The Earth is probably the best planet I've ever been to, so I like to keep abreast of what's going on in the world. I found this desktop background great for monitoring cloud cover, the advance of day and night and noctornal lights around the globe.

Although the cloud cover only renews itself every 3 hours, you might be able to find a server faster than those built into the Desktop Earth and apply this for quicker generation. The illuminated surface of the Earth updates every minute though, so it's great for finding out where the Sun is concentrated at any given moment. I would have liked to have seen a few more options, such as the ability to rotate the image on your desktop, but on the whole Desktop Earth provides a decent solar clock, a rudimentary weather chart and, more importantly, a stunning view from your desktop.

Download Desktop Earth 2.0.1 in Softonic

Webshots Desktop 2.2 is a free photo management application that combines wallpaper and screensaver functionality with tools for managing and sharing your own personal photos. The latest version makes managing all your photos much easier right from your desktop software. Now you can drag-and-drop photos to Webshots from Windows, search your Webshots collection, and update your albums in a flash.

Webshots members can browse the world's largest photo network and use the Web's best photo search. Webshots provides consumers with a variety of ways to enjoy and share photos on computer desktops, TVs, and mobile phones. Only Webshots enables its members to share photos with family and friends through unique features such as Photo Messages TM, moblogging, online photo albums, and custom prints and gifts.

Download Webshots Desktop 3.0.0.7231 in Softonic

After big-screen roles in Never Been Kissed and Idle Hands, Jessica Alba became the first ''It'' girl of the century as the title role in James Cameron's sci-fi TV series, Dark Angel. Back from a short break, she starred in the hip-hop dance flick Honey in 2003 and the star-studded Sin City in 2005.

Download Jessica Alba Wallpaper in Softonic

EarthView is a dynamic desktop wallpaper and screensaver, which displays beautiful views of the earth with daylight and night shadows. It produces colorful, high quality, high resolution images for every screen resolution - even beyond 1600x1200. The program supports map and globe views, urban areas, city lights, atmospheric effects, clouds, local time display and much more.

EarthView supports different maps that show our planet earth in different ways, like photographic or artistic. Many options allow total customization of all view parameters. EarthView has won many awards for its absolutely breathtaking images.

Main features:

• High detail view of the earth
• Day and night view
• Atmospheric effects
• Urban areas and city lights
• Clouds (internet download possible)
• Map and globe projection
• Several beautiful maps to choose from
• Location and local time of more than 3000 cities worldwide
• Wallpaper and screen saver support
• Multiple monitor support
• Many options for full customization

Download EarthView 3.9.2 in Softonic

If you're so lazy that you don't even feel like changing your desktop wallpaper then this program is for you. WallUp takes care of the hard task of renewing the wallpaper according to the frequency you set in the program's configuration options.

WallUp has a simple design and also works in a very simple way. It enables you to create separate albums, each one with its own pictures, so that you have a really wide choice of wallpapers. Unlike other similar applications, it seems that WallUp can't be minimized to the system tray so I don't really know if it should be left open or closed anyway.

I also felt disappointed when trying to test the custom screensaver feature explained by the author on his website: I couldn't find it anywhere and the Help section wasn't useful either.

Download WallUp 2.1 in Softonic

WinMatrix XP replaces your desktop wallpaper with the cool Matrix code animation. Download this utility to transform your desktop into a cool visual effect. It is highly customizable and does not bog down your computer's system resources.

Download WinMatrix XP 2.33 in Softonic

WALL32 is a self-contained, real-time wallpaper generator, which simulates the Earth's & Moon's illumination by the Sun. It consists of a single EXE-file and runs in background. It reads the clock and timezone information of your PC and calculates the real-time illumination (every 5 minutes for the earth & every 30 minutes for the moon wallpaper). If time/date or timezone is changed, the program immediately updates the wallpaper.

Download Wall32 1.0 in Softonic

This is a small wallpaper generator which uses a kaleidoscopic effect. Just point it to a folder with random images and it will in no time create an astounding wallpaper.

Download KaleidosWallpaper 1.0 in Softonic

APOD is a lean piece of software that automatically brings to your desktop a new daily inspiring editor-picked astronomy picture with an explanation written by professional astronomers. Astronomy Picture of the Day is a web site hosted by NASA and maintained by professional astronomers who pick a new exciting beautiful astronomy picture every day. Astronomy Picture of the Day has been active for more than 7 years, successfully sharing the beauty of the universe with us all. APOD brings it one step further, setting those beautiful astronomy pictures, optionally with their scientific explanation, as your desktop wallpaper.

Download APOD 1.0 in Softonic

Get the image of the Eta Carinae star captured by the Hubble telescope. This star is capable of releasing much more energy than the Sun. For example, in 1843, it released 10 Million times more energy than the Sun ever could.

Download Eta Carinae Wallpaper in Softonic

Jude Law became famous with, among others, his roles in "Alfie" and "Closer" in 2004, "The Talented Mr Ripley" in 1999, and "Gattaca" in 1997. Jude Law is known for his good looks, boyishness and typically British charisma. In 2000, Jude Law was voted on People (USA) magazine's '50 Most Beautiful' list. He is currently engaged to actress Sienna Miller.

Download Jude Law Wallpaper in Softonic

Keanu Reeves rose to fame with his role as a totally rad dude Ted Logan in "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989. His parts in 1994's Speed, and The Matrix revealed him as one of the most inscrutable and irresistible actors of his generations. Keanu, whose name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, is due to appear in "The Night Watchman" in 2006.

Download Keanu Reeves Wallpaper in Softonic

Great image from the second part of the Kill Bill series. This wallpaper shows Uma Thurman, the bride, in practice with her master, Pai Mei.

Download Kill Bill Vol 2 Wallpaper in Softonic

Cute wallpaper of the famous cat and his pal Odie, sharing a meal. Garfield is once again up to one of his usual tricks.

Download Garfield & Odie Wallpaper in Softonic

Great night shot of some fireworks. This will bring a lively touch to your computer.

Download Fireworks Wallpaper 7 in Softonic

Wallpaper Cycler is an easy-to-use program to get rid of that boring, static wallpaper on your desktop. The new category system of Wallpaper Cycler allows you to organize all your wallpapers in multilevel categories, link categories to folders on your hard disk for quick synchronization, assign shortcuts to categories to quickly jump to a category, assign time limits to categories, and enable and disable categories.

The number of wallpapers in your list is virtually unlimited. Use this program to change the wallpaper with a specified delay or at a specific time. It allows you to make creative layouts for your wallpapers, add a calendar, quotes, notes, and Webcam to your desktop, and apply effects to your wallpapers. The application supports more than 20 file formats.

Download Wallpaper Cycler Lite 3.1.0.39 in Softonic

Active WallPaper is an intelligent wallpaper manager with a flexible calendar and programmable alarms.

Unlike of many similar programs, Active WallPaper never distort your pictures. Many options and parameters, like Maximum deformation's factor and enlargement rate, give you always the best result on the screen.

With Active WallPaper, you will also be able, to write notes in the calendar and then define an alarm for them. Don't forget appointments and birthdays ever again!

Download Active WallPaper 1.07 in Softonic

Have a new wallpaper automatically downloaded and installed into your desktop every day. Create your own slideshow screensavers with music and impressive smooth image transitions including your own photos or choose from 12,000+ desktop-size pictures. The program combines full wallpaper and screensaver functionality with an easy and convenient image navigation interface. Most popular image and sound file formats are supported. You can customize your hotkeys.

Download Live Desktop 1.0 in Softonic

Scott's Wallpaper Switcher is a system tray tool designed to allow you to quickly switch between wallpapers on your windows desktop. You can also configure the program to automatically switch wallpapers at predetermined intervals (like every 5 minutes). There is a built in "boss key" feature where clicking the system tray icon will bring up a "safe" wallpaper just in case you are in the habit of running inappropriate wallpapers on your windows desktop.

Download Scott's Wallpaper Switcher 1.3 in Softonic

Tired of boring wallpapers on your desktop? Want to try something new? Want to have an adjustable calendar highlighning holidays, birthdays and other important dates on your desktop? Want to download regularly new high-quality wallpapers from the Internet? Then Active Multiwallpaper Changer is designed just for you.

Using Active Multiwallpaper Changer you can:

• Place the flexible adjustable calendar on your desktop
• Download new high-quality wallpapers within categories
• Change wallpapers using hotkeys
• Change wallpapers within the time interval
• Choose one of six methods to set a picture as a desktop wallpaper
• Specify picture background color
• Specify picture scaling quality level
• Automatically scan your folders for new images
• Vary your wallpapers collection using the high-quality graphical filters
• Make desktop icons text transparent
• Show a frame around wallpaper
• Use most popular graphical files formats as wallpapers without enabling Active Desktop

Download Active Multiwallpaper Changer 3.8.1.117 in Softonic