freeware

For over a year now I've championed Kingsoft Office Free 2012 as one of the top Microsoft Office alternatives for Windows, and with good reason: It's one of the best-looking clones out there, with superb file-compatibility to boot.

Yesterday, Kingsoft unveiled Office Free 2013 (Windows). (Please see below before you install it.) I'll go out on a limb and say it's now the single best free replacement for Microsoft Office, for a couple of very good reasons.

In case you're unfamiliar with it, Kingsoft Office includes three modules: Writer, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. Needless to say, … Read more

Endless runners have been a longtime staple for many casual gamers. Whether you're a Temple Runner, Jetpack Joyrider, or Robotic Unicorn on the Attack fan, you realize that these games are fun for one simple reason: they are easy to pick up and put down. Race The Sun, at its core, is not very different from these other running games. With that said, we were surprised how much time it sucked out of our day.

In Race The Sun you pilot a solar-powered craft, racing at a breakneck speed down a desolate gray desert toward the sunset (Sounds like … Read more

These days, regular folks across the world are using free software to easily create homespun music, Webisodes, and movies, so why not interactive fiction? A little program called Twine (download for Windows or Mac) that brings a DIY ethos to text-based Web games has slowly emerged as a huge player in the indie-game scene. If you're new to Twine, it's freeware that lets users develop their own interactive stories and games. It enables players to determine their own adventures by clicking on hyperlinks scattered throughout the text.

Originally developed by Chris Klimas, Twine has been used by myriad … Read more

Gameplay In iRunner, you play a stuffed doll who speeds through various worlds to collect items and power-ups while getting progressively faster. Controls are simple: players tap the "jump" or "slide" buttons in response to oncoming obstacles such as pitfalls, spikes, and hanging light bulbs. Collecting four costume gift boxes triggers a short animation sequence that transforms your character into a superhero while adding a bonus multiplier to your score. As you reach each checkpoint, your character starts running faster as well.

The top panel displays your score, a battery icon, and the number of presents … Read more

Facebook is in the process of rolling out yet another interface revamp. As Sharon Vaknin described in a post earlier this month, the new look for the Facebook News Feed provides many new options for viewing your friends' posts.

You can add your name to the waiting list for the new-look News Feed, but you don't have to wait to enliven your Facebook page's appearance.

While the company provides only a handful of options for tweaking the look of your Facebook profile, Matt Kruse's free Social Fixer browser add-on (formerly named Better Facebook) takes Facebook customization to … Read more

Pixia looks like it came straight out of a Windows 95-era, but is one of the most popular drawing tools in Japan. Like other freeware image editors, Pixia allows you to create digital art and supports layer editing, selective undos, and an assortment of brushes and tools for artists.

When you first launch the program, you're greeted with options for filters, right-clicking tools, and a whole bunch of other tools that just flat out won't make sense at first glance. Pixia doesn't exactly win any awards for first impressions and welcoming interfaces for new users because it … Read more

Last June, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told a tech-conference audience that the microblog's 140 million users tweet 400 million times a day, as CNET's Dan Farber reported.

Some days it seems nearly all 400 million of those tweets appear on my home feed.

To ensure your tweets don't get lost in the crowd, you need to post your tweets at the times your followers are most likely to read them. Twitter-analysis services offer businesses and individuals tips and tools for ensuring tweets receive maximum exposure. Twitter itself provides Advertiser Analytics in various price ranges.

Determining the best … Read more

Capcom dropped a Christmas gift to the public today: the free release of Street Fighter X Megaman. It's still in all its 8-bit glory and makes my 6-year-old gamer spirit tingle with nostalgia.

SFxMM is a fan-made game cover of Megaman, an old 8-bit platformer that lived on the original Nintendo Entertaiment System since the late '80s/early '90s. The mechanics of the game are simple: run, shoot, jump and slide through each stage until you reach the boss at the end. Though the game is centered around the Blue Bomber himself, most of the fan service seems to … Read more

I love a good win-win.

From now until December 24, you can get SoftMaker FreeOffice for Windows or Linux absolutely free. And when you do, SoftMaker will donate 0.10 Euros to betterplace.org, which raises funds for a variety of worthy worldwide projects.

So what the heck is SoftMaker FreeOffice? As you may have guessed from the name, it's the free version of SoftMaker's commercial office suite. It provides word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, all with an interface that closely resembles Microsoft Office 2003.

Speaking of which, FreeOffice is fully file-compatible with Microsoft's suite, though it'… Read more