Featured Freeware

The Auslogics Registry Defragger looks good, but it's hard to tell if this or any Registry defragger or cleaner works. What's the challenge? Simple: It's not easy to gauge if these programs are effective because you'd need to benchmark your CPU against a range of programs before and after the Registry cleaning to properly test for any improvement, and that's an extremely time-intensive process.

Still, Auslogics is known for making effective Windows utilities, so perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt until more conclusive evidence is in. In any event, when you … Read more

AM-DeadLink tames your unruly bookmarks with a set of tools designed to keep your bookmark list svelte, healthy, and in fighting form. Its interface is packed with options, but tool tips and a logical layout make it easy to follow. The length of the verification process depends on the size of your Favorites list, but the wait wasn't bad in our tests. You can sort results by any of the columns, which include name, status, URL, and folder categories. You also can delete entries one at a time or by the group.

The Backup option is a welcome safeguard … Read more

Simple, small, and free, Google Desktop for Windows, Mac and, Linux indexes your hard drive the way the company's own servers index the Web. Your search results are returned in a Web-page format that's similar to the Google Web site, and the app's sidebar shows regular updates to your favorite programs, from e-mail to your My Pictures folder to RSS feeds and weather.

Although the initial indexing process can take a long time--especially if you have a lot of e-mail, contacts, chat transcripts, and documents for it to parse through--it's well worth the wait to be … Read more

Security Process Explorer is a freeware replacement for the Windows native Task Manager. It comes with some useful functions, but the simplistic layout doesn't adapt well when displaying deeper investigations into the relationships between different processes. Still, it's worth looking at.

It offers many of the same functions that other process-managing programs offer. You can explore the connections between different processes, block processes, end them, and view in-depth information about a particular process. You can even search on the Web for a particular process, but unlike other programs, Security Process Explorer takes you to a proprietary page to … Read more

doPDF is a fairly simple program. Even though it's utterly bereft of features beyond its main function--to let users create PDF documents from within any program using the native Print option--it's still worthwhile because it does the basics very well.

Along with whatever printer you've got hooked up that shows up in the Print dialog box, doPDF adds an eponymous option. Select it, hit print, and you get the chance to change the name of the PDF you're creating. Hit enter again and the PDF gets created, then automatically opens for you to proofread. Lacking any … Read more

Session Manager can save, backup, restore, and manage multiple Firefox tab sessions. It comes with the option of loading the last saved session, not loading a previous session, loading a specific older session, or asking the user to choose. If it stopped there, it'd still be more powerful than the native Firefox session manager is but it has more to offer.

In addition, it can save more than 20 older sessions, and offers users several options for session management when closing Firefox. The plug-in automatically backs up sessions in the event of a crash. Users can also configure how … Read more

If you're looking for a free, professional-level video editor, Jahshaka for Windows and Mac should top your list. With every release, it gets more stable and gains more features.

The list of what the application can do is extensive and exhaustive. It can handle real-time image processing with node-based effects; edit DV, SD, HD and film; do real-time 3D compositing and Flash animation; OpenGL-based paint; and it has a text module. There are also modules for color correction, keying, and tracking, and an array of media support. It comes with JahPlayer, a media player that claims to work with &… Read more

This image viewer and editor is a longtime Download.com favorite, and with good reason: IrfanView is simple, fast, and free for individual use.

The program lets you make basic edits to images, as well as multiple media formats. You can cut and crop, apply batch conversions, add, sharpen, or blur effects, create panoramas, and change color modes easily. The program continues to add support for an array of file formats and has plug-in support for most image, video, and sound formats, including MP3, AVI, audio CD, and WMA. An IrfanView Thumbnails shortcut on the desktop offers an Explorer-like file … Read more

Although it lacks a few of the bells and whistles found in other PC-cleaning applications, this free program offers more than enough features to make it a worthy download. CCleaner's interface is logically designed and makes it easy to wipe away your tracks from Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera, from various Windows system areas, and from some third-party applications.

CCleaner doesn't support the large number of extraneous programs that some competitors do, but it can erase traces from such popular programs as Spybot - Search & Destroy and WinZip. CCleaner now offers secure file erasing along with a … Read more