Bittorrent and Gnutella might be hogging the headlines of the peer to peer (P2P) world, but close behind comes Ares, a successful P2P application that boasts of having its own decentralized network and a simple, quick access interface. Ares spun-off from Gnutella in 2002, and since then has been building a strong and dedicated community of users.

Installing Ares only takes a few minutes and the interface is simple enough that anybody will feel comfortable with it. The new version has a very sleek and dark interface, not unlike that of WMP 11. When you start Ares, it lets you auto scan your PC to find files you might like to share on the network. Beginners will be relieved to know that there is no complex configuration process involved. Once Ares is installed, all you need to do is select the search tab and type the name of the file you want to download. Once it appears, double click on it to begin downloading. You’ll be able to check its progress in the transfer tab. The recent update adds bittorrent support, opening Ares up to loads of new content.

If you enjoy exchanging words with other users, click on the chat tab and connect to one of the thousands of channels available. You can pick up tips on how to use Ares better, ask which files other users recommend or just chit chat about your life in general. You can even insert emoticons into your conversation and keep a list of your favorite chat channels.

Of all the P2P programs, Ares probably features the widest preview screen. You can set it to fit to screen or adjust it to your preference. This is a great way of making sure you’re downloading the right movie or to get a sneak peak at your downloads.

Unlike WinMX or FileNavigator, the two other spin-off Gnutella projects, Ares did not drop into obscurity and unites a flourishing community of users. However, the same old problems usually seem to arise. According to many Ares users the application suffers from constant connectivity troubles making it difficult to properly search for a file or to successfully complete downloads. Others will worry that Ares is a much smaller network than the globally used Gnutella and does not offer quite as much download sources.

Ares is an ambitious project, and the fact that it still remains standing while eDonkey has fallen at the hands of the RIAA, is characteristic of its reliability. Thanks to a strong community of users, a simple interface, a great preview page and multichat service, Ares remains a P2P application of choice for anybody interested into sharing files over the internet.

Download Ares Galaxy 2.0.9 in Softonic

Limewire, one of the world’s most popular peer-to-peer filesharing applications, has received a lawsuit from the RIAA, who are demanding $115 million in damages, claiming the application promotes the infringement of copyright. Similar applications like Grokster and Kazaa have been forced to go legal and there is speculation as to just how long LimeWire will resist until they have to buckle and pay up. The existence of the popular P2P application is not under threat, but if you haven’t given it a try yet, here’s just what makes it a standout program.

In terms of file sharing, LimeWire is the cream of the crop, offering the essential peer-to- peer tools in what is probably the friendliest interface of applications in its class. Beginners will appreciate the search bar, which allows you to select the type of file you’re looking for, video, image, audio, program or file. LimeWire has a “what’s new” button to check out what popular files users have recently exchanged. We also enjoyed the direct connect option. If you know the IP address of one of your friends, type it in the box and LimeWire will browse that user’s files. This is a quick way of sharing files with someone else and can come in handy when working on a project and exchanging documents. The only little snag we have with direct connect is that it doesn’t let you enter the username, much simpler than looking for your friend’s IP address.

Downloading with LimeWire is very intuitive. After you’ve searched and found the file you are looking for, double-click on it to start the downloading process. The speed of your download depends firstly on the quality of your connection (broadband is a minimum), if you’ve correctly opened your router’s ports and whether you’re downloading a popular file or not. We would like to point out the effort that Limewire takes to make itself accessible to beginners. Not only does a tip pop up every time you launch the application, the help option also leads you to LimeWire’s support centre, FAQs and a forum to get in contact with other users.

The lawsuit carried out by the RIAA is all the more surprising because of the measures LimeWire takes to keep you in the realms of legality. If you decide to download LimeWire from its website, you will first have to agree you will not use it for copyright infringement. When you’re configuring the application, you can set content filters, to avoid downloading files that copyright owners do not want you to share. To avoid embarrassing situations, make sure you tick the “block adult content” box, which will filter out any pornographic files from your searches.

The best way of checking the quality of the audio or video you’re downloading is via LimeWire’s mini player. It’s fairly basic and to par with the players you find in similar filesharing applications, but we appreciated the way it was integrated in the application.

If there’s one thing that we’re still expecting from the LimeWire team, it’s that it finally decides to jump on the BitTorrent bandwagon. Torrents are the way forward when it comes to peer to peer file sharing because of the speed, the security and freshness of downloads. Large files like movies or complete seasons of TV series are much easier to download via BitTorrent. We were also annoyed by the “buy the PRO version” window that popped up every time we started LimeWire.

For its wealth of possibilities and huge base of users, (more than 4 million simultaneously on the Gnutella network) we encourage you to give LimeWire a test drive. Because of the controversial nature of the application, you should always make sure that you aren’t using LimeWire for illegal activities like copyright infringement. However don’t be scared off by the legality issue. LimeWire, like most P2P applications is one of the most exciting possibilities that the internet gives us. It would be a shame not to give it a try. You should also check out Frostwire, the not-for-profit project of the LimeWire development team.

Download LimeWire Basic 4.18.8 in Softonic

To keep your PC organized and running properly, you'll need to defragment your hard drive every now and then. Despite a rudimentary interface, UltraDefrag is a useful and speedy defragmentation tool. The top of the interface shows the different drives you can carry out actions on. The best to do is start by analyzing your drive. The length of the analysis will really depend on how much files you have on your drive and how messy it actually is. Once this is done you can choose to defragment or compact your drive.

Click the fragmented button and a browser window will open up with a list of all the files that have been fragmented. While the list seems to be pretty exhaustive it lacks any real explanation or easy browsing function. Another useful feature in UltraDefrag is being able to rescan your drives. You can do this to verify file size or check if there's any drive you might have missed.

If you go into settings you should be able to create filters. This function is pretty limited as you'll have to type in the name of files you want to include or exclude (but there's no explanation as to how you can enter multiple files) and you can set the program to ignore files greater than a certain size.

Despite some drawbacks, UltraDefrag is an effective defragmentation tool.

Download UltraDefrag 1.4.0 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

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

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

Backing up your drivers is one of the best things you can do to your PC - if the worst happens, you know that you can always restore damaged and corrupt drivers in seconds.

In most cases when Windows is running slower, faulty driver installations are to blame. The problem is that Windows automatically stores versions of older drivers just in case you want to roll back but sometimes it these conflict with the new ones. Drivermax basically backs-up and restores driver in a very attractive and well presented interface. It has a powerful export wizard to help you export the drivers you need to backup by copying the required files to a folder or compressed ZIP file. After reinstalling Windows, the program can ensure that all drivers are reinstalled within 5 minutes according to the developers. While the process is nowhere near this quick - or straightforward because many drivers may not work properly first time round due to the special way they need to be installed - it is on the whole very easy to use and efficient. It certainly saves you the hours of searching and installing that you'd usually have to go through. The Import Drivers wizard is similarly straightforward and will take up to 10 minutes depending on how much you've got installed on your PC.

A powerful driver installation and restore tool that is easy enough for beginners and does the job in decent time.

Download DriverMax 4.5 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

One of my favorite media players, apart from VLCPlayer, is definitely BSPlayer because it's pretty lightweight, works wonders with subtitles and looks as good as you want it to.

And according to the developer website, this Prophecy BSPlayer Skin is the most popular out there by a mile with more than 25,000 downloads and you can see why: it's slick, modern and just looks really cool. Obviously, it doesn't affect the functionality of BSPlayer in any way although it has a much more accessible control module to switch to full screen mode.

To install BSPlayer Skin Prophecy, just double click on the download file and it automatically installs it into BSPlayer so you need do no further browsing.

Slick and fresh looking, Prophecy BSPlayer Skin ins understandably the most popular skin for BSPlayer out there.

Download Prophecy BSPlayer Skin 2.2 in Softonic

Registry errors are one of the main reasons for the slow operation of your PC or frequent crashes. Baku can ensure that if your registry does have malicious entries, they can be removed safely. Baku also deletes empty folders, 'History' folder contents, 'Recent documents' folder contents, 'Temp' folder contents and temporary internet files. It can also search Windows log files, shortcuts to missing files and folders and user specified file types. The registry scan itself aims to remove unused and obsolete keys, including ActiveX, Application Paths, Fonts, Help files, Icon files and pesky uninstallers.

Like all such programs, it backs up your registry in case of any wrongful changes although I found that this wasn't exactly easy to restore. Probably the most useful function is the registry compacting facility which does seem to make a notable difference to the running speed of your PC. The developers claim the program uniquely works by recreating each registry hive "from scratch", thus removing any slack space that may be left from previously modified or deleted keys. Note that this function does NOT change the contents of the registry in any way, nor does it physically defrag the registry files on the drive. Be warned though that it takes a little longer than programs such as CCleaner and you'll have to wait more than few minutes for the registry backup to be made.

Download Baku 3.6.3.3194 in Softonic

Shareaza started out life as the legendary Gnutella network but today is one of the most realistic competitors to eMule.

Shareaza is a completely free peer to peer (P2P) file sharing system. The program features Multi-Network Support which basically means it can connect up to 4 separate Peer-to-Peer networks at the same time meaning more hits and faster downloads.

You can download and upload from the EDonkey2000, Gnutella, BitTorrent and Gnutella2 (G2) networks. The latest release features something called "Collections" too. Collections basically group previews of album covers, descriptions, and song lists all in one complete package. It's designed to help you discover similar music to that you already like although in reality, it's not that useful. The interface is very simple to use - very much like eMule. All the search results are displayed clearly including file type, size and estimated download time. You can also choose to filter searches by file type such as picture, video or software.

Shareaza is one of the best P2P networks out there although it still pales in comparison to eMule in terms of results and download speeds.

Download Shareaza 2.4.0 in Softonic

It hasn't taken long for developers to embrace Google Chrome and ChromePass is a small password recovery tool that allows you to view the user names and passwords stored by the Google Chrome Web browser.

For each password entry information is displayed about the Origin URL, the Action URL, the User Name Field, the Password Field, the User Name, Password, and Created Time. There's not much more to it than that. You do have the option to save the data however - simply select one or more items and then save them into a text, HTML or XML file or alternatively, copy them to the clipboard.

The handy thing is that ChromePass doesn't need any kind of installation - you can simply run the executable file and the main window will display all passwords that are currently stored in your Google Chrome browser. This obviously means it can fit on a USB stick easily too.

ChromePass can be used as a handy backup tool for your usernames and passwords but in the wrong hands, it could also seriously compromise your security.

Download ChromePass 1.0 in Softonic

SUMo, short for Software Update Monitor, scans your system and finds out whether there are newer versions for all the applications installed on your PC. The whole process is fully automated and doesn't hardly require any user intervention. A couple of clicks is all you'll need to always enjoy the latest versions of your favorite software tools.

SUMo is, therefore, very easy to use. Both the system scanning and version checking are also quite fast. Once finished, you'll see a list with all the apps installed on your PC and the ones that need updating marked with a special icon.

However, the actual update process isn't that easy. The program displays a "Get update" button but instead of downloading the file or at least taking you to the developer's website, it only links to SUMo's website and a Google link to find the update by yourself.

Have your software always up to date with SUMo.

Download SUMo 2.3.4.60 in Softonic

AudioGrail (Formerly K-MP3) is the swiss army knife for everthing that is related to audio files (MP3, MPC, OGG...). It can very easily rename and tag (tag: info such as artist name, album, track title) your files automatically. It can also analyse quality, organize files on your system or create a "magic folder" for easier audio collection browsing.

K-MP3 features:

• Supports : MP3, OGG, MPC, APE, AAC, FLAC and WavPack files
• Automatically Albums Ranaming & Tagging (ID3Tag V1 & V2 tags, Vorbis (Ogg) comments and APEv2 tags are supported) Powered by FreeDB.
• One-by-one tag editor with queue (for multiple files edition)
• Audio files To Audio CD burning capabilities
• Files Names Normalizer (Case Standardization...)
• Tags normalizer (Case Standardization...)
• Mass tags remover
• Files organizer (Mass Tag To Name / Move To Folder)
• Duplicate files finder
• Playlist creator & analyser (Supported Formats : m3u, pls, xpl)
• Files lister (Supported Formats : Raw listing, Coma Separated Values, SQL, XML)
• Incomplete tags finder
• Quality analyser
• Internationalization support

Download Audiograil (K-MP3) 6.13.1.157 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

Some years ago ICQ was one of the most popular IM applications among Internet users. But when Microsoft launched MSN Messenger, many of these users forgot about their original IM client and joined a network that was growing very quickly. In the meantime, ICQ continued to be upgraded until finally reaching version 6, which sets a new milestone in the history of this classic piece of software.

To begin with, the installation process is fast and easy, the only downside being the fact that you must set ICQ Search as your web browser's default search engine, as there's no way of getting around this option.

This new ICQ boasts a fresh-looking interface which has been completely redesigned. Also, you can customize it with skins, although you'll have to download them because there's not a single skin included in the program. It does include, however, a very complete personal profile which you can fill in with all your information, including name, location, interests, spoken languages and a personal avatar that ICQ oddly refers to as "devil".

Generally speaking, ICQ 6 offers all the functions that we find in other IM applications, namely instant written messages, voice calls and video calls. All of these are complemented with a very nice set of animated smilies and the so called "Tzers" which are the equivalent to Messenger's "Winks". Chat sessions can be grouped together under the same window, which prevents your taskbar getting cluttered. ICQ allows you to start text conversations right from the contact list using the Quick message feature. There's also the option to send SMS messages to your contacts, but this is not available in all countries yet.

This new version promises to give you complete control over configuration settings. However, we must admit that we had some trouble in finding them, until we happened to click on the "Main" button on the interface. The configuration options are quite complete indeed, allowing you to change every single detail regarding sounds, notifications, privacy and security, message history, appearance and the program's general behaviour.

In all, ICQ seems to have developed a new version with a fresh redesign only to measure up to its main competitors but without really offering any new functions. Again, choosing ICQ (or any other IM app) ends up being just a question of which IM your friends use.

Download ICQ 6.0.0.7015 in Softonic

A powerful tool for cleaning cobwebs of useless information clogging your system. SBMAV Disk Cleaner searches for and deletes temporary files and folders created by Windows and other applications, as well as searches for invalid links to documents that have long since been deleted. SBMAV Disk Cleaner also finds useless uninstall software, disables/enables seldom used fonts, deletes cookies, and searches for and removes duplicate files.

You can also use this tool to work with your documents: to find and delete old back-up files and duplicates based on various criteria you can select. The program is easy to operate for first time users, yet has a powerful mix of settings for advanced tweakers. The disk cleaning process can be launched automatically by command-line, reducing your supervision to save you time.

Download SBMAV Disk Cleaner Lite 2.86 in Softonic

Alarm is a digital clock that you can set to display a message and play a sound whenever you want. You can configure and how the alarm sounds.

Options/Features:

• Shows the current time in configurable LED's
• Beeps or plays a sound (you can replace the default alarm siren)
• Plays music (you can use your own mp3, mid, wav and so on music files)
• Shows a small dialog or alarms you with a Full Screen Alert with your text
• Option to preview your alarm

Download Alarm 2.0.4 in Softonic

UltraStar is the PC version of the famous karaoke game series for Playstation - Singstar. The game works just like a traditional karaoke system: it plays the song and displays the lyrics simultaneously, so that you can sing along your favorite artists.

The original point about UltraStar is that it gives you a score according to your artistic abilities. The game analyzes your voice pitch and evaluates how good you are when you sing, allowing you to improve and polish up your syle.

Being an open source application, UltraStar is under constant development. There's a very proactive user community behind the program who works hard to improve the program itself and also to create new song files to sing along.

Download UltraStar 0.6.1 in Softonic

Do you get bored frequently of your desktop background or wallpaper? If variety is your thing - and they say variety is the spice of life - then this might be for you.

Any Wallpaper works by allowing you to set up a list of folders containing your favorite images that the program will rotate through on your desktop. Any Wallpaper lets you change the background when you decide, every set number of hours or minutes or at a random timescale of your choosing. The program isn't very flexible in terms of the formats it supports but it does handle BMP, JPEG and PNG files. It can automatically search wallpaper folders (including subfolders), search through random or sequential selections of wallpapers and add a wallpaper change on Windows startup. The program also offers additional wallpaper positions that allow you to fit backgrounds horizontally and vertically but it also auto detects the best size and position according to your screen size.

A very useful little program for all those that get bored with same old desktop background every day but needs to support more formats.

Download Any Wallpaper 1.1.1 in Softonic