Windows Live Pack is a complete pack of utilities, all powered by Microsoft and mostly related to Internet and web services.

The flagship in Windows Live Pack is undoubtedly Windows Live Messenger, the popular IM client, but you can also find some other handy apps to check your email, manage your photos, restrict Internet access to your kids or write your blog, among other tasks. If you don't need all of them don't worry: Windows Live Pack lets you choose the ones you want during the installation process. They all require a Windows Live account to work though.

Besides Messenger, the pack contains the following apps: Windows Live Call Beta, Windows Live Family Safety Beta, Windows Live Mail Beta (replacing good ol' Outlook Express), Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta and Windows Live Writer Beta.

These new Live apps are still at a beta stage, but they were all pretty stable during our tests. Plus they all feature very clean, slick interfaces which makes them very visually appealing and easy to use.

Windows Live Pack is a handy toolkit with several varied apps, specially designed for Microsoft fans.

Download Windows Live Pack Beta in Softonic

Nothing helps you get through a tough day at the office than a good old-fashioned viral email. Whether it’s funny, stupid, interesting or just plain sick, receiving a forwarded video, picture or text document is the highlight of the day for many a tortured office drone. Now, thanks to the rather unique MetaCafe, you don’t even need to wait for your pals to throw this spirit-lifting material your way.

The basic premise of the software is that it automatically trawls the web for popular viral items including movies, images, games and other time-wasting files. Within just a few minutes of firing up the app (or allowing it to load automatically on start-up) you’ll be presented with a series of the hottest files doing the rounds on email at the moment. Each item comes with a preview thumbnail and a brief description of what it’s about. You can then choose to download and play any movies, or view images within the MetaCafe interface.

The simplicity of this program is quite staggering and it makes it as easy as possible to siphon the stuff that’s likely to appeal to you. The categories (video, images, games, and other) can be customized so you only receive items that are of interest to you, such as funnies, news-related, sports-related etc. There’s a very helpful idiot’s guide that appears when you launch the program and the online help is particularly useful.

Other useful features include a ‘TV mode’ for viewing videos in full-screen with movie player controls, and the ability to forward links to the items to your buddies from within the program. You can even submit your own files to MetaCafe if you’ve been forwarded a particularly good file that you want to share with the rest of the user base.

Generally, the operation and performance of MetaCafe is very slick but there are a couple of things that bugged us a bit. For instance, it can take a while for the program to find new items when you start and this is made more confusing by the fact that there is no progress bar to show you that it's actually doing something. You should also be careful to ensure that the adult content filter is checked, as some of the material can be a little risqué for youngsters or the faint of heart.

Despite these minor glitches, this is a very original software concept that will help brighten up your day and amuse your friends and family to boot. Just don't let the boss catch you playing around with it.

Download MetaCafe Pro 1.2.28 in Softonic

Take the power of Google with you anywhere on the web. The Google Toolbar enables you to search the web from any site, block unwanted pop-up ads, fill in forms with just one click, search within the pages of any site and highlight the words you searched for on a page. The Google Toolbar is free and installs in just seconds. Get one click closer to the information you want to find.

Google Search

Keep the power of Google search close at hand. Google Toolbar puts a search box in your browser, making it easier than ever to find anything you want on the web and to kick off your browsing experience.

AutoLink

The online review of a great new restaurant has the place's address but no map. You could type the restaurant's street, city, and ZIP code into the search box, but why bother, when clicking the Toolbar's AutoLink button will automatically create a link to an online map (US addresses only)? AutoLink can also link package tracking numbers to delivery status, VIN numbers (US) to vehicle history, and publication ISBN numbers to Amazon.com listings.

WordTranslator

Ever need to translate words on English web pages into another language? Don't bother looking up words one by one - just hover your mouse cursor over an English word and Toolbar's WordTranslator will tell you what it means in your own language. WordTranslator currently supports translation from English into Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

AutoFill

Tired of typing in your address and credit card information every time you shop online? AutoFill makes shopping a breeze by enabling you to fill out web forms with a single click. Just enter your info once in the Toolbar's Options dialog box and you're ready for an online shopping spree. (Note: your credit card info stays password-protected.)

SpellCheck

ARe yu a raelly bad tyipsst? Google Toolbar's new SpellCheck button finds any spelling mistakes whenever you type into a web form, including web-based email, discussion forums, and even intranet web applications. The AutoFix option even corrects all of your text with a single click.

PageRank Display

Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar's PageRank display to tell you how Google's algorithms assess the importance of the particular web page you're viewing.

Highlight Search Terms

Once you've used the Google Toolbar to find a web page, there's no need to scroll around looking for your search terms. The Highlight button instantly lights them up on the page, making it easier to find relevant information.

Google Suggest

As you type in the Toolbar search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers useful suggestions in real time. For example, if you type "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow keys or mouse.

Download Google Toolbar IE 5.0.2000 in Softonic

onlineTV 2 is an extremely versatile tool, with which you can automatically record and store hundreds of music-files such as MP3, OGG or WAV. Organize your files in the integrated music library. You can copy the files on your music USB stick, then edit with the audio editor or burn it on Audio/Data CD. Get hold of hundreds of music videos and feel the multimedia experience.

Download onlineTV 4.3.0.0 in Softonic

If you’ve ever had to publish, send or receive particularly large files sizes, you’ll know that it can throw up all kinds of problems – crashed servers, blocked inboxes and transfers that suddenly just hang-up. Pando aims to take the pain out of this process and according to the developers, 3 million people agree that it does exactly that.

Pando is based on a P2P network that enables you to send files of up to 1GB in size by e-mail or by publishing it to the web. It supports all multimedia file types including video, audio and photos meaning it’s great for people who deal with audio-visual files regularly.

For most users, the major benefit will be with e-mail attachments and the good news is, there's no need to change your existing e-mail client. Pando works by creating a torrent-like link file which you can then send in the body of your e-mail for the recipient to click on. There’s no need to be online when the recipient downloads the file and there’s no compression, FTP or dodgy web uploading applets to deal with. The reason you don’'t need to be online is because Pando sends files to its "super-node" servers, which means that there's always at least one "seeder" online at any given time. This seed is guaranteed for 14 days so even if you log off, your recipient can still view it. Obviously, the more people that share it too, the faster the download.

For those unfamiliar with FTP, Pando is fantastic since it works on the same principle as a Bittorrent client. Once the small interface is opened, you can drag and drop or select “add-file” to create a ".pando” file which you can then e-mail to whoever you want once it is uploaded.

The main drawback is that the recipient has to have Pando installed to receive the file. If you transfer files to someone regularly, this is not a problem but if it’'s just the odd file you want to send, then it could be a nuisance to ask someone to install it just to see your file. Be warned also that Pando cannot guarantee security although the developers assure that Pando has 256bit AES end-to-end encryption built in making it technically one of the most secure ways to transfers files online today. The only way that someone could realistically compromise your security however is by hacking into your e-mail account.

Whilst Pando is obviously open to abuse by sharing illegal files, most people go to the major Torrent sites to do that, meaning Pando is refreshingly free of any copyrighted material flying around and causing problems. Overall, it’'s a great solution for those unfamiliar with FTP who need to send big files regularly.

Download Pando 2.1.5.5 in Softonic

Online Live lets you watch 3645+ free Internet TV, on demand videos and listen free online radio stations. The live television channels database is the biggest worldwide. No additional equipment required. Online TV Player supports Windows Media Player. You can play most stream formats in this program.

Download OnlineLive 6.3.41 in Softonic

Sharing your desktop with other users is becoming an increasingly common function for workplaces, tech support desks and tutors.

Screen Stream is another effort to make that process increasingly easier and it's not a bad little package. Best of all, unlike some similar programs, it does not require any prior installation to use. One of the main advantages is that you can open it directly with whatever internet browser you use. In addition, it's a great tool for video conferencing because it also supports audio streaming so others can hear what you are saying. Another plus is that the program is totally free which is refreshing when some companies are starting to charge for this kind of service via dedicated servers. This desktop screen sharing program is free. It used to come bundled with the developer's telephone conferencing suite but it's now a standalone program in it's own right. On the minus side, there is a delay when connecting and this will also affect the sharing of screens making it slow and sluggish to use.

For a free and simple desktop sharer with no installation required, this is an impressive package nevertheless.

Download Screen Stream 1.05 in Softonic

A while ago there was an application called Mercora IM Radio that tried to mix real-time music streaming with social elements, creating a community of users around their favorite songs and bands.

Sure the idea rings you a bell – the popular Last.fm website is also based on this idea of mixing social communities and music. Following the successful trend of social networking sites, Mercora has now launched a completely revamped application under the name of Social.fm.

Social.fm works as a music player, MP3 manager and socializing desktop client. After registering for free, you start streaming music right away – and you can also listen to other people's music libraries. The program features a sleek, elegant dark interface, but it takes a while to get used to it due mainly due to overwhelming information. It even features a a Coverflow-style album cover browser and a playlist creation tool.

Music quality is quite good for an audio streaming service, with the odd pause for buffering as you could expect. As for social features, we couldn't fully test them because we had no friends (that is, on Social.fm) but you can invite friends by email or use the embedded user search tool. The program also features support for comments and Facebook and MySpace integration.

Social.fm is a social networking music manager that lets you stream music online and also discover new styles and bands by listening to other people's streaming radio stations.

Download Social.fm 5.5.0.197 in Softonic

There are different ways to share photos, videos, music and documents online, but what if you could share all of them simultaneously from one single application?

Now you can with Cyberlink Live, a complete file sharing solution with which you can not only share digital media online with your friends and relatives, but also access those files from anywhere with a simple web browser.

Cyberlink Live allows you to share TV stream (if you've got a TV tuner card), photos, videos, audio files, documents and even the image that your webcam is currently capturing. The program doesn't actually transfer any files between your computer and the Web: it just allows access to the folders you specify so that their contents are displayed on your Cyberlink profile. You can control which folders are shared and which ones are not at all moments, as well as mark a specific port to be used by the program and your router.

Cyberlink Live enables several ways to interact with your friends: send them an email with the URL of your photo album or music collection, let them leave comments on your photos, create a contact list to share content in the Cyberlink community… unfortunately I was unable to complete this last point, because the program was taking way too much time to look for contacts on the network. In fact, the lack of speed and the sometimes never-ending waiting times between tasks is the great flaw in this awesome app.

With Cyberlink Live you can easily share digital media online. Just install the client, create an account and be patient, very patient.

Download CyberLink Live 1.5.0.2302 in Softonic

Sitemap Writer Pro enables you to build and manage your own XML maps for your website, without any knowledge of XML required. The program features a rather plain interface in which you may feel a bit lost at first, but a quick glance at the complete Help section solves the issue.

You can import all your URLs from a TXT file, insert them manually or even have the program crawl your site to extract all of them. Sitemap Writer includes a wide range of tools to handle these URLs, such as copying, pasting or finding duplicates, among others. The program also allows you to export them directly to HTML.

Other interesting options featured in Sitemap Writer are a search engine notification tool and a built-in FTP client to upload your XML sitemap right away. So, even if the program looks quite unfriendly at the beginning, it's certainly worth the effort to learn how to use it.

Download Sitemap Writer Pro 3.1 in Softonic

Nakido Flag is a plugin which allows you to share your files to many people with just one right click. Simply email the Nakido download link to your friends or share it in ICQ, Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, blogs and forums, and your files will get to thousands of people instantly.

Download Nakido Flag 1.33 in Softonic

Autosend is a shareware that lets you share files on your computer with others, through a basic email account. It is the solution you need for sharing files with people who do not have access to FTP, IRC, NEWS, PEER TO PEER, are behind firewalls... Or if you do not want to setup a complicated FTP or HTTP server. It is valuable if you want to share a lot of small files and only have a small storage online, all the shared files stay on your computer. It can also give you a remote access to yourself !

Autosend is a file server. Everything is provided to share files through e-mail. People request files by mail (the subject of the mail is the name of the file requested) and the files requested are sent back immediately by mail as attachments, automatically.

Download Autosend 3.0 in Softonic

izimi is the future of Internet publishing. izimi allows you to serve files, photos, music and videos straight from your PC to anyone with a browser. It is comprised of two elements: a desktop application and a website.

The izimi application enables you to easily publish any form of electronic content to any other internet user with just a few mouse clicks and no technical know-how. Publish and serve any file type, any size, any quantity to anyone – all they need is a web browser.

The izimi website provides a social networking environment around users and their content. Register to get your own profile plus additional community features including comments, rating, adding friends, setting favorites and messaging. All content on izimi.com is published and served direct from your own computer with just the izimi application.

The benefits of izimi to both publisher and user include:

• Total control of your own published material
• No limitations on file size or file type
• No limitations on or degradation of file quality
• No restrictions on the number of files published
• No waiting for files to upload to multiple hosting websites
• Ownership of the content remains with the publisher

Download izimi 1.0.0.22 in Softonic

eSnips is a web service that lets you save, store and share all kinds of files, with a maximum capacity of 1GB, which is totally free. To manage your space, you must install this little eSnips client that then gives you access to your shared files through your internet navigator. With the client you may create a new account for the web service (requires free registration) or begin a session using the service. You will also have the option to install the eSnips toolbar, which is compatible with the most popular navigators on the market: Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox or Netscape.

Download eSnips 1.1.0.6 in Softonic

Peer2Mail is the first software that lets you store and share files on any webmail account. If you have a webmail account with large storage space, you can use P2M to store files on it, allowing you to access whenever you need.

Web-mail providers such as Gmail (Google Mail), Walla!, Yahoo and more, provide storage space that ranges from 100MB to 3GB. P2M splits the file you want to share/store zips and encrypts it. P2M then sends the file segments one by one to your account. Once P2M uploaded all file segments, you can download them and use P2M to merge the segments back to the original file.

Download Peer2Mail 1.61 in Softonic

WinPodder is a free program for Windows XP that makes listening to audio podcasts or watching video podcasts easier than ever. With a simple click of a button, you can subscribe to any podcast you want. No complicated procedures - just click and go! The intuitive, graphical interface gives you easy, carefree access to ten thousands of podcasts available for free on the internet. WinPodder even supports RSS news feeds!

Download Winpodder 0.02 Beta in Softonic

EngInSite DataFreeway lets you get access to any and all of the remote servers from inside your Windows desktop. Familiar Microsoft Explorer interface will make file operations easy no matter what protocol you use. DataFreeway is an innovative network, plug-in based freeware client supporting multiple transfer protocols.

Its user interface provides a simple, protocol independent way to transfer data. Standard techniques like drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste let users transfer files between servers running different transfer protocols, as well as enabling users to download/upload files to/from a local.

Download EngInSite DataFreeway 1.2.7 in Softonic

With 3webTotal TV & Radio Tuner you can watch 896 live television channels and listen to 3800+ online radio stations.

Live online television and radio are growing. Every single day at least a new radio station or TV channel come "live" on The Net. We are here to offer you our best effort in searching, selecting and adding those stations to our lineup.

3webTotal TV and Radio Tuner has TV channels from 104 countries and radio stations from 148 countries.

Download WebTotal TV & Radio Tuner 5.5 in Softonic

Orb is all about sharing and taking advantage of P2P technology. In short, Orb provides the ability to "MyCast". MyCasting gives the user instant access to photos, music, videos, live television, and other digital content on their home PC at anytime and from any internet-connected device, such as a mobile phone, PDA or laptop. What strikes you first is the general presentation and interface which is very "Mac" like and elegant. It's also incredibly easy to use and you'll be sharing in minutes whatever your level of expertise.

The developers claim that it is completely secure while having no restrictions in its use. Using any web browser, Orb provides a simple, intuitive interface for the user to connect to their home computer and the ability to stream digital content located there without the interruption of download delays. The software aims to make the process simple - which by and large it does with a clear interface - but also insists that users obey digital rights and copyright laws. If you need to share things quickly with a selected number of unique users, this is a good option.

Download Orb 2.00.1008 in Softonic

Collanos Phone is three tools in one - a multi-protocol instant messaging client, VoIP app and a
video conference suite.

The program supports a multitude of IM clients and protocols including Jabber, MSN, ICQ, AOL, and Yahoo! The VoIP phone function is based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) standard while the Instant Messenger is based on the popular Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) standard. As far as conference calls are concerned, it doesn't support more than three callers at a time which is a definite drawback for large meetings. It is very well organised though in the way it shows useful information about contacts in the profiles. The program is based on existing Collanos user profiles so if you use any other Collanos products, the profile is instantly imported and shared in Collanos Phone. The other thing that makes life easier is that you make calls from the Windows taskbar - simply right click on the Collanos Phone symbol and you are given options to call or start conference calls.

A very basic but professional VoIP and IM client that's suitable for businesses although general users won't find all the fun features you find in most similar communication suites such as MSN Live Messenger.

Download Collanos Phone 1.0 Beta in Softonic