Give your computer a comprehensive once over. Dr. Hardware is a program of extreme detail that is not recommended for anyone who isn't into the possibility of their computer grinding to a halt during examination.

Upon installing this program, you will be presented with a telling readme file that informs you that it may evoke "Severe Exception Errors" (blue screen), "General Protection Faults", or "Program Errors". This isn’t due to the program being unstable, but rather to the fact that it pushes your computer to its limit in order to get an accurate measure of just what your system is capable of.

To begin with, you land on a general rundown of your system where you can perform the general overview test, that will outline your hardware configuration. You can then go on to explore the various tabs throughout the program, which aim to make navigating easier, but can actually get quite ambiguous since there are just so many tabs on there. The interface feels outdated and the creators don’t seem to have put much thought in to making it easy to use.

That said, the program contains a breathtakingly detailed breakdown of your computer's components and once you get used to the interface, you can find info about any hardware setting imaginable. The configuration menu will let you customize how the program performs, in accordance with the whether you are a novice or an expert computer user.

This is a powerful piece of software for checking the performance of your computer, although with such a rigorous scan, you may expect your system to crash at any moment.

Download Dr. Hardware 2008 9.0.0 in Softonic

Playing cute puzzles and thorough RPG adventures is all right, but sometimes you yearn for a bit more action.

Action, loads of it, is what you're going to find in S4 League, a frenetic online multiplayer game you can play and enjoy absolutely for free – that is, after creating a user account on the developer's website.

S4 League is very similar to Gunz and follows the same scheme as other multiplayer action games. You find yourself in a complex playing area, with corridors, stairs and platforms to run and jump, and your aim is basically to wipe out all members of the enemy team. Bear in mind though that battles in S4 League are so hectic and fast-paced that you better be wide awake if you want to last for more than five minutes.

Besides these basic rules, S4 League presents some variations according to the gaming mode you choose (Touchdown, Death match or personal missions). The game also differs from other action titles in its design – chiefly based on Japanese-style drawings – and an extensive social component that includes real-time chat, community services and other goodies. Plus S4 League features a shop where you'll be able to buy new stuff for your character, not only to customize it but also to make it more deadly and powerful.

Generally speaking S4 League is a great game. It combines nice graphics with an excellent soundtrack, and it's fun to play. The only drawback is that it takes ages to start.

Download S4 League in Softonic

IcoFX is an award winning freeware icon editor. It is an all-in-one solution for icon creation, extraction and editing. It is designed to work with Windows XP and Windows Vista icons supporting transparency.

With a wealth of tools and more than 40 effects at your fingertips, there’s virtually no limit to the icons you can create. You can convert your favorite images into icons, or icons into images. With IcoFX you can extract icons from other files, including Windows Vista files. You can easily work with multiple files using the batch processing capability of IcoFX.

This is what IcoFX has to offer:

• Support for transparency (alpha channel)
• Batch processing for import, export and extract
• More than 40 effects + custom filter
• Resolutions up to 256x256
• Data types: 2, 16, 256, True Color, True Color + Alpha
• Extract icons from 32 bit exe and dll
• Import and export images
• Transparent, Brighten/Darken, Blur/Sharpen tools

Download IcoFX 1.63 in Softonic

The major developers might not agree with us but the rise of open source equivalents to large, expensive packages has arguably been the most exciting development in the software industry in the last few years. The GIMP and Mozilla Thunderbird are two leading lights of the open source phenomenon and have collectively saved users millions as alternatives to their big-budget rivals.

Artweaver certainly has the credentials to take on the big players and comes stacked with an ample range of brushes, which can be tweaked and customized easily to suit your designs. Just like its more illustrious rivals, the brush selection can be beefed up through plug-ins, although the range of available brushes is pitiful compared with those you can download for Adobe Illustrator. Nevertheless, it's promising to see freeware products embracing extendability in this way.

Other welcome features include a mighty effects selection, layers and transparency functionality, plus support for a range of file formats. You can also add text layers, making it great for creating logos or promotional material. However, it's when you put pen to paper that Artweaver stumbles somewhat. The fact is that the app renders certain brush strokes much slower than its major rivals, and unless you're packing heat processor-wise you're likely to be frustrated by the lag time waiting for the strokes to appear on the page. For such a polished program otherwise, this drawback threatens to stifle its attempts to win over the graphic design market. This said, for a pre-release version ArtWeaver is an impressive piece of kit.

Download Artweaver 0.5.3 in Softonic

Fresh UI is a fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings in Windows XP/2000/NT/ 98/95/Me, this software covers the customizing and optimizing techniques that you'll be glad to know, such as:

• Customizing Windows User Interface (UI)
• Optimizing system settings
• Optimizing hardware settings
• Customizing Windows application settings
• Controlling user environment with policies

Fresh UI is organized by section for easy navigation and is complete with detailed descriptions for easy reference.

Download Fresh UI 8.14 in Softonic

Freebie Notes is an easy-to-use reminder for Windows. With Freebie Notes you can create notes displaying on your desktop. Your notes can be displayed immediately after creation or in the certain moments of time. You can create notes of custom sizes and colors and set different types for your notes.

Freebie Notes features: unlimited number of notes, notes autosaving, notes database editor, fast notes displaying time setting (Quick alarm settings). Note displaying can be accompanied by standard windows sound alarms or users' sounds in wav format. The most important note can be declared as VIP-note displaying with a blink and sound accompaniment. The application has a nice convenient interface.

Download Freebie Notes 3.21 in Softonic

If you often have to plot graphs, then this program allows you to produce high quality 3D graphs with relative simplicity. Graphs can be shaded with custom gradual colors along the X, Y or Z axis. In 3D graphs, the lighting is enabled to demonstrate the depth of the surface through shades and shadows. The Graphing Calculator performs mathematical calculations and then illustrates the results in 3D drawings.

The interface is divided into three sections. The first represents written equations. The second is a keypad to enter into all kinds of mathematical elements. Finally you have the graphics screen that can be customized with colors. You can also manipulate graphics by rotating them into any position.

For scientists, mathematicians and teachers, this program gives an extra touch of class to presentations or teaching material.

Download Graphing Calculator 3D 2.3 in Softonic

aMSN is an alternative to the classic MSN Messenger, with more features yet a much weaker interface. The chat client looks very similar to Microsoft's product yet differs on a number of points. aMSN developers have delved into the preferences menu, adding extra little features like event alerts and sounds, conferencing support or autoaway messages. Like with MSN Messenger you'll be able to transfer files and organize all your contacts into groups.

Audio/Video support is the number one function that users look for in IM clients nowadays, yet an area which aMSN doesn't particularly focus on. Webcam support is fairly weak and unstable, and instead of integrating into your chat window will open up in a new Quicktime window.

One of the biggest pet peeves of users with aMSN is the interface. It simply doesn't compare with more sleeker, more recent IM clients. To the developer's defense though you can download all sorts of skins from the program's website. Similarly it offers up a range of plugins, to customize your client to your liking. Chat addicts will also appreciate the animated emoticons on hand.

In terms of performance, you have to keep in mind that aMSN is still a Beta product, so still liable to some crashes and bugs. We did have some trouble when opening up new chat window and noticed that the client tended to use a lot of CPU.

In a few words, aMSN is a good alternative to MSN for users looking to add more plugins, skins and delve into the preferences menu.

Download aMSN Messenger 0.97.2 in Softonic

Some music players are so complex that you spend more time fiddling and customizing them than enjoying your music.

If this sounds like thinly veiled criticism of iTunes then it is a little bit I guess but the point is that some people don't want online stores, most played lists etc, etc. QuuxPlayer is a simple and straightforward player that has you up and running in minutes and includes a 30 band equalizer.

However, the big draw of QuuxPlayer is Wireless Gamepad support which means that you can control it in a unique way from just about anywhere in the room as long as you in range of your receiver. The look and feel of QuuxPlayer is certainly unique in comparison with other similar efforts. However, the developers already seem to be going against their philosophy of keeping it simple by adding automatic lyrics download, control locking for child management and an automatic directory monitoring service for updates amongst many other things.

That said, QuuxPlayer definitely occupies a unique position in the world of music players and if you've got a gamepad, you should definitely give it a whirl even if controlling music in this way is a bit odd.

Download QuuxPlayer 2.0.5.47 Standard Edition in Softonic

As a worldwide network, you can find many different languages on the Web, but you may not speak all of them. In this case, you better count on Business Translator.

With Business Translator you'll be able to translate selected text strings – no matter how long - and complete websites as well. The way the program translates web content in fact is very interesting: it loads the selected website on its own built-in browser and displays it in the target language, although keeping the same design.

Being an automated translating machine, you shouldn't expect perfect results in Business Translator. But in any case you'll be able to get a rough idea of what any foreign text is about.

Business Translator features a simple interface with a few customization options, plus some other tools such as the possibility to print or save the translated text right away. The program also includes what it seems to be a fairly complete dictionary. And I say "seems to be" because it was so painfully slow I didn't have enough patience to wait for the definition I was looking up.

Business Translator puts an end to language barriers by providing you with a handy translating application.

Download Business Translator 9.02 in Softonic

The torrent phenomenon is one of the most hyped about in the world of technology among Peer to Peer (P2P) users. It consists of sharing large files, like movies, software, or games anonymously and quickly with other peers. The file you want to download is cut up into small segments shared by users, creating what is called a swarm, and does not go through a central server, significantly reducing the bulk of file transfers, The Bittorrent client is actually the first P2P application to use this technology and became immensely popular when it was released. Torrents are considered by online users as a great way to download recently released movies or tv shows.

Thanks to a straightforward, uncluttered interface Bittorrent appears as a friendly torrent client that beginners will feel comfortable with. We particularly appreciated the integrated search box to look for files on the bittorrent website. Once you’ve found the torrent you want, download it to your PC, open it up inside Bittorrent and let the client do its job. The speed at which you download will depend on the number of seeds, that is people who have the complete file and are sharing it. The more seeds there are the quicker files will download.

You can set multiple torrent downloads and the downloading speed is fairly quick. It’s easy to configure the client and we suggest choosing the right port and setting upload and download rate limits to avoid hogging your bandwidth. It’s also good to set your downloads by priority to monitor more precisely how your torrents are doing.

Compared to the exhaustive Azureus, Bittorrent is very simplistic. It doesn’t provide half as many statistics and doesn’t let you customize the interface. Integrating a search box is a great idea, but it limits searches to the bittorrent website, not considered the most thorough source by torrent aficionados.

If you’re a newbie to the torrent world, Bittorrent is a good bet. It’s safe, stable and sharp. Associated with the huge database of legal torrents that is the bittorrent website, it makes for a very rich P2P experience. Advanced users will probably frown upon its lack of options but others should give it a try.

Download BitTorrent 6.1 in Softonic

K-Meleon is an extremely fast, customizable, lightweight web browser for the win32 (Windows) platform based on the Gecko layout engine (the rendering engine of Mozilla). K-Meleon is free, open source software released under the GNU General Public License.

Features:

• Choose your desired bookmarking system
• "Tabbed" browsing
• Mouse gestures
• Complete toolbar, menu, context menu, & keyboard shortcut customization
• Block popup windows
• Fast load time
• Easy web searching
• Themes & skins
• Macros

Download K-Meleon 1.5.0 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to remove some Windows components like Media Player, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Messenger. How about not even to install them with Windows?

nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. With nLite you will be able to have Windows installation which on install doesn't include, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.

Download nLite 1.4.9 in Softonic

RegToy is a small application that enables you to tweak a variety of hidden settings in Windows XP, customize your system and improve its performance.

The tweaks offered in the program are conveniently organized into categories. You can also search for an specific tweak by using keywords in RegToy's built-in search tool. Besides tweaking, you'll be able to remove invalid registry keys, change your wallpaper according to a scheduled period of time and clean your hard drive, amongst other utilities.

Download RegToy 0.7.2.1 in Softonic

The world of dubbing and lip syncing has come a long way since the days when high-pitched voice actors would jabber away in not-so-perfect harmony to Japanese Kung Fu fighters in the martial arts movies of the 1970s. In fact, digital animation technology has improved so much that it’s now possible to animate your own talking heads from your home PC.

CrazyTalk Media Studio promises to give you all the tools you need to import images and photographs before quickly applying mouth, head and eye movement to create realistic looking avatars and fun animations. At first we were a little dubious about the value of such a product, but were soon pleasantly surprised by the power of the utility.

Granted, our initial efforts were limited to taking pictures of friends and giggling inanely as they repeated audio clips from famous movies or songs. These first experiments were a little clunky to say the least and looked far from realistic when we relied on the automatic lip-syncing functionality. However, once you delve deeper into the settings, you start to realize that you can actually produce some impressive animations.

With enough tinkering you can customize everything from the teeth in the character’s mouth to their facial movements and their range of movement. Best of all is the built-in timeline, which gives you complete control of the animation and sound, much as you would do in Flash, or a video-editing suite. Complete with alpha channel support, the program is ideal for producing talking presenters to welcome visitors to your web site or presentations. The simple-to-use export facilities allow you to save to a range of formats whether as a media file, email attachment or a personalized greeting.

There are a few flaws with the program that are a little frustrating, but they fail to prevent CrazyTalk Media Studio from being a great program. Minor niggles are the lack of MP3 audio import support, and the relatively low number of preset templates and characters. The app does have a fairly steep learning curve but it’s good fun to use and is surprisingly powerful.

Download CrazyTalk 5.0 in Softonic

Are you a real Softonic fan? If so, this toolbar has been especially developed for you.

The Softonic Toolbar brings the latest reviews, updates, blog posts and software apps published on Softonic right to your web browser. You'll be able to read all the new content published on the site with a single click and you'll always be up to date with the latest program versions and software news.

What's more, this toolbar also features a series of online services, such as local weather forecast, an embedded search engine, an email notifier, a translation service powered by Babylon and a radio player with support for streaming radio stations, although you may need to download a separate plug-in to make it work properly. I found the email notifier particularly useful, as it supports multiple Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and POP3 accounts.

The Softonic Toolbar also includes a configuration menu where you can customize it by choosing the elements you want to be displayed.

A web browser toolbar that brings you all the best from the web: a variety of online services and all the latest news on Softonic and insideTonic.

Download Softonic Toolbar in Softonic

Those of us who work with computers on a daily basis need to be as fast as possible with the keyboard, and programs like Klavaro Touch Typing Tutor can be really helpful.

Klavaro Touch Typing Tutor is a simple tool that teaches you the basics of typing and also lets you practice to improve your speed and accuracy. Lessons in Klavaro Touch Typing Tutor grow in difficulty as you make progress through the program, from single letters on the keyboard to complete texts.

The good thing about Klavaro Touch Typing Tutor is that it offers support for many different keyboard layouts and languages, which makes it suitable for a wider number of users, no matter what their mother tongue is.

On the downside, I missed some extra features found in other similar tools, such as the possibility to keep track of your results with statistics, or to customize the text with which you can practice.

Use Klavaro Touch Typing Tutor everyday and you'll be able to improve your typing speed and accuracy.

Download Klavaro Touch Typing Tutor 1.1.4 in Softonic

Flickr is a great site to share pics, but in order to keep your photo collection in perfect shape you need to devote some time to it. Luckily jUploadr can help you in this task.

jUploadr, as you may have inferred from its name, is a photo uploading tool that has been specifically designed to work with Flickr and also with Zooomr, another photo sharing community. With jUploadr you can upload and manage your photos in a more comfortable way, because several steps in the process are fully automated and can also be applied to photos in batches.

jUploadr is certainly one of the most complete photo uploading tools I've seen. It allows you to resize and tag your images prior to uploading them, as well as applying custom default security settings to them and publishing them in the same order they were taken.

The main drawback in jUploadr though is its incredible slowness when uploading images. Oh well, at least you can just minimize it to the system tray and forget about it while you focus on something else.

With jUploadr you can fully automate the process of uploading photos to Flickr, even if it takes longer than usual.

Download jUploadr 1.1.2 in Softonic

One of the best things about the PSP, apart from the brilliant games, is that you can watch films on it.

However, if your favourite films are on DVD, you'll need some way to convert them and the quality of the conversions can greatly affect your enjoyment of the films. Xilisoft DVD to PSP Converter is powerful and highly user friendly DVD to PSP converter which helps convert DVD to multiple formats including PSP, MP4, MPEG-4, H.264/PSP AVC Video, DVD to PSP audio format MP3 and DVD to PS3 Video MPEG-4. In addition, it supports DVD to PSP MP3, AAC, DVD to PS3 Video (480p, 720p, 1080i) MPEG-4. Although it's ideal for beginners, it will also appeal to those who want a bit more control over conversions due to a multitude of customisation options. Depending on whether you want your video to fill the whole screen, it allows you to convert DVD to PSP by customising the resolution, file size and even the part of the DVD that you want to rip. Even better, you can avoid ripping subtitle and audio tracks that you don't need by choosing to ignore them completely. The interface is simple but elegant with a preview window in the bottom left hand corner to help you review conversions or select the section of DVD that you want to rip. The conversion time may be a little longer than you're used to with such apps but the all round usability more than makes up for that.

A quick, easy and convenient burner that will impress with it's usability and range of conversion formats.

Download Xilisoft DVD to PSP Converter 5.0.40.0729 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 3.9.1 in Softonic