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

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 The interface feels outdated and the creators don’t seem to have put much thought in to making it easy to use.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

Image burning is one of the fastest and most efficient ways to save large amounts of data to DVD or CD.

Images are increasingly popular on torrent sites and other download portals because they allow users to download high volumes of data in a relatively small file. What's more, it's instantly ready for DVD or disk burning. ImgBurn is an ultra-lightweight CD/DVD/HD/DVD and Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit. It has several 'Modes', with each one performing a different task.

These include "Read" which reads a disc to an image file; "Build" which creates an image file from files on your computer or network; "Write" which writes an image file to a disc and "Verify" which checks whether a disk is 100% readable. With this last option, you can also ensure that the data is correct by asking ImgBurn to compare your disk against an image file. Finally, you have "Discovery" which puts your drive to the test to find just what kind of speeds and disk types it can support.

If you are experiencing any burning problems, it may be that your drive is not fast enough to handle the settings you have configured or that you are using the wrong kind of disks.

A very lightweight an powerful image burner that requires little experience but will ensure all your images are burned in a flash.

Download ImgBurn 2.4.2.0 in Softonic

There are literally hundreds of utilities out there designed to download videos from the Net, mainly aimed at YouTube.

By it's name alone, DownUtube doesn't pretend to do anything else (although it does work with a few other sites too) but at least it does the job well. DownUtube allows you to download embedded videos and multimedia from Google Video, YouTube, Apple.com Movie Trailers and IMDB.

Like most good video downloaders, DownUtube features an integrated search facility to help you find videos on the various sites which means you don't even have to open a browser. It can also follow RSS feeds for your favourite users on YouTube. If you can't wait for your clip to download, then you can also play them because they download thanks to an integrated player called MPlayer. There are various bugs that need ironing out however - sometimes downloads will stop for no apprent reason even if your connection is fine and some videos can cause DownUtube to simply crash.

As a simple solution to your video downloading needs, DownUtube is a great search utility and downloader that eliminates the need for a browser.

Download DownUtube 3.0 Beta 3 in Softonic

Getting a video out has always been one of the best ways to while away an evening at home. However, these days few people choose to trudge down to the video store, preferring to download a movie, or plunder the near-infinite archives on popular video sharing sites such as YouTube and Google Video. Until recently it's been impossible to obtain movies from these sites without having to stream them online. However, Vdownloader is one of a number of programs changing that, allowing you to download these videos to your computer in AVI or MPEG format.

Essentially what this means is that you don't need to wait an age for popular videos to start streaming and can keep your favourites on your hard drive to watch at any time. This application does the job as simply as you could wish for. The executable makes a very small footprint and although the interface is very barren, it makes it easy to grab videos from YouTube, Google Video, Grinvi or DailyMotion very quickly. Basically all you need to do is copy and paste the link to the video into the box provided and hit ‘download'. Alternatively, you can browse the sites themselves by selecting the portal of your choice from the drop-down menu.

In one sense, the sparseness of the interface is an advantage, as it keeps things as clean and simple as possible. In another respect we were left wanting for extra features and options to help us peruse and download the videos we want. Practically the only setting you can tweak is the via the format dialog, allowing you to specify the format of the saved video (AVI or MPEG), the size of the video and the audio bitrate. We feel that the addition of a built-in video search tool or some video compression utilities would have lifted the program from being a good program to a great one.

Add to the fact that you can't download embedded movies like the ones you find on the front page of Google Video and you can't help feel frustrated that VDownloader doesn't do quite as much as it perhaps could. Having said this, the app is still in the early stages of development and the fact that it is so lightweight makes it prefect for those who want to grab video content with the minimum of fuss.

Download VDownloader 0.73 in Softonic

If you have to decompress files regularly, especially image files, you may find Zipeg interesting. It's definitely one of the nicest image decompressors I've used in a while and best of all, there's no registration or payment required.

The key feature of this program is a cool preview function which allows you to see what you are going to decompress before you do it. This is great if you can't remember what's in a file or are suspicious about its contents. It supports a huge variety of archive formats including:
ZIP, RAR, ARJ, LHA/LZH, 7z, TAR, GZ, TGZ, BZIP2, CPIO, RPM, ISO, CHM, Z, CBR, CBZ, WAR and EAR.

You can extract/unzip items simply by dragging them and the interface is remarkably easy to use and good looking. It can process archives in the background whilst you work, sorts content of folders by name, size or date and automatically checks for the latest updates.

This is one of the best image compression utilities out there although the thumbnails can take some time to appear when you select a file.

Download Zipeg 2.4.0.922 in Softonic

Are you forever forgetting appointments, birthdays, things to do, to walk the dog, your dentists appointments, exams, etc.?

Well, you'll know that using post-it notes is often a very disorganized affair - they get torn, lost and, before long, your desk looks like a sea of yellow sticky paper. PNotes basically allows you to write virtual post-it notes on your desktop rather than plastering them around your working environment.

PNotes is a beautifully designed and presented program which gives you an authentic sticky note feel. PNotes not only act as a visual reminder but can also be set to alert you when an appointment is near, at a time you configure.

Another really useful feature of PNotes is the ability to join groups by choice, which allows you to create, modify, delete and relocate groups by simple clicking or dragging-and-drop. You can change the group for each note written simply by dragging it to the group of your choice. Whatsmore, you can even customise the look with some pretty cool skins and even create your own with PNSkinCreator (although this has to be installed separately) so sticky yellow post it notes will never look the same again.

PNotes has recently been updated to add a much needed search and replace tool which helps you find those notes that have expired or you'd like to change using keywords. You can set the notes to appear randomly in a different colors each time you post them and you can also select whether you want your most recently created post it note to appear on top or not.

PNotes is a clever and highly useful program that will have sticky note fans reaching for their wastepaper bin and converting to this far more organized method instead.

Download PNotes 4.01 in Softonic

The Windows Registry is one of the key system elements of the OS, meaning you should always try to keep it in perfect shape with tools like Argente Registry Cleaner.

Argente Registry Cleaner analyzes the whole Registry in just a few seconds and finds all the invalid entries that programs usually leave behind after an incomplete uninstallation process. These entries can end up collapsing the Windows Registry and causing serious performance issues, but with Argente Registry Cleaner you have nothing to fear: the program will scan all the Registry areas, create a list with all found errors and provide you with the necessary tools to erase them. And for those of you who don't like messing up with the Registry, Argente Registry Cleaner also includes a backup option to be on the safe side.

Argente Registry Cleaner includes some interesting configuration options with which you can select which areas in the Windows Registry you want to scan, but unfortunately there's no option to set automatic scans according to a user defined schedule.

With Argente Registry Cleaner you can keep the Windows Registry fully clean, optimized and functional in just a couple of clicks.

Download Argente Registry Cleaner 1.4.3.6 in Softonic

My sister, who actually works in a bank, is always saying that she would love to be a truck driver and travel all over Europe. I guess she's the kind of person that would love to play Euro Truck Simulator.

This driving simulator puts you behind the wheel of a powerful truck and entrusts you with several different missions. These usually consist on taking cargo from one place to another and getting paid for the delivery. Saving enough money you will eventually be able to buy better and faster trucks to be able to work more and earn more money.

I find the main idea in Euro Truck Simulator is quite original. We're somewhat used to car, motorbike and even airplane driving simulators, but not that much to trucks. Also, the game features excellent, highly realistic graphics.

So far, so good. The problem is that Euro Truck Simulator becomes a boring game quite easily. I don't know if it was due to the repetitive sound of the engine, the slowness of my driving or the lack of real action, I started feeling sleepy shortly after starting to play. Maybe if you could play your own music on the truck's radio, or get into some more action by delivering illegal stuff and occasionally being chased by the cops, Euro Truck Simulator would be more exciting. Also, I didn't like the fact that I can't choose the UK as the starting country for my career as truck driver!

Euro Truck Simulator is a pretty original game, with especially outstanding graphics, but which gets boring quite easily.

Download Euro Truck Simulator 1.00 in Softonic

Although web-based e-mail has meant that many desktop based clients are redundant, there's nothing that beats your own personal client. Koma-mail is the sort of client you can take anywhere on a USB stick which makes it ideal for those that are worried about the security of web based mail.

Best of all, it requires absolutely no installation and supports the all important SSL and APOP protocols. It also features support, as you would expect, for POP3 and IMAP plus it includes some other extra security add-ons such as ActiveX script blocking. From an aesthetic perspective, it's not the best looking e-mail client you'll ever use but it's very easy to find your way around, much simpler than something like Outlook and has everything you need. If you share the client amongst colleagues and employees, you can

You can define multiple user profiles so that each of them have their own settings and it supports multiple accounts, use of templates and both a simple spam filter and RSS reader.

If you're looking for a portable e-mail client to use between various people, then you'll find this helps you easily configure multiple profiles and does a simple but effective job.

Download Koma-Mail 3.75 in Softonic

StationRipper is an application designed to let you record Internet Radio broadcasts. Users on broadband connections regularly report 3,000-6,000 new songs can be downloaded every 24 hours with the registered version. It allows you to do the following:

• Record shoutcast audio, video streams, and podcasts
• Records up to 600 streams at one time
• Buy the music you are ripping
• Integrate with iTunes - auto-generate iTunes playlists of songs recorded
• Lets you easily find stations to record
• Keeps a list of the music and stations you've recorded
• Listen to any station being recorded with a single mouse click
• Ignore songs under a certain size
• Auto-record whatever was being recorded the last time you ran StationRipper

Download StationRipper 2.90 in Softonic

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor (A starting list of auto-run locations was obtained from David Solomon's "Windows Internals" seminar), shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them.

These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.

Autoruns' Hide Signed Microsoft Entries option helps you to zoom in on third-party auto-starting images that have been added to your system and it has support for looking at the auto-starting images configured for other accounts configured on a system. Also included in the download package is a command-line equivalent that can output in CSV format, Autorunsc.

Download AutoRuns 9.34 in Softonic

You'd be surprised to see how much disk space you're wasting with duplicate files. In fact, you can actually check it with this tool. Duplicate File Detector scans your system and finds all duplicate files, no matter how hidden they are.

You can analyze the whole drive or set several specific folders, but beware of the filters the program uses as default, as they may sort out folders that you want to include in the scan. The process takes a while, but in exchange for your patience the program delivers a complete list of all duplicate files in your system. This list also offers a preview of each file, so you're sure of what you're going to delete before marking them.

Duplicate File Detector works with a wide range of file formats and can detect duplicates based on a large variety of criteria. In fact, there are so many configuration settings that it may feel a bit overwhelming at the beginning.

Download Duplicate File Detector 4.5 in Softonic

Rainlendar is a lightweight and customizable calendar for your desktop.

When I first launched Rainlendar I was impressed by the widget-like appearance. Widget are small, handy gadgets that can pop up on your screen to show you all types of information, from weather forecasts, to stock charts or the time and date. They are usually small, attractive and very discreetly fit on your desktop. Rainlendar’s elements similarly have that cloud-like feel. The notes, events and calendar windows float around on your desktop and can be moved about your screen and disappear or reappear in a touch.

Rainlendar stands out from classic calendar programs thanks to a highly customizable interface and the possibility to quickly and effortlessly jot down notes and important events. Although it only comes with two different skins, the program offers a link to www.customize.org, where you should find the style which suits your tastes. But Rainlendar doesn’t stop there. You can set up hotkeys to manage Rainlendar at the push of a key and, thanks to various plug-ins present in the program, integrate Rainlendar directly to other utilities like Outlook and iCalendar. Rainlendar is always within reach as a tray icon on your desktop and bringing it up just takes a click of your mouse.

Unfortunately Rainlendar’s real originality is also its weakness. The program offers a wide range of skins but adding these to the program is far from straightforward. You have to drag your downloaded skin into the Skins folder for the Rainlendar program file and then browse to the new skin from the ‘Edit Skin’ option in Rainlendar’s drop down menu.

If you like to keep your calendar on your PC, but find the one offered by Windows too dull, Rainlendar is a good alternative. You’ll enjoy setting your own style and the way it discreetly fits onto your desktop.

Download Rainlendar 2.4 in Softonic

E-books are a great way to carry around a huge amount of literature that would prove impractical in physical terms.

However, the perennial question with e-book readers is which one is best for your needs? FBReader makes reading e-books that bit more comfortable by making letters more readable, allowing you to navigate contents and indexes much more easily and generally enhance your reading experience.

Probably the biggest benefit of FBReader though is the ability to search and find any phrase or subject no matter how many pages are in your book. Although this is a very common function in many applications, it's something that many e-book readers don't include for some strange reason, but FBReader does. In addition, if you should need to read a page upside down (why you would I'm not sure) you can rotate pages 270 degrees.

FBReader is a very easy to use e-book reader which improves your reading experience and makes searching texts fast and simple.

Download FBReader 0.8.17 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

Don’t be put off by the name: 'sub' doesn't stand for an inferior program, but actually a very useful one (the 'sub' stands for sub-titles). The idea is simple but great: to watch films on your computer with subtitles in the language of your choice. The program is easy to use but there is still room for improvement.

The good thing about having this software is that you will not have to pass through the frustrating process of looking for subtitles on the Internet and find a reader which combines them with your film. With this application all you have to do is to upload the film you want to see. If you are lucky, the program will automatically recognise its name and will show you the subtitles available. If not, you can simply type the title in the appropriate field and press the search button.

We have tried with the English IMDB.com top ten list of the 90s and found subtitles for each entry in the list. Unfortunately, for non-English films the selection is limited to only popular classics.

On the whole, Sublight is really useful both for film-lovers and for foreign language students. We just hope the database of subtitles will increase, particularly for foreign films as it makes more sense for an English-speaking audience to watch foreign-language films with English or original subtitles.

A very useful application as long as the list of non-English films increases.

Download SubLight 0.9.1 in Softonic

It's hard to imagine eMule being made any easier but easyMule does a pretty good job of it for those that find the world's number one P2P client a bit too complicated.

easyMule offers a sleek interface that looks almost identical to eMule but has obviously been stripped down. Conveniently, you can play files while you are downloading (as long as there's enough to read), which reduces the risk of downloading fake or corrupted files. In addition, easyMule features a safety disk buffer which protects your hard drive from malicious files before they manage to damage your system.

easyMule uses exactly the same P2P principle as eMule to connect to networks although not exactly the same servers. This brings one of the major weaknesses of easyMule to light - it doesn't really offer as many hits as eMule. However, it does offer a decent hit rate and download speeds are comparable.

easyMule is definitely easier than eMule to use although I can only imagine that young kids would really benefit from this as eMule is not a complicated program.

Download easyMule 1.03 in Softonic

GMDesk is the kind of application only Google fans would install. In any case, if you use Google apps on a daily basis, you may find it useful too.

With GMDesk you gain automatic access from your desktop to several different Google tools, including Mail, Calendar, Docs, Maps, Reader and Picasa web albums. The big advantage of using GMDesk is that you don't have to open your web browser, load the website of each one of those services, login with your username and password and then wait for it to load. GMDesk is not faster than your browser, but it makes the whole process just easier.

GMDesk is based on Adobe AIR and has no settings menu except for the possibility to choose which Google service you want to load first on launching the program. Like I said, GMDesk may be interesting for Google fans, but I wonder if it's really necessary, as it doesn't really add anything new to the Google apps we all know.

If you're hooked on Google apps, GMDesk is made for you: an app launcher that enables you to access Google tools right from your desktop.

Download GMDesk 0.99 in Softonic

Find Desktop is the entry level solution for document management. The extreme simplification of all operations, allows you to drammatically decrease the time needed to find, view and elaborate documents. Find Desktop is integrated with a powerful "full-text" retrieval engine, supported by O.C.R. (optical character recognition) engine.

This allows you to search directly in the text, starting from one word or exact phrase contained in electronic or image documents. Other important functions are the mail indexing system, the enhanced scanning functions (with virtual annotation capabilities) as well as the management of the classification fields associated with documents render Find Desktop the fast and economic solution for document management.

Find Desktop is equipped of technology "Highlight" that evidences directly on the original document (image file or electronic file) the search results and supports the most common electronic document formats (Adobe Acrobat PDF, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, etc..) with search capabilities also in ZIP file. The Automatic Web Update allows you to maintain the software always up to date.

Download Find Desktop Standard 1.84 in Softonic