Featured Freeware

A few days ago we featured gMote, an excellent utility for creating mouse gestures. Some people aren't into them, and would prefer to keep their hands on their keyboards as much as possible. Heck, I'm one of them. HotKeyz does for those essential multikey combinations what gMote does for mouse gestures: it's a powerful utility that makes it easy to create and manage hot keys that open programs, shut down your computer, and control media applications.

HotKeyz's intuitive interface divides hot keys into nine preset categories, including Control Panel, Desktop, and Internet. A simple table lists … Read more

Looking for a simple-to-use, quick-performing RSS feed reader? This pared-down freebie may fit the bill.

RiverGate RSS Reader isn't fancy and lacks extras that, admittedly, some of its free competitors offer. So why bother with it? For one, using it is as smooth and zippy as other readers can be sluggish. It offers the basics in the familiar three-pane e-mail client interface that so many feed readers rely on. It comes preloaded with a variety of security-related feeds, plus one innocuous celebrity gossip/newsfeed, but adding feeds was a simple process in our tests. The reader responded quickly and … Read more

UPDATED: There are 12 categories in WinSecret, not eight.

Novice users get a helping hand with this freeware tool for easily tweaking Windows. WinSecret's simple multimenu interface logically arranges the program's many tweaks into 12 categories. The Help file spends more time explaining installation than program operation, but the tweaks presented are organized better than in many similar applications.

Each of the categories includes tabs for general tweaks and extra tabs for tweaks that restrict functions and tools. Keeping the restrictions separate should forestall users from accidentally disabling needed functions. Most tweaks merely need a check to implement … Read more

gMote is one of the easiest to use mouse gesture tools around. gMote's dual-pane configuration interface makes it a snap to create and program mouse gestures, and takes extra steps to teach new users how it works via a prompt on first run to check out the built-in tutorial.

Press the create button, make your mouse gesture in the test window, and then use a pull-down to assign one of the 30-plus actions. The actions center on browser, media player, and word-processing commands. However, program execution, Web site selection, and hot-key combinations are also easily added actions.

To make … Read more

Place your favorite folder shortcuts on the right-click menu with this handy freeware utility. Folder Guide's compact button and results window interface won't take more than a minute to understand. Even the single-page Help file is superfluous.

Operating this utility is a piece of cake. Simply click Add to create an alias and insert the folder path. A built-in browse function makes it easy to navigate to the folder. The alias is immediately available under the Folder Guide option on the right-click menu. With a click you can sort the aliases alphabetically, or reorder them using simple Up … Read more

This free add-on for Firefox and Internet Explorer gives jazz music lovers something to sing about. Jazz Radio is a toolbar that lets you tune in to radio stations worldwide that play songs from the genre.

The bar won't wow or disappoint you with its appearance. A few radio controls allow for fairly quick volume control and switches between stations. You'll have fast access to jazz stations in locations from the United States to the Netherlands, so you can listen to fusion, smooth, New Orleans, and big-band jazz, to name a few. None of the stations tested missed … Read more

Novice-friendly but with features for the expert and free archiving tools rarely cover all those bases, but PeaZip and PeaZip Portable hit back-to-back home runs.

Operating PeaZip is as easy as dragging files. Drop a ZIP file on the interface and PeaZip goes into decompression mode. Drop a regular file and it opens the archiving screen. Well-labeled buttons and simple functions make both processes quick and painless. Adding files and folders is also quickly accomplished using function buttons and traditional file browse tools.

Novice users will be able to use default settings to create well-made archives. Experienced users will like … Read more

This is an efficient, easy-to-use tool to help you figure out the details that make your computer tick. BIOS Agent is a lightweight freeware application with a clean and well-designed interface that lets you get the information you need with only a few button presses.

The program can retrieve information on the type of BIOS your computer runs and chipset type, as well as information on CPU, ROM, and RAM. Once you've gathered the details you need, you can save the report in TXT format or print it. There's no installation required for BIOS Agent, and it should … Read more

This is not a flashback to the chart-defying tricks of ambient house music progenitors The Orb, although if you have their music you can use this Orb to play it anywhere. No, this Orb melds module-based personal portals with your hard drive's media content and lets you stream it to almost any Internet-connected handheld device, including iPhones.

The setup will probably be challenging to users who aren't familiar with how to open ports, but, fortunately, there's plenty of help in Orb's user forums. Once you're good to go, the program launches in your browser and … Read more