmail services only provide POP3 access for premium paid accounts. However it's still possible to do it though by using a special utility designed for the job. If you use Yahoo! mail then head straight for YPOPs! [1] that allows you to download your Yahoo webmail from within your POP3 email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird or Eudora. It's free, easy top set up using the instructions on the web site and is simple to use. I use it on multiple Yahoo accounts and it works wonderfully. The second suggestion is a free utility called FreePOPs [2]. It's a much more flexible product than YPOPs! and will download mail from HotMail, AOL, Yahoo!, Juno, Libero and a myriad of other webmail services as well. It's power and flexibility can confuse new users but ...

Best Free Email Client source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated 21st December 2006 Thunderbird [1] is a free open source POP and IMAP email client developed by Mozilla.org, the same folks who brought you Firefox. Feature-wise it sits somewhere between Outlook Express and Outlook which means that it offers an upgrade to Express users and a downgrade to those who use the more advanced PIM features of Outlook. All Outlook Express users should seriously consider switching. You’ll be rewarded with a more advanced product including built- in spam filtering, built-in RSS reader, message color coding, fast email search, anti-phishing measures, spell check as you type, inbox filters, Kerberos authentication, automatic updates and the ability to view your mail in conversational threads. On top of that, the product is more secure than OE and unlike the latter, is still being actively developed. Further features can be added through free extensions. Notable among these is Webmail [2], an e...

Best Free File Manager source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated 8th November 2006 Windows Explorer is fine for simple file management activities but when you have some serious work to do, you need a two pane file manager. I use Directory Opus which is IMHO, the best product in this class but costs $59. A good free alternative is xplorer² [1]. It offers a good part of the functionality of Directory Opus and is totally free. As a bonus, its user interface is very similar to Windows Explorer, so most users will find this tool easy to learn and use. XYplorer is another strong contender. It uses a tabbed view rather than a two pane view which is better when working with multiple folders though not quite as efficient as the two pane approach when working with only two. XYplorer is packed with features included one of the best file-finders I've seen. It's one of those products that impresses more with use. In fact I suspect that if you use it for a month, you'll end up usi...

Best Free Software Suite source : http://www.techsupportalert.com The Open CD site [1] offers for free a wonderful collection of just about every application software product you need to run a PC including the latest version of OpenOffice. Many of these freebies substitute admirably for expensive commercial products. There is Abi Word as an alternative for MS Word, OpenOffice for MS Office XP, Thunderbird for Outlook, The Gimp for Adobe Photoshop, 7-zip for WinZip and many more. If you then add to this collection some of the other utilities from my "46 Best-ever Utilities" collection you will have all the software you'll ever need without spending a cent. Note: All of the Open CD utilities can be downloaded for free as a CD ISO image. If you have a slow connection you can purchase the CD for a as little as $1.99. In addition to the Windows versions, the CD also contains the same collection of programs implemented under a version of Linux called Ubuntu that can be booted a...

Best Free Anonymous Surfing Service source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated 2nd November 2006 There are lots of reasons folks have for wanting to surf anonymously, ranging from simple paranoia to possibly being murdered by a malevolent foreign government. Whatever the reasons, commercial services that offer anonymity are doing real well. However one of the best services JAP [1], is totally free. In fact JAP is perhaps a little too good. That's why the German Police insisted in 2004 that a backdoor be put into the product to allow interception of child pornographers. This was done but subsequently removed as a result of court action by JAP. An alternative to JAP is a system called Tor [2]. It not only allows anonymous browsing but anonymous P2P, email, IM, and IRC chat as well. Given the US Navy origin of Tor, the suspicion arises that this system may indeed have a permanent backdoor. However the source code is now publicly available so that suspicion can perhaps be set asi...

Best Free Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use source : http://www.techsupportalert.com Updated 21st December, 2006 These days all users face a real risk of malicious programs secretly installing themselves on your computer. Anti-virus and anti-spyware products dramatically reduce the chance of infection but are not perfect. In particular they are prone to miss new malware products not yet included in their signature databases. They can also fail to detect malware programs that are cleverly disguised to avoid detection. To prevent these malevolent programs from slipping by your AV and anti-spyware programs you need additional defenses such as a Host based Intrusion Prevention program (HIPS). These programs pick up intruders by their behavior rather than by their characteristic fingerprint. They are not limited to detecting specific malware products but can target a wide range of interlopers. For the most part HIPS programs all work in a similar manner; they stop any ...