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

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

OpenOffice 3.0 is already here, at least in beta version. The most popular alternative to the almighty Microsoft suite has released its first public beta to allow users to provide feedback and help fine-tune the final product. So here's our two cents.

First, though the OpenOffice site displays a warning about possible instability issues in this beta, fear them not. The complete suite was perfectly stable during our tests, with all its applications running as smoothly as expected. This new OpenOffice is compatible with all file formats from Microsoft Office, including the latest docx, xlsx, pptx and so on from Office 2008.

All OpenOffice tools, along with your more recent documents, are easily accessible from a launcher ("Start Centre") with freshly designed icons, which is one of the main new features in this version. The launcher includes a handy template manager as well, though it's quite empty at the moment.

The suite's applications met our expectations in every aspect: they're easy to use (especially if you're used to working with Microsoft's suite) and feature all the necessary tools to create complete documents, spreadsheets, presentations and databases. I particularly liked the wizard-style interface in Impress (the "Power-Point" app) which enables you to create presentations in no time.

OpenOffice 3.0 left a very good taste in our mouths. In spite of being labeled as Beta, the whole suite works perfectly fine and enables you to enjoy all of its new features right now.

Download OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta 2 in Softonic

Sometimes the mouse cursor can blink way too rapidly when you're trying to aim it at a particular target or area.

SlowMousion is a discreet application that slows down mouse cursor's speed when pressing and holding down a key or button. SlowMousion gives you more sensitive control over mouse movements when drawing shapes, dragging shapes and just about anything else you are doing with a mouse.

SlowMousion is extremely easy to enable and disable which is essential because it can annoyingly activate itself when you least want it to. The best option is to use the program to define a hotkey instead because this saves any confusion. With repeated taps of the key, you can define exactly how fast or slow you want the mouse cursor to move or blink.

SlowMousion is a very basic application that does a simple job but is best activated from the keyboard than mouse.

Download SlowMousion 1.1 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

This cool kit is out of your imagination. You can not only use it to paint pictures, but also handle your digital photos, even use it to teach digital painting and image processing skills. Wizardbrush's new layer feature is a great improvement. Since you can compose a picture with several independent layers, you'll work just as effectively as the professional.

Wizardbrush comes with many painting tools, including pencil, Magic Wand, paint brush, and Chinese brush. It gives you the power to undo and redo, so do not be afraid of making mistakes. Wizardbrush contains a great number of tutorial record clips. You can easily learn how to draw pictures of different styles. If you are a teacher, you can make tutorial record clips conveniently.

Download Wizardbrush 6.7.4.7 in Softonic

Google's satellite imagery software has truly changed the way we look at the globe. The application lets you zoom in on any part of the world and for some places, observe from a few meters away.

Google Earth not only displaces satellite images but it also includes terrains and sometimes 3D reconstruction of buildings. You can look for directions and businesses, just like in Google Maps and pinpoint areas or draw on maps straight in Google Earth.

Google Earth includes a very wide, and constantly increasing library of layers, which you can add to the map to enrich your experience. You'll find all sorts of information, from historical landscapes to national parks, regions where you can find endangered species or tourist spots. Google Earth will also showcase more news related information such as forest fires or tsunamis.

If stars is what you are into, turn to the Space mode and navigate among the constellations.

Moving around in Google Earth is incredibly intuitive thanks to the multiple navigation tools. Some areas will show less information than others, and Google Earth is known to use up a substantial amount of bandwidth, but it remains a fascinating piece of software

Google Earth is as of yet an unequalled application. Browse around the world, zoom into streets or go up and gaze at the stars. Millions of possibilities.

Download Google Earth 4.3 Beta in Softonic

If you fancy designing a new website for yourself, then turn back now, Twisted Brush has not been developed to give clean crisp graphics, and will frustrate you unless you use it for what it was designed for, art. Having established that this is a program for drawing, it follows that the most natural way to sketch anything and in turn to use this software effectively is with a pen and a drawing tablet.

When the program starts, you’re assaulted by the quick-start guide that is designed to gently introduce you to the features. In reality it’s a bunch of screenshots crammed with info bubbles that contain un-detailed information and no links to find out more. That said, how many people stop to read welcome screens anyway?

A lot of effort was put into making TwistedBrush a realistic substitute for actual painting and when you start working with the various brushes you see just how well they interact with the colors to create a convincing portrait. Undoubtedly the greatest strength of this program is the vast selection of brush types and styles that are available to use. From simple fine pens, to wet oil brushes, to progressive 3D designs, you’ll find them all. The beauty of each brush is that they can be used quickly and easily, with stunning effects.

You will also find support for all the major image file formats, including TIFF, PSD, JPG, GIF, and PNG and there is an option to create a script, either to record the steps taken in the painting process, to insert a message, or to insert random dabs of paint, something that doesn’t quite seem to add to the functionality (although any Dadaists out there may disagree about that).

While getting to grips with the program, it seemed that there was one feature that had been unforgettably forgotten, the select tool. After using Photoshop for so long, this seems like a key tool in any imaging software that the TwistedBrush developers have overlooked. Alternatively it could be the very omission of the select tool that sets this program apart with the production process being more of an evolution rather than a construction.

TwistedBrush is a quality painting application that, judging from its interface and features, is aimed at anyone with a drawing tablet. There are tons of great brushes to experiment with but for anyone relying on the lowly mouse and the lack of a selection tool, it may become very frustrating, very quickly.

Download TwistedBrush Pro Studio 15.51 in Softonic

Perspective is one of those areas of photography that is impossible to avoid and which can sometimes cause problems. If you take a lot of pictures of buildings, streets or urban skylines then you'll only be too aware of the way that perspective can distort an object in the foreground, making it appear that it's leaning at an angle rather than standing straight. Perspective Pilot is designed to rid you of these worries by allowing you to quickly correct images that have been skewed in this way.

Using the program is very easy. You simply load an image into the program and draw a vertical line across the area you want to correct. Then, the program automatically adjusts the picture to make buildings straight. You can also use it to correct horizontal distortion. Perspective Pilot works very well in most cases, although if you've used a filter, such as a fish eye lens, to take your shots then the program struggles to achieve anything.

Download Perspective Pilot 2.0.7 in Softonic

OpenOffice.org is both an open-source product and a project. The product is a multiplatform office productivity suite. It includes desktop applications such as a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a presentation manager, and a drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to those of other office suites. OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office.

Localizations of OpenOffice.org are available in 27 languages, with more being constantly added by the community. OpenOffice.org runs on Solaris, Linux (including PPC Linux), and Windows. Written in C++ and with documented APIs licensed under the LGPL and SISSL open-source protocols, OpenOffice.org allows any knowledgeable developer to benefit from the source.

Download OpenOffice.org 2.4.1 in Softonic

Portable OpenOffice.org allows you to carry an entire office suite -- word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, drawing, etc. -- with you on an iPod, USB thumbdrive, portable hard drive or any other portable media. You can plug it right into any Windows computer and use it just like you would on your own.

Portable OpenOffice.org is a repackaged version of OpenOffice.org designed with portability in mind. It works just like regular OpenOffice.org installed on your computer does, except it allows you to use it on any Windows computer without installing anything. It has all the features of the excellent OpenOffice.org office suite except for the Data application. It also includes some special enhancements to make it work even better from your portable drive.

Download Portable OpenOffice.org 2.4.1 in Softonic

If you worked with scanned drawings and regularly need to turn them into vectored images, then you'll find RasterVect a Godsend.

It's pretty much essential for anyone that works with scanned drawings and can transform raster drawings into vector format. Drawings can be imported by vector formats in DXF, WMF, EMF, EPS and AI. Most CAD applications support this format such as AutoCAD, Corel Draw so you can go on to further edit them in those programs. Options include zooming, scrolling and color selection. RasterVect also features TWAIN support for importing from any scanners; the ability to automatically recognize orthogonal and inclined lines, as well as arcs and circles. You can also maintain the scale of the initial paper drawing and transform grey and colored images into black-and-white. For those that have to work with complex shapes and angles, there is also support for lines, arcs and circles alignment.

An easy to use vectorising program that simplifies the whole process and is enough to deal with even the most complex shapes.

Download RasterVect 13.8 in Softonic

Visual Watermark is a watermarking tool for digital photo protection. It places very strong watermarks no one can remove. Your digital photos will be effectively protected from unauthorized use. It will be very useful for everyone who needs to protect digital pictures.

Protect your pictures. Protect you photos, drawings and other graphics from theft over the entire world. Place watermark on your pictures and previews with this watermarking tool so no one can thief your photos. Share your photos safely! You can protect your images with no worries about file format they are. Visual Watermark supports JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF and BMP!

Download Visual Watermark 2.9.1 in Softonic

FireANT is an RSS video aggregator and media player that helps you keep up to date with the latest internet TV channels and programming.

With the FireANT Player, you can subscribe to any RSS 2.0 channel and automatically download fresh media content to watch and listen to. In this way, you don't need to keep checking your favourite channel - whether it be CNN or ESPN - to see whether there's anything you want to watch on as FireANT delivers it all to you in much the same way as Google Reader tracks your favourite blogs.

The other big draw of FireANT is that the media player is incredibly versatile - rivalling VLC Player in some respects - as it's able to play just about any format without the need for codecs including Quicktime, Windows Media, Flash, Real Media. FireANT can even sync downloaded files with portable media players such as iPod and Sony PSP.

In addition, FireANT player comes with an integrated Yahoo! Video Search function. When FireANT was originally released this was probably quite useful but now that Google is king, you probably won't find much use for it. You can also interact with video creators by sending comments to them based on their content although I'm sceptical as to whether this actually works properly.

A format free and fun way to keep track of your favourite programming, FireANT is maybe a bit dated now but better than having to keep checking channels for new content yourself.

Download FireANT Beta in Softonic

Massive photo editing tools like Photoshop are great, but some find them too heavy and complicated for everyday usage.

PicPick is definitely a better choice if what you need is just a simple image editor. With PicPick you can easily perform simple editing tasks to your photos, including brightness, contrast and color adjustment, grayscale, blur, pixelate and other special effects. There's also a cool whiteboard feature which enables you to write and draw directly on the screen.

But PicPick is not only an image editor: it's also a full featured screen capturing tool with which you can capture the image on your monitor in several ways: full screen, active window, user-defined area and more. Plus, PicPick can work with several documents simultaneously and captures can be triggered with customizable keyboard shortcuts, which makes it even handier.

I liked the versatility of PicPick, as well as the fact that it doesn't require installation. On the downside, I missed certain features such as support for printing or the ability to capture complete webpages with automatic scrolling.

PicPick is a lightweight yet full featured image editor and capturer, perfect for simple daily image editing tasks.

Download PicPick 1.7.2 in Softonic

GenoPro is a software to draw family trees. Among all the family tree software, GenoPro is the simplest to learn and easiest to use. If you are a beginner to genealogy, you can learn to use GenoPro in a few minutes without the need to take a look at the online help.

GenoPro is capable to draw any type of family tree, including the most complicated family difficult to "picture". Once you have finished your family tree, you can save your family tree in a metafile to insert in Word, PowerPoint or any other Windows software. A metafile is a picture with a transparent background capable to be scaled to any size without quality loss. You can use GenoPro to create a huge poster of your family tree.

GenoPro can insert unlimited pictures for each individual and family, and help you to create a CD ROM of your family album. GenoPro has a powerful report generator to generate detailed reports in the language of your choice. Those reports can be printed using Word or published on the Web using your internet connection. GenoPro has built-in reports in 10 languages and you are welcome to add your own language or customize an existing report to your taste.

GenoPro has an excellent tool to compile statistics about your family and ancestry. With a few mouse clicks, you can find everything from the oldest ancestor to the largest family to the individual most divorced.

GenoPro uses the genogram to represent your family tree. A genogram is a graphical representation of a family with a set of simple rules and images. Genograms include basic information about the number of marriages, number of children in each marriage, birth order, age and death. Some genograms also include relationships between individuals and information on disorders running in a family such as alcoholism, depression and diseases.

Download GenoPro 2007 in Softonic

Given the number of once-mighty file sharing clients and networks that have been forced to shut down following action by the RIAA, the developers of iMesh have decided to go legit. Well, sort of. It seems the remit of the P2P client is now to distribute content that is “100% legal,” deliver a thriving online music community, and offer users premium music downloads.

On the surface, the client and service looks highly polished. Complete with a colourful, GUI drawing more than a little inspiration from iTunes, it’s easy to find your way around. If you’ve never slapped your eyes on a P2P client before then you’ll almost certainly be impressed by the speed ease in which you can search for music and video, manage playlists and enjoy your downloads through a slick media player. You’ll also likely be impressed by the fact that you can join a community of users in making friends, exchanging messages and sharing media libraries. There’s also an online music download centre where you can pay to download tracks from some of your favourite artists.

Although these features may look great to the uninitiated user, more seasoned download freaks will quickly realize that iMesh is now suffering from a severe identity crisis. Is it a musical media player and premium download store like iTunes? Is it a place to hang out with fellow audiophile music fans like MySpace? Is it a client for getting hold of free music and video like Limewire and eMule? Actually, it’s all three, but the trouble is it doesn’t come close to any of the aforementioned apps in terms of performance.

If you want the benefit of having all of these services under one interface then it’s fine. The fact is though, that iTunes offers a far more comprehensive selection of pay-for music and MySpace has an infinitely larger user base. As for downloading tracks for free with iMesh, the boundaries are blurred even further. While it claims to offer nothing but legal files, it’s still possible to obtain copyrighted material using the clients albeit just a handful of results from a search – so renegade file hunters wouldn’t dream of giving up their eMules of Limewires and switching to iMesh.

There’s no disputing the fact that iMesh is a neatly-packaged app which has a noble stab at embracing the world of legal media downloads. It’s simple to operate and has some great features for connecting to an enthusiastic community of users. However, it’s hard to see this community staying loyal to iMesh as the bigger purveyors of legal and illegal music services continue to offer access to a much greater selection of content.

Download iMesh 7.2 in Softonic

There are not many drawing applications which are cross platform but Sketsa SVG editor uses SVG as its native file format.

What is SVG you ask? SVG is basically an open standard language for drawing two-dimensional (2D) graphics in XML developed by W3C. SVG therefore benefits from the various XML tools that make it so easy to manipulate, generate, search and edit SVG files. The developers also guarantee that as a result, Sketsa also produces very clean SVG XML code. The editor is basic but has everything you need to produce some impressive results. It features various tools for optimizing content creation and gives you a decent feeling of control over what you are creating. The design tools allow you to select, draw, and edit objects easily. It supports SVG specific shape tools and supports additional illustration tools such as the Pencil tool for free-form shapes and Pen tools for curve shape. You can also transform objects or drawings by rotating, skewing and scaling.

Sketsa SVG editor is very basic but for a free application, it packs a powerful punch as an artistic tool and is perhaps best used as something to train on before moving onto something bigger.

Download Sketsa SVG Editor 5.3 in Softonic

Phun is a typically Swedish invention - functional, free, educational but fun at the same time. If you're studying physics then you should get a lot of enjoyment out of this "game".

The game allows you to explore the forces of gravity and friction plus aspects of density, elasticity, viscosity and inertia in a "virtual sandbox". This basically allows you to create two-dimensional objects and then see how these react according to different physical forces. The game is hugely effective at creating realistic states and effects and forces on your objects. It's a shame that it doesn't support 3D objects although the developers say this has been done to make the interface simpler.

To think that this project was developed by a student at Umea university is quite amazing too. In this latest version, they've ironed out many of the bugs that were plaguing the program. For instance, previously water would not show behind transparent objects and water rendering in general was very poor. That's now all been fixed meaning that any effects involving water are now much more realistic. Probably the most useful enhancement however has been the added ability to pan by holding down both mouse buttons (left and right). This means you can pan anytime, anywhere: in the middle of drawing a polygon you can pan away and then continue drawing, and you can start panning without access to the background.

The developers have also added Czech, German, Spanish and Portuguese translations of the game for the first time. Note that you can watch Phun in action here.

A great little application that proves simple physical concepts in an fun and interactive way.

Download Phun 4.12 Beta in Softonic

If you're a serious gamer then you'll need some help to get the most out of your system and ensure your graphics card is performing to the peak of it's abilities.

Game Gain 2 is the latest version of this popular gaming assistant which attempts to take gaming to the next level. It can help you enjoy games like you never have done before by using those parts of your processor and graphics card that had formerly laid dormant. The program is remarkably easy to use requiring just the tweaking of a few throttles and switches to blast your PC into the gaming stratosphere. However, you should use this utility with caution because it does change registry settings that could unbalance your system if your registry is already damaged. It works by making direct changes to system registry and system files to enhance memory, screen drawing, animations, refresh rates, CPU threading speeds. However the developers assure that it only optimises based on the capabilities of your system and won't try and push it past anything it can't handle. If you do experience problems afterwards, the system analyzer should help remedy them.

A great tool for gamers although if you've got the latest Intel Quad processors, you'll probably have little use for it.

Download GameGain 2.7.7.2008 in Softonic