Driving games differ in a number of different ways, not just because they contain different kinds of vehicles (cars, bikes, Formula 1) but also in the type of challenge they present.

In the case of Pure the main objective is not only crossing the line in the first place, but also performing as many jumps, tricks and other acrobatics while you’re on air, flying at top speed over bumpy trails with your quad bike.

Before actually starting the race, Pure makes you go through a training session that also works as a kind-of tutorial. It's a good way to get used to the game's quite confusing controls, which inexplicably mix up keys from the standard WASD combination and the arrow keys.

After you learn how to preload, boost and do a basic trick, you're ready to go: it's time for a real race! This time the track is much more fun, because it enables you to compete against other drivers and also includes higher jumps in which you'll be able to show off everything you learned during the tutorial stage. The realistic, highly detailed graphics in Pure serve to make it even more enjoyable, and a lively rock-style soundtrack adds the final touch.

Pure requires a bit of dexterity, so if you don't get any trick during the first few minutes of gameplay don't panic. Also, note that you’re supposed to perform different tricks on each jump (repeating penalizes) and that if you’re successful with the basic ones, you’ll unlock more advanced tricks.

On the downside, I must admit Pure let us down for various reasons. The first one is the file's size, which is simply too heavy for such a short demo. They could have removed all those promotional videos and include at least another track. The controls are also a bit complex: just performing a basic trick involves four different keys, which are usually configured very far apart from each other on the keyboard. Finally, the game has some absurd restrictions. I don’t know what’s wrong with going a bit off the track or even trying to turn around and racing in the wrong direction, but you simply can't. Pure interrupts the game and puts you into track again. Seriously, a bit more freedom for the player wouldn’t hurt, even if that means I don’t win the race.

Pure is not just about racing: it's also about performing the craziest airborne tricks during the race. Too bad the demo is so short that you hardly have time to enjoy it.

Download Pure in Softonic

The Gimp is the open source reference in image manipulation. This free application will allow you to retouch, author and edit your photos thanks to a wide set of tools.

Let’s quickly go through what you can do with the Gimp. The painting function has the essential clone, airbrush or pencil tools and a powerful gradient and blend tool. You can also create and save your own brushes and patterns for later use. The program lets you manipulate your photos, adding layers, doing Bezier and polygonal selections or setting text. Load and save animations in a frame-as-layer format and batch process all your photos for quick editing. The multi-windowed interface can be moved around to fit your needs and resized according to your desktop space.

What’s more, the Gimp can be expanded with over 100 different plug-ins and extensions available on the Gimp’s website. These apply in majority for layer effects such as render, distort or blur and make a great addition to the ones already present in the program.

While the Gimp is user friendly, the installation process can result a bit hairy. Because the application works under the GTK Runtime Environment, you will have to install this kit to successfully launch the program. The process is fairly lengthy and some error messages tend to pop up, however if you persist, you will be able to install the Gimp properly on your PC

Despite this fairly hazardous installation process, the Gimp is a program we recommend. Whether you’re out of dough or are looking for a free alternative to Photoshop, the Gimp is excellent image manipulation software with all the tools you’d expect. The friendly interface and expandability make this a program of choice.

Download The GIMP 2.6.1 in Softonic

Following the release of new versions of both Internet Explorer and Firefox, the infamous 'browser wars' are flaring up again. Despite both Firefox 1.5 and the Beta of IE7 making significant strides, it would be be foolish to think this was a two-horse race. While gaining a good reputation with geeks and power users, Opera has long been a bit-part player among the big boys of the browser world. However, if this preview release is anything to go by, the Norwegian-built browser could finally be ready to punch with the heavyweights.

Opera has been pioneering new ways of browsing the web for some time. It has had tabbed browsing since the days before tabbed browsing was cool and developed the innovative 'mouse gestures' control system, where you navigate through the web just by holding the mouse button and flicking your wrist. The developers even dabbled with a multi-pane interface for viewing several pages within one interface.

The good news is that Opera has lost none of its appetite for innovation, and version 9 is packed with new goodies that will have the programmers at Mozilla and Microsoft choking on their doughnuts. For starters the app runs much quicker than the previous release, making it arguably the quickest browser around (except perhaps for Safari) at rendering pages. Incredibly, despite this boost in performance, the program appears to use less memory than version 8.5, making it far less draining on system resources than Firefox and IE.

In terms of features Opera is the gift that keeps on giving. New to the program comes OSX Tiger-style 'widgets', allowing you to check news, convert currency, view the weather and so on through a series of draggable pop-ups which anchor themselves in front of the browser. Although there aren’t many widgets to choose from at present, this is sure to change once the tech-minded Opera fans start developing more.

Another great addition to Opera 9 is BitTorrent support, allowing you to download torrents directly within the browser – a feature that amazingly no one had thought of before. This system works very smoothly, which makes us wonder why RSS feed reading support in Opera is still so poor.

Among the other new treats within the program is a nifty new search feature which lets you add any search engine to the search bar in the main toolbar. This means you can instantly access searches within your favorite online destinations (Softonic, for instance).

Tabbed browsing remains, although some users may be annoyed to discover that Opera has added close tab buttons to the tabs themselves rather than as a separate button. Having said this, the new web page preview thumbnails that appear when you rollover a tab are a real masterstroke. Mouse gestures are still there too, along with the addition of Total Recall-style voice commands – another example of how cutting-edge this browser is.

Opera's developers have been keen to ramp up security features too, and although they aren't highly original, the new content blocking and pop-up blocking functions serve their purpose effectively. What's more, it's refreshing to see a browser that embraces the latest web standards so freely, with the latest release boasting support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 tags.

The browser is remarkably stable and is far better behaved than Internet Explorer 7. Combined with its speed, innovative features and standards support, Opera is undoubtedly web software's best-kept secret, and the final release may prove to be even better than Firefox. Don't say anything though, or everyone will want it.

Download Opera 9.60 in Softonic

Go is an ancient board game that originated in China about two thousand years ago, which has only recently become quite popular in the West. Like chess, it's got a few simple rules, but involves a lot of strategy and planning.

With iGoWin you can now play Go on your PC against a computer-controlled opponent. The game starts with a new game right after launch – no introduction or tutorials - so if you are a newcomer to Go you may feel a bit lost. Luckily iGoWin is thoroughly documented. The Help section includes all the rules you need to know to play the game and even some basic questions to make sure you understand them.

iGoWin doesn't require installation and is the kind of simple, straightforward game that's perfectly suitable for a short break from work. I still miss being able to play against another human opponent though, which always makes gaming a lot more fun.

If you're looking for something different to play during your coffee break, give iGoWin a try.

Download Igowin 1.0 in Softonic

uTorrent has quickly become a favorite among torrent users worldwide thanks to an innovative interface, minute CPU usage and extensive download details.

The program is undoubtedly one of the most reliable torrent clients on the market, thanks to an ultra quick installation process and a minimal use of PC resources. You can have a good number of torrents downloading and still be able to use your PC without suffering any lags.

The interface is simple to use and is divided into the list of torrents and extensive details like peer data, download and upload speeds, file pieces and blocks, or a graph of your current speeds. In an attempt to help you structure all your torrents, the application allows you to set labels to your individual downloads. You can also view the torrents according to whether they are downloading, completed, active or inactive. If you download a good deal of torrents at a time this is a good way of keeping track of the progress of them all. Furthermore, you can easily set up the web interface for uTorrent, which allows you to check your torrents from any PC connected to the internet. All you need is to have one PC taking care of the downloads and set up access to the interface of your uTorrent session.

uTorrent makes it easy for you to look for new downloads without opening up your browser. You can search the main torrent sites by typing the name of the file you are looking for in the box on the top right corner of the interface. uTorrent also includes an RSS downloader to receive feeds of your favourite torrent sites. This little feature is great to check out all new torrents in one click.

The first time you launch uTorrent it lets you check your connection settings online and verify whether your ports are functioning properly. The preferences menu is also replete with tweaking possibilities. You can customize queuing, scheduling and downloading. Setting the location of downloaded files is the only bit that could confuse users as uTorrent makes a difference between new downloads and completed downloads.

You might have guessed it, here at Softonic we have a soft spot for uTorrent. Not only does the mini torrent client use up very little memory, it also comes with loads of information and customization features to make your downloading experience as simple and automated as possible. If you’re tired of the bandwidth hogging Azureus or bored of the basic Bittorrent client, check out uTorrent.

Download uTorrent (µTorrent) 1.8.1 in Softonic

If you're anything like me, you get bored of your desktop wallpaper very quickly. And like me, you'll be interested in testing tools like Wallpapers from MSN.

This app is a complete wallpaper manager that includes a collection of more than 50 images you can use as desktop background right away. You can also add you own photos to the Wallpapers from MSN collection and comfortably browse through them thanks to a thumbnail list and a small preview window.

What makes Wallpapers from MSN different from other similar applications is the fact that you can add special effects to the images. By "special effects" I mean you can add clipart on top of the image, insert a line or two of text and, of course, crop, resize and adapt the image to make it fit your computer monitor.

On the downside, there's no clear indication if you'll be able to download more wallpapers apart from the ones that come already bundled with the program. Also, Wallpapers from MSN is certainly a bit too heavy on resources to have it permanently running in the background – a requisite if you want it to cycle through your wallpapers automatically.

If you're a wallpaper collector, Wallpapers from MSN is made for you: a wallpaper manager that includes more than 50 images and also lets you edit them.

Download Wallpapers from MSN Beta in Softonic

Changing the look of XP is something of a cottage industry and GelXP Desktop is another addition which gives Microsoft's most loved operating system a relaxed new look.

In reality GelXP doesn't make any huge differences to the use and feel of XP but rather smooths some of its rougher edges. There are two style variations to choose from - one in blue and two in black and as many XP themes tend to do, it minimizes the taskbar size so it's not so big and chunky as in the default XP.

Installation is very simple - just copy the contents of the ZIP file to the folder C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes and select GelXP as your default theme. It would have been nice to have seen something a bit more radical from this theme - the look it gives you is very slick although no more so than the Royale Theme for XP. It would have scored more highly if the developers had added something that genuinely improved the way you use XP rather than the look.

If you do get bored easily of your XP desktop, then GelXP can at least bring a fresh feel to your desktop.

Download GelXP 2.2 in Softonic

If you've ever fancied yourself as a bit of a hairdresser then you you might enjoy this game. You're basically in charge of a beauty salon and have to do your best on all sorts of customers from punk rockers to old ladies.

You have to help Sally run a successful salon in 10 different locations that increase in complexity and difficulty according to how far you progress. Your aim is to wash, dye, cut and style hair in over 50 levels of "frantic but fashionable fun" according to the developers.

Once the punters start coming in and you make money, you can use your earnings to hire helpful employees and purchase salon upgrades to keep your clients looking and feeling their best. Your customers will rate your efforts and based on this rating, will decide whether you get paid or not. The graphics are not exactly great and it's a bit too easy to cheat because by lavishing your customers with all sorts of treatment, the game seems to equate this with quality, no matter what mess you make!

Download Sally's Salon in Softonic

If you're on the move regularly or your hard drive is accessible by third parties, it's always vulnerable to attack.

One way to prevent possible compromises of your security is by encrypting data. TrueCrypt aims to do this by allowing you to encrypt data "on-the-fly". This means that data is automatically encrypted or decrypted immediately before they are loaded or saved without any input required from you. Nothing can be encrypted or decrypted without using the correct password or encryption keys. This encryption extends to entire file systems such as file names, folder names, file contents, free disk space etc. The good thing about this particular program is that it doesn't get in the way of you dragging and dropping files. Some encryption programmes that work on-the-fly prevent you from doing so easily or add a delay to the transfer but that's not the case with TrueCrypt. The other good thing is that TrueCrypt never saves any decrypted data to a disk – it only stores them temporarily in your RAM which is far more secure because when you restart Windows or turn off your computer, the volume will be dismounted and files stored in it will be inaccessible and still encrypted. The interface is a bit bland but at least it's simple enough to follow and not full of complicated encryption jargon.

A very solid encryption tool although the fact that it's open source means that it's vulnerable to modification which could compromise encryptions.

Download TrueCrypt 6.0a in Softonic

eToro is not a bullfighting game, although this is the impression you get from its name. In fact, it's a game about trading foreign currencies and making money out of it.

You can play eToro just for fun or for real money. In both cases, transaction values are authentic and obtained live from stock markets. However, we strongly recommend you to practice a little bit before putting your money into any real risk.

The game looks really complicated at first sight, but fortunately it includes a complete Help area with highly detailed tutorials. I particularly like having an embedded chat client to hang out with other traders while you wait for the right moment to buy or sell.

eToro enables you to learn the basics of Forex trading and make some real money.

Download eToro 1.3 in Softonic

Real Desktop is one of those PC applications that aren't really that useful, but have such an attractive effect on your system that you want to install them anyway.

This app turns your Windows desktop into a three-dimensional environment where all your shortcuts look like small pieces that have been dropped on the floor – and they actually behave like that. You can move them, rotate them, lift them a bit from the floor and mix them all around the desktop surface. The only icon that remains somewhat apart is the Recycle bin, probably to help you find it faster.

This precisely the main drawback in Real Desktop: finding icons. The 3D effect is really amazing, as well as the icon behavior almost as Lego pieces. But having them scattered all over the places doesn't exactly make your PC easier to use – especially if you're anything like me, who likes to have as few icons as possible, and always perfectly organized.

With Real Desktop you can apply an amazing 3D effect to your Windows desktop, although you'll lose a lot of icon usability on the way.

Download Real Desktop Light 1.42 in Softonic

If you have an MKV video file and no idea about how to play it, you may as well convert it to the most common format AVI.

MKV to AVI With Subtitles offers you the possibility to perform this conversion in just a couple of steps. All you have to do is loading up the video on the program and click the "Convert" button. Just bear in mind that in order to make the most of the program you'll need to have the MKV codecs installed on your system.

That is the theory. The truth is that during our tests, MKV to AVI With Subtitles was a bit unstable. Maybe I didn't have the proper codec, but at least I expected the program to tell me or give some kind of advice instead of just crashing.

Also, I missed more configuration options, a preview window for the video and a slightly more user-friendly interface. You know, plain gray windows were fashionable for Windows 98, but not now.

MKV to AVI With Subtitles seems to be a handy, straightforward tool to convert MKV videos to AVI... if only it worked properly.

Download MKV To AVI With Subtitle 1.0 in Softonic

In case you don't know, the 'Places Bar' is that left-side menu that appears on every Windows File Explorer window and that includes shortcuts to the most frequently used folders.

The problem is that you may not agree with what Windows considers to be a frequently used folder. If so, simply load Findexer on your system and you'll be able to customize this menu with shortcuts to your actual favorite folders.

Using the program is a bit tricky, as it doesn't have a proper graphical interface. You need to run the register.bat in order to load it on your system and then restart Windows File Explorer. Open any folder, click on View > Explorer Bar > Findexer and you'll be ready to use it. You can customize Findexer in many aspects, from the menu's appearance to the number of links displayed, including number of shortcuts, the order they appear and the icon and text font. Plus, adding new shortcuts is as easy as dragging and dropping them onto the Places Bar.

Though the idea behind Findexer is very good, there's one big drawback to the program: apparently you need to activate it (that is, go to View > Explorer bar > Findexer) every time you open a new window, even if you already activated it before on that same window.

Findexer lets you customize the Places Bar on Windows File Explorer, though unfortunately you have to manually enable it on every single window.

Download FindeXer 1.1.0.3 in Softonic

The default Windows Task Manager has often been criticized for offering very scarce information about the currently active processes and apps on your system. This is why Task Manager Extension comes in very handy, chiefly for the most tech-savvy users.

Task Manager Extension is a standalone application – no installation required – that adds a bunch of new data to the Task Manager window, you know, the one you open by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del. As soon as you launch it, you'll notice some slight differences when comparing to the default task manager.

To begin with, each process is identified with the program's icon, which makes the list easy to browse. If you right click on any entry, a context menu opens up with a wide variety of commands: from a Properties window with highly detailed information about the selected process to the possibility to see associated threads, loaded drivers and other data.

Like I said before, while Task Manager Extension is certainly a very useful add-on for power users, it may be a bit too technical for more computer-challenged people. A good way to solve this gap would be to have two modes or interface types in the program: one for beginners, one for advanced users.

With Task Manager Extension you can power up the Windows default Task Manager, adding more functionality and information to it.

Download Task Manager Extension 2.1 in Softonic

Wallpaper Master offers a number of options to renew your desktop background image. Create categories to organize your wallpapers and order your different images in a list on the interface. Individual Overrides, like style, alignment or border can be modified directly from the program window. Images can also be set up on multiple monitors in one click.

Despite a good deal of options, we were slightly disappointed with Wallpaper Master. There's no drag and drop, which means you have to browse and select all the pictures you want to use as wallpapers. The effects you can add to them, mirror, black and white and mosaic, are fairly limited and do not add much to your images.

Once you chosen the image you'll use as wallpapers and set up the rotation you can let Wallpaper Master take care of the rest. The program could be a bit more intuitive and offer more effects, but on the whole is a good piece of software to manage your wallpapers.

Download Wallpaper Master Pro 2.16 in Softonic

Do you have a favorite DVD movie that you would like to watch on the move on your mobile phone? Are you having trouble in finding the right app you convert it?

Plato DVD to 3GP Converter is what you're looking for. This simple video converter has been especially developed to convert DVD movies right into the standard video used for most mobile devices, 3GP.

The program is very easy to use. Simply load the DVD movie you want to convert from the DVD drive on your computer and tweak the conversion options according to your needs or the characteristics of the target mobile device: video size, bitrate, frame rate, aspect ratio and a lot more. The program can also be set to automatically shut down the computer when the conversion is finished. Apart from that, there are no other configuration settings.

I especially liked the simplicity of use of Plato DVD to 3GP Converter. On the downside, the interface is a bit too dull. Also, it would be great to have predefined profiles for certain devices, such as the iPod, the iPhone or the PSP.

If you want to convert your favorite DVD movies to 3GP and carry them on your mobile device wherever you go, this is the tool you need.

Download Plato DVD to 3GP Converter 8.87 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to play a joke on someone in a chatroom by pretending to be someone completely different?

Unless you're a ventriloquist it's not easy but AV VoizGame allows you to do so specifically in online chatrooms. AV VoizGame allows you to change your voice as you speak through a microphone in realtime to confuse the hell out of your online buddies or opponents. If you're playing multiplayer online role playing games, then you can really have some fun confusing your opponents or just generally mucking about.

If you want to relive your favourite gags, AV VoizGame comes with an inbuilt recorder which records your voice for. If you want to keep it hidden on your desktop, you can also do that by making the skin transparent. However, at almost $30 to upgrade, it seems a bit of a steep cost for a simple voice modulation software.

There's not much point to AV VoizGame other than playing jokes on online opponents and while it is a lot of fun, it's questionable whether it's really worth $30 to upgrade.

Download AV VoizGame 6.0.14 in Softonic

If you think Process Monitor is just a more complete alternative to the standard Windows task manager, you're wrong. This is a exhaustive control tool, mainly intended for system administrators, which tracks all the activity in Windows file system and Registry in real time.

So when you run it (no installation required, but it does ask for administrator rights) you'll get a constantly increasing list with all the processes taken place in your computer in real time. In fact, there's so much information to absorb that it makes you feel a bit lost.

Process Monitor includes many tools to manage this list: filters, a nice search tool, extended information about each process and many more. As I said, it's definitely a tool for advanced users.

Download Process Monitor 2.0 in Softonic

When I saw this defragmentation tool I thought "Well... I don't really need this, Windows already has one". But then I saw Defraggler has been developed by the same people as Recuva and the almighty CCleaner, so I decided to give it a try. After all, I use external apps for many tasks that Windows can do by itself, so why not using a third-party defragmenter?

Defraggler is easy to install and goes straight to the point. Its most outstanding feature is the possibility to defragment individual folders and files simply by putting a tick next to them. In fact, the option to defragment the whole hard drive is much more hidden (either right click on the drive or use the top menu bar).

However, there are things I didn't like about this program. First, I found it a bit slow. Also, it would have been nice to have it minimized to the system tray or similar. Finally, I'd appreciate it if the program included some means to automate tasks: you can't schedule defrags, nor set the program to turn off the PC when it's done.

Download Defraggler 1.03.093 in Softonic

Stealing the crown from WinZip, the previously undisputed king of file compression apps, WinRAR is a must-have in any modern-day PC toolkit. The application not only includes support for extracting virtually any kind of file compression format, it also boasts a no-nonsense approach to reducing file sizes.

Some will argue that the application isn’t as quick as WinZip at compressing files. However, for the small lag in time difference, you end up with a significantly smaller archived file at the end of the process with WinRAR. What’s more, the application allows you to save files into both ZIP and RAR formats, with a multitude of options for speeding up compression times, or reducing file sizes at the expense of a few more seconds.

Although many newcomers might be put off by the sheer range of features and settings within the program, the interface doesn’t take long to get accustomed to, and if you’re still really stuck there’s a simple wizard-based system that walks you through the process of extracting or compressing. All this adds up to make WinRAR a dependable utility that performs better than any other tool in its class.

Download WinRAR 3.80 in Softonic