Far from being just a portable music player, the iPod has evolved into supporting video as well which means it's also a great device to watch videos on the move.

But before that, you need to convert your videos with ImToo iPod Movie Converter, a powerful video conversion tool that has been especially developed for iPods, though it does also offer conversion to other popular standard formats.

All supported formats are categorized in several profiles to meet different requirements in size, audio quality, video quality and other settings. ImToo iPod Movie Converter also lets you easily tweak these settings in order to adapt each profile to your needs.

ImToo iPod Movie Converter includes a small built-in player where you can preview the video before converting it – and also take snapshots from selected scenes. Too bad the program was so unstable during our tests: it crashed every now and then without any apparent reason.

If you have a large collection of videos and a video-capable iPod, this might be the perfect app for you.

Download ImTOO iPod Movie Converter 5.0.99.0729 in Softonic

It's really unbelievable to find free software applications as amazing as Photoscape. But as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. Here you have a really excellent photo editing tool that includes just about everything you need to view, optimize, edit, print and have fun with your photos, all for free.

Photoscape strikes us from the very beginning with an uncommon interface design from which you can choose what you want to do: view pictures, optimize those that didn't come out so well, print several photos on a single page collage-style or perhaps add any of the dozens of filters and special effects included in the program. Other extra tools featured in Photoscape are a file renamer, a color picker, a screen capture tool and even a RAW converter.

We really have nothing negative to say about Photoscape. Just download it, test it, love it and keep it forever. It's free!

Download Photoscape 3.2 in Softonic

There’s a plethora of music players to choose from, among which iTunes and Winamp usually have the upper hand. However, if you are curious enough, you might find that lesser known alternatives like MediaMonkey offer a reasonable amount of features and tools to organize and equally enjoy your music library.

MediaMonkey automatically scans your PC for all types of music formats. If you have playlists from other programs, it’s good to know that the application also adds m3u files, sparing you the pain of having to recreate them. The file explorer view on the left lets you easily navigate your music collection by categories like artist, genre or rating. You can convert tracks into any format you wish, depending on what size or quality of sound you’re looking for. MediaMonkey also lets you analyze and adjust the volume of tracks to increase your listening experience.

MediaMonkey has made its reputation on its advanced tagging management feature. Every time a track is added, the program will verify its tags. You can automatically fill in missing details with info from Amazon or Filename. The program can clean up your tags, move information into the correct categories and synchronize tags for selected tracks. You can also rename and move multiple files thanks to the auto-organize function. MediaMonkey also supports Winamp plugins and visualizations plus skins can be applied to spice up the interface.

If you want to make your own mix CDs, you’ll be happy to know that MediaMonkey rips and burns CDs and DVDs. Create a virtual CD of your favorite tracks and let MediaMonkey do its job. Budding DJs will enjoy the auto-DJ mode, which mixes tracks for you and the Party Mode, which blocks your configuration but lets anybody play their favorite tune. MediaMonkey’s versatility doesn’t stop there. The music manager also lets you synchronize with your portable music devices like your iPod or iRiver.

If you feel like completing your library with a couple of fresh albums you can browse sites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble or AllPosters and purchase tracks. However, unlike Songbird, where you can type in a URL, browse and save your favorite music blogs and sites, MediaMonkey only allows you to browse their selection of online stores.

We were disappointed with the web radio selection, which only features Shoutcast and Icecast, and were surprised to see no sign of podcasts anywhere in the application. However version 3.0 is planning on incorporating this to the application.

Despite these drawbacks, we recommend MediaMonkey to anybody looking for a solid alternative to iTunes or Winamp. This original music manager is more than capable of organizing a very large music library and offers advanced tagging management rarely seen in other music applications. While the browser and web radio are fairly limited, MediaMonkey allows you to rip your custom CDs and connects to most portable music devices. If you really take a liking to MediaMonkey, cough up a few bucks and upgrade to the Gold version, which will open up all of the program’s functionalities like finding missing tracks or creating auto (smart) playlists.

Download MediaMonkey 3.0.5.1187 in Softonic

Creating customized DVD movies is a piece of cake with Droppix DVD Maker. The program takes care of everything so that you only have to worry about enjoying your favorite videos from the couch.

You can use any video files stored in your local drive (the program supports the most popular formats) or import videos right away from famous video websites like Youtube, Daily Motion or Google Video with just a single click. Droppix DVD Maker also includes several ready-to-use menu templates you can use to create personalized DVD menus, though the method to change them is not very well implemented (a double click on the current menu image would be much more intuitive than having to open the program's settings menu).

Another drawback to Droppix DVD Maker is the fact that you can't preview the video before converting and recording it to the actual disc, while other similar tools usually include a built-in player. At least the conversion process is easy and quite fast too.

Droppix DVD Maker lets you create customized DVD movies in a very easy way, but lacks some handy features found in other similar tools.

Download Droppix DVD Maker 1.5.0 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

Xilisoft Audio Converter provides an easy and complete way to convert between all of the popular audio formats, such as MP3, WAV, WMA, MP4, M4A, MP2, VQF, APE, OGG, AAC and FLAC.

One of the benefits is that the audio converter supports converting m4a to mp3, mp4 to mp3. The audio converter supports ID3 tag, all ID3 tags in the original files will be reserved after the conversion. In addition, you also can convert video formats including AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF to all popular audio files with Xilisoft Audio Converter. All conversion processes are very easy to handle and fast.

Features:

• Convert between MP3, M4A, WAV, WMA, MP4, MP2, VQF, APE, OGG, AAC and FLAC
• Convert AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF to MP3, WAV, WMA, MP4, M4A, MP2, VQF, APE, OGG, AAC and FLAC
• Support batch conversion
• Copy ID3 tag between audio formats (reserve ID3 tag during conversion)
• When converting to MP3, bitrate, VBR or CBR, stereo or mono are selectable
• You can select the compression method, sample rate, bitrate, stereo or mono when converting to WAV
• Allow users to select whether delete the original files

Download Xilisoft Audio Converter 2.1.69.1123 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

If you are looking for an alternative music player which can also read Ogg Vorbis files and has an elegant, minimalistic GUI, Foobar2000 is worth a try. It features all the standard functions of other main players, like the possibility to import music folders and to create playlist, but it also supports advanced tagging and a useful converter to 9 music formats.

It's amazing how all these tools can fit into an installer file of just 1.6 MB, compared to the 36 MB for the iTunes download. The plus of this application is its fairly active community which develops add-ons in order to customize nearly every aspect of this player.

When you download these plug-ins, you'll get a .dll file that you have to add to the components folder of your foobar2000 directory and restart the program. Many users like it, others don't find a specific reason to leave Winamp for it. It's another good option you have, with the plus of conversion tools and many plug-ins.

Foobar2000 is a light, effective music player with a high level of customization, thanks to a personalized GUI and downloadable add-ons

Download foobar2000 0.9.5.6 in Softonic

PIXresizer is a free image resizer PIXresizer to easily create web and e-mail friendly versions of your images with reduced file sizes. The reduced files are saved in a different folder, so your original images are not altered at all.

PIXresizer offers several different resizing methods to choose from and can automatically recognize image sizes to calculate the best fit. In addition, it can convert between image formats (JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG and TIFF), rotate images, convert to grayscale and resize multiple images in batch mode.

A great companion for webmasters and digital photographers.

Download PIXresizer 2.0.3 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

With such an ever growing range of multimedia devices, no wonder format converters are becoming so popular these days!

Any Audio/Video Converter is one of those converters: a simple, easy-to-use application that support pretty much any format you can find nowadays and lets you convert both audio and video files in just a few steps.

The program works with a list where you add the files you want to convert, no matter what format they are. Then you configure the conversion options for each one of them separately and finally click on the "Convert" button to let the program do the rest. I think this method is quite handy and saves you loads of work and time; pity the trial version only accepts one file on this list!

Any Audio/Video Converter includes a built-in player in its interface, but it's only good to watch the video while it's being converted and not preview it before actually starting the process.

With Any Audio/Video Converter you can convert basically any audio and video file you can think of, in a quite easy process that involves very little effort.

Download Any Audio/Video Converter 5.6 in Softonic

If you have different devices with video capabilities, you need a complete video tool like ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter.

With ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter you can convert from the most popular video formats to those formats used in devices such as the iPod, the Zune, the PSP, the PS3 or the Apple TV. All you have to do is load the source video, select the target format and let the program take care of the rest. Plus, you can convert several videos simultaneously.

Formats are conveniently organized in profiles according to the target device.
ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter lets you tweak those target profiles by customizing bitrate, frame rate, video codec, audio bitrate and other elements, but unfortunately you can't save this customization as a new personal profile.

ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter features a straightforward interface and is really easy to use. It includes a video window preview, but it's meant to only show video as it's being converted, not work as a built-in player.

With ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter you'll always find the right combination to convert videos from one format to another and watch them on any device.

Download ALO AVI MPEG WMV 3GP MP4 iPod PSP Converter 6.6 in Softonic

Do you have a favorite DVD movie that you would like to watch on the move on your iPod or iPhone? Then Plato DVD to iPod Converter is what you need.

Plato DVD to iPod Converter has been especially developed to convert DVD movies straight into the correct audio and video format for Apple mobile devices, so that you can easily enjoy your favorite DVDs on your iPod or iPhone.

Plato DVD to iPod Converter is very easy to use. Simply load the DVD movie you want to convert from the DVD drive on your computer and select the target conversion profile in the program's Output menu. You can tweak all settings: video size, bitrate, frame rate, aspect ratio and more. Plato DVD to iPod Converter 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 iPod Converter. On the downside, it seems there's no easy way to select what chapters you want to convert – I'd prefer a full list on the interface rather than menus and submenus which are uncomfortable to browse.

With Plato DVD to iPod Converter you'll be able to convert your favorite DVD movies to an iPod or iPhone compatible format and enjoy those videos on the move.

Download Plato DVD to iPod Converter 8.87 in Softonic

The 3GP converter allows users to convert AVI to 3GP, MPEG to 3GP. The 3GP Converter supports almost all popular video formats including mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4, wmv, mp4, 3gp, mov, rm, dv, yuv, h264 to 3GP file conversion. Xilisoft 3GP Video Converter also convert 3GP video file to popular video formats such as 3GP to AVI, 3GP to MPEG, 3GP to Divx. The 3GP Converter supports convert audio-only 3GP file to MP3, WAV, and vice versa.

Download Xilisoft 3GP Video Converter 5.1.2.0829 in Softonic

VSO ConvertXtoDVD is an attractively designed and easy-to-use video burner that gives you the power to convert and burn a huge range of formats.

VSO ConvertXtoDVD can handle just about any format you throw at it including AVI, WMV, MKV, YouTube, OGM, MPEG and Quicktime. So instead of having to watch your downloaded films and videos on your PC, you can watch them in the comfort of your lounge on your DVD Player. VSO ConvertXtoDVD goes much further than just mere DVD creation though because it helps you create and author DVD menus.

It offers the possibility to add background video, image or audio and even have chapter and audio/subtitle menus. If you do want to add subtitles, it supports most of the major formats including SRT, .SUB/ID and .SSA and VSO CovertXtoDVD gives you control over color and font selection, and supports tags like italic, bold and the ability to toggle them on or off with DVD player remote control. The encoder makes a decent job of converting videos in terms of the output quality although it is slightly slow - estimate about 1 hour for conversion of a full movie.

A powerful and easy way to get your favourite movies and video clips onto DVD and give them an extra touch of class with a menu.

Download VSO ConvertXtoDVD 3.2.1.55 in Softonic

If you've ever needed to resize an image quickly, then you need a tool that makes it as easy and as straight forward as possible.

VSO Image resizer organizes your photos by shrinking their resolution or reducing them on your hard drive. It's a one stop easy to use solution for all those that need to resize, compress, convert, create copies, import or organize photos. The main benefit of this is that the photos take up less storage space and are much easier to e-mail. You can also use them in third party applications much easier too such as design applications and other image editors. In addition, it's a good idea for webmasters to use this because reducing the resolution alone can mean that your webpages load much more quickly. You can change their format and also edit large numbers of image files at once as it supports batch editing. While the program doesn't have a particularly great interface, it is integrated very well into Windows shell so it's easy to access simply by right clicking.

If you're looking for a super quick and easy images resizing solution, then VSO will more than cater for your needs.

Download VSO Image Resizer 2.0.1.11b in Softonic

Imagine you could enjoy your favorite movies anytime, anywhere.

Well, dream no more, because now you can, thanks to MAGIX Movies2go. This application can convert any video to the most popular formats supported by devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, handheld consoles and some other mobile devices.

The program not only converts video files to a wide range of formats, but also lets you add a series of video effects before exporting the resulting movie to the selected device. It works not only with video files stored on your hard drive, but also with movies on CD and DVD.

MAGIX Movies2go features a very elegant, yet not particularly usable interface. I mean, it's got a sleek eye-catching design, but the menus are not very well implemented. Another drawback I found was that you can't preview video effects on the actual image; instead, you only see a demonstration of how the video effect works on an example image.

MAGIX Movies2go is a powerful video converter that has been especially designed to convert your favorite movie for your handheld.

Download MAGIX Movies2go III 3.0.0.12 in Softonic

When you extract audio from video there's usually an inevitable loss of quality but Pazera Free Audio Extractor extracts audio tracks from video files without any notable loss of sound quality.

Whatsmore, it converts to a huge range of formats including MP3, AAC, AC3, WMA, FLAC, OGG and WAV formats. Pazera Free Audio Extractor also works with most major video formats including AVI, FLV, MP4, MPG, MOV, RM, 3GP, WMV and VOB. Alternatively, you can just use it as basic audio converter so you can switch between formats fairly easily and with rapid conversion times.

The program is useful for either novice or advanced users. Novice users are able to use predefined settings (known as profiles) depending on the type of conversion you perform. This means that you don't have to worry about setting the correct compression ratio or encoding algorithm to use as it's all done for you. However, if you do need extra control, you can access advanced encoding parameters as long as you know what you are doing.

Pazera Free Audio Extractor is not the most attractive looking converter or audio extractor but it handles a huge range of formats in double quick time.

Download Pazera Free Audio Extractor 1.2 in Softonic

Open Video Converter is probably one of the easiest tools you can find to convert videos, though the truth is that it's also a fairly simple one.

This tool accepts quite a few source targets (MPG, EMV, ASF, VCD, SVCD…) but only converts to AVI, which in my opinion limits the program's usefulness a lot. At least you can tweak the AVI file's settings by setting the resolution, frame rate, video and audio compressors and other details.

Once you load the video on Open Video Converter, a preview window will open up. But instead of having the playback control buttons on this same window, they're on the main interface, something I personally found very awkward and difficult to use.

The best thing about Open Video Converter though is that before the conversion process begins, you can mark both the starting and ending points of the video. In this way you can convert just your favorite scene – and not the complete video.

On the whole, Open Video Converter is a simple tool that works fine if what you want is simply converting to AVI. If you need any other extra features, you'd better look somewhere else.

With Open Video Converter you can easily convert quite a few videos, though only to AVI format.

Download Open Video Converter 3.21 in Softonic

Joining videos seems to be an easy task, but you still need the proper tool to do it. And Open Video Joiner is one of them.

This simple application lets you join several videos into one single clip. It supports many source formats (MPG, AVI, WMV, ASF and more) though once they're joined they will all be automatically converted to AVI.

The best thing about Open Video Joiner is its simplicity of use. The program features a really basic interface where you only need to choose your videos and press the "Join" button. But that's not all: the program also features a wide selection of transition effects to insert between videos, and a built-in video preview to see how everything looks.

We could say Open Video Joiner is a really handy app that does its job, and does it well – despite the AVI-only target format...but seriously, that interface needs some improvement.

With Open Video Joiner you can join as many videos as you want in a single AVI file, with transition effects between them.

Download Open Video Joiner 3.2 in Softonic