XYplorer is a simple to use file manager which replaces Windows Explorer with several enhanced functions and interface improvements.

Whatsmore, it's completely portable so you can put it on a USB stick and use it wherever you want and whenever you need it. The biggest advantage this program has over Windows Explorer is undoubtabley the Move and Copy dialogues. XYplorer allows you to configure hotkeys to carry out the most common copying and moving operations that you require meaning less mouse movements and faster management of your files and folders. XYplorer also removes the need for multiple folder windows along your taskbar because it employs the use of tabbed file management much in the same way as Firefox does with internet browsing. These tabs are fully customizable too - you can drag them around, rename them, hide them, lock them and much much more. This tabbed feature does give XYplorer a distinct browser style feel especially the featuring of an address bar which accepts not just folders, but also files, URLs, and search terms. This latter function can save hours of time searching through files by allowing you to search directly in XYplorer - without any need to use Windows search tool - simply by placing a "?" between the location and search pattern.

A truly impressive replacement for Windows Explorer - once you've used it you may never go back.

Download XYplorer 7.40.0025b in Softonic

Photo Collage is a full featured, easy-to-use application with which you can create beautiful photo compositions in no time. No technical skills required!

The program contains just about anything you need you create the collage – that is, everything except images themselves. The featured material includes background images, frames, clipart, borders and masks, all of them is such a large and colorful variety that you'll find it hard to choose just one. Besides, the program is extraordinarily easy to use: simply drag and drop the different elements of your collage on the interface, resize and rearrange them any way you want with your mouse and you're pretty much done. It's like scrapbooking, but without scissors and glue.

The only drawback I found to this great app is the fact that some frames don’t blend with the background properly, meaning they show a white border around the frame instead of being transparent. Also, I'd like to be able to save my work in other formats (HTML, EXE) rather than just as an image file, but at least I have a few graphic formats to choose from.

Photo Collage enables you to create amazing collages with your digital pictures, but only save them as image files.

Download iFoxSoft Photo Collage 2.06 in Softonic

Beyond Compare is a powerful time-saving utility for comparing files and folders on your Windows system. Use it to manage source code, keep folders in sync, compare program output, and validate copies of your data.

Beyond Compare can create a snapshot of a live directory structure, and compare it against the live copy at a later date. The utility helps you analyze differences in detail and carefully reconcile them. It commands a wide range of file and text operations, as well as script commands for automating tasks.

Download Beyond Compare 3.0.2 in Softonic

You probably don't realize how much drive space you're wasting with duplicate files until you scan it for the first time with a program like NoClone.

This tool has been especially designed to find any duplicate files on your hard drive, with a quite high percentage of success. You can choose between scanning the whole disk or just one certain folder, and of course, select the template used by the program to decide which files are duplicate and which not.

I think these templates are the main strength of NoClone: there are quite a few to choose from, including duplicate email messages and duplicate MP3 files. Also, you can create your own template by deciding the elements and features NoClone should compare in each file to decide whether they're duplicates or not, which is very useful is none of the templates included suits your needs.

Once NoClone finishes scanning the system, it displays a list with all the duplicate files found and enables you to delete them straight away, saving precious hard drive space. There's even a contest on the developer's website to see who saves the most space thanks to NoClone. The program also exports the list to several formats (XML, CSV or XLS; no HTML or TXT, surprisingly).

NoClone is a quick and easy way to find duplicate files on your hard drive, delete them and bring all those megabytes back.

Download NoClone 2007 4.1.35 in Softonic

Wise Disk Cleaner is a utility that helps to locate and eliminate those temporary archives that, with time, can litter your hard drive to critical point. The app can clear a wide range of different types of files including temporary Internet files, Windows updates, temporary user files, system files, and redundant archives.

One of the best things about Wise Disk Cleaner is that it allows you to add your own folders with temporary files not in use or those that you simply want to eliminate when executing the program. The program is very simple to use, and it's just a case of running a quick scan of your files then marking those that you wish to eliminate.

Download Wise Disk Cleaner 3.6.4 in Softonic

PowerFolder is a program to synchronize folders over the internet or on a local net. It uses peer-to-peer technology to exchange the files. This means you do not need a hosting server. Every client holds a local copy of the folder. It can be used to exchange every type of data for example music, photos, own documents or videos. PowerFolder automatically detects changes and synchronizes.

Download PowerFolder 3.1.1 in Softonic

Lightscreen is a free, simple and practical utility to capture images for those that don't want to mess about with post processing or resizing tools.

Lightscreen offers three ways to capture screenshots - full screen, active window, and an area that you can select yourself. All three offer you enough scope to capture just about any type of screenshot. You can configure the format, prefix and suffix of the file (numeric or date format) and specify the folder to save it to. You can also configure a hotkey to make screenshots instantaneous. There are also some other additional little additions such as control over image quality or you can also configure a delay on the screen capture if you're using the hotkey. Once configured Lightscreen becomes especially useful to make multiple catches because every time you press capture, it automatically saves a file with the filename, format and parameters that you specified. The slight downside is that you can only configure a limited number of formats to save screenshots in namely PNG, JPG; BMP, PPM, XBM and TIFF.

A free and easy screen capture tool that will appeal to fans of The GIMP or those that just need a simple screenshot solution.

Download Lightscreen 0.3 in Softonic

You probably visit the same websites every day, when you turn on your PC. It's some sort of ritual, like having a strong, delicious cup of coffee every morning. So what not mixing both things together?

Morning Coffee is a Firefox extension with which you can easily organize those routine web readings. In a way it works as a folder in the bookmarks toolbar, because it can open several tabs simultaneously. But the main difference is that these tabs can be configured according to the day of the week. So you can, for example, include some Internet blogs in your Morning Coffee for weekdays, and then add videogame magazines and personal websites for the weekend Morning Coffee.

The only thing I missed was having the possibility to open these tasty morning coffees right upon starting the browser, as a homepage. However it looks like they're working on this feature to implement it in later versions.

A helpful extension to manage websites you visit on a daily basis

Download Morning Coffee Extension 1.32 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 3.6.3.31921 in Softonic

EssentialPIM Portable (both Free and Pro) is U3 compliant and works straight from your removable media, whether it's a USB flash drive, compact flash card, or even a good old floppy.

Benefits:

• Plug and run EPIM. All your settings are stored on the removable media
• All your data is saved in one single *.epim file, which can be stored on the same removable medium
• All data is strongly encrypted. The portable edition uses industry standard Rijndael, 128 bit key (same as the desktop edition)
• No traces are left whatsoever on the system you are using
• Directories for backup and temp files can be setup on your home computer

Technical differences from the desktop version:

• All settings are stored only on the removable drive
• *.ini and *.epim files are stored in the Portable EPIM'S program folder by default
• Optional autorun of Portable EPIM can be selected when the removable media is inserted
• Automatic association/dissociation with Portable EPIM's *.epim files on any PC
• Creating shortcuts to Portable EPIM from within the program on any PC

Download EssentialPIM Portable Free 2.71 in Softonic

Power users often find the standard Windows File Explorer too limited and need a more complete file manager to suit their needs. If you're among them look no further because we've got the right app for you.

Q-Dir is a multi-pane file manager for Windows that makes file management more convenient and above all, far more comfortable for you. Having several windows pointing to different locations on your hard drive makes it much easier to move or copy data from one folder to another, and also makes browsing faster. Q-Dir supports different layouts with 2, 3 o 4 panes and each one of them can be configured separately.

The program doesn't really add any extra function to the ones already featured in Windows Explorer, but there's one special feature I did like: the possibility to show files in different colors according to the file type, such as blue for images, red for music and so on. Plus, this color code is totally customizable.

Q-Dir doesn't require installation and can even been run from a USB stick.

Though it doesn't feature any special tool, Q-Dir is still a more complete file manager with multiple panes and customizable color codes for file types.

Download Q-Dir 3.27 in Softonic

You could pretty much consider FileZilla an open source success story. It's popular, works well and fast, and regularly updated.

If you're looking for a solid FTP client what more could you ask more? In fact, FileZilla is not just limited to FTP, but also handles FTPS and SFTP for secure transfers of multiple files on multiple servers. The interface gives you a quick outlook of all your transfers, sites and disks and makes it easy to drag and transfer. I also quite like the QuickConnect feature to access your favorite server in seconds.

FileZilla is known to be fairly fast, and can also resume downloads and handle very big transfers, I'm talking here higher than 4 GB. You can set both local and remote filters for things like images, explorer files or CVS and SVN directories or even create your own. FileZilla also includes a tool to compare directories in terms of file size or modification time.

The application can guide you when setting up your network and lets you set speed limits in case you don't want to overload your bandwidth.

One thing really missing from FileZilla though is a scheduler to automatically set transfer times.

Despite lacking a scheduler, FileZilla is an excellent open source FTP client. It's stable, fast and very efficient. Highly recommended.

Download FileZilla 3.1.1.1 in Softonic

PeaZip is an OS-portable archiver tool (released for Windows and Linux); it supports it's native Pea archive format (featuring compression, splitting and flexible encryption and integrity check schemes) and other mainstream formats, with especial focus on handling open formats. Full support: 001 (raw file split/join), 7z, 7zip sfx, Bzip2, Gzip, Pea, Tar, Zip; Browse/extract-only support: Z.

PeaZip doesn't follow the Explorer-like interface paradigm; the interface is more similar to a CD/DVD-burner application, allowing the user to: - save and restore layout of archives (input files and folders list) to speed up definition of archiving and backup operations; - save job definition (as plain text, to be used in any script language).

The interface is fully skinnable (skins can be customised and saved as plain text to be re-edited as freely as possible) and uses customisable transparency. The program doesn't need to be installed/unistalled, it can run from any path (even remote; a writeable path is recommended), however Windows version is released both as a standalone binary and as a fully automated installer/uninstaller package, allowing tight system integration to use PeaZip right from Explorer.

Download PeaZip 2.2 in Softonic

The problem with Windows is that it never properly deletes files when you think they've been deleted - it often leaves behind
traces that can be recovered by anyone in the know.

The problem is that the allocation area or the index of the file system (FAT or NTFS) marks the area used by the deleted file as
empty but the actual raw contents of the files are always present even if the file has been deleted. Disk Doctors File Shredder
ensures that anything that you've deleted definitely remains deleted no matter what Windows may have done with the files.

Disk Doctors File Shredder helps you to shred files and folders from your Windows drive, shredding the deleted data and leaving
no traces of sensitive critical data. Disk Doctors File Shredder is very easy to run and use via a hierarchical explorer which
displays which files and folders are available to shred. Those that you want to shred, simply add them to the Disk Doctors File
Shredder “shredding zone” and you have 9 options over exactly how shredded you want the files to be processed by Disk
Doctors File Shredder differing in thoroughness and time it takes. The developers claim that the shredding standards of Disk
Doctors File Shredder reach those of the US Department of Defence although this is obviously impossible to verify.

Disk Doctors File Shredder is a very secure way to make sure that anything you delete is definitely deleted and remains
so.

Download Disk Doctors File Shredder 1.0.0 in Softonic

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery can instantly recover deleted files emptied from the Recycle Bin or that have been lost due to accidental formatting or re-partitioning of a hard drive.

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery can also help in the case of viruses, and unexpected system or software malfunctions. Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery is designed with beginners in mind so there's some useful tips and hints to get you started although there's nothing complicated about it anyway. Simply browse to the drive or folders that have been affected and let Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery scan to see what it can recover.

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery is a simple but effective solution for anyone that's lost data in a folder or drive and doesn't know which type of drive they are using or doesn't know where to start with file recovery.

Download Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery in Softonic

Do you get tired of using desktop shortcuts or the Start Menu to access programs in Windows? If so, don't fret because Launchy can make your life a lot easier.

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. Launchy indexes the programs in your Start Menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks in just a few keystrokes! Launchy is very fast and ultra discreet because it runs quietly in the background or system tray ready for use.

When you need Launchy, simply bring it the fore by holding the Alt key and tapping the space key. Then type in a few letters of the program you are searching for and hit enter once it has been found. To make Launchy disappear, just hit escape or alt+space. It's a bit annoying to have to hit two keys but a small price to pay for a quick launch method such as Launchy.

Launchy can help boost your productivity and cut down the amount of mouse clicking time you need to do every day - you won't be disappointed.

Download Launchy 2.1.2 in Softonic

How many times have you walked up to a system in your office and needed to click through several diagnostic windows to remind yourself of important aspects of its configuration, such as its name, IP address, or operating system version? If you manage multiple computers you probably need BGInfo.

It automatically displays relevant information about a Windows computer on the desktop's background, such as the computer name, IP address, service pack version, and more. You can edit any field as well as the font and background colors, and can place it in your startup folder so that it runs every boot, or even configure it to display as the background for the logon screen. Because BGInfo simply writes a new desktop bitmap and exits you don't have to worry about it consuming system resources or interfering with other applications.

Download BGInfo 4.14 in Softonic

You should stay clear of any anti-virus checker that doesn't update itself automatically against the latest threats but you can surf and download in peace with MySecurityCenter Antivirus.

MySecurityCenter Antivirus attempts to do everything in real-time so there's no desperate action needed at a later date. MySecurityCenter Antivirus scans and updates its database in real time automatically so you never need to worry about it being out of date or under vigilant.

Once installed, MySecurityCenter Antivirus performs an instant scan to make sure that everything is clean and ready for protection on your PC. It performs this scan once a month but I can imagine this would be a bit annoying as it can be rather slow and slow down whatever else you may be doing. However, you can customize this schedule to however you want it and direct to scan only specific folders too. The MySecurityCenter Antivirus interface is extremely clear and simple to use and you can easily see when it was last updated.

MySecurityCenter Antivirus is a simple and effective anti-virus solution that keeps your system cleaned, virus free and immunized 24/7.

Download MySecurityCenter Antivirus 2008 in Softonic

We all know that computers are not infallible and that disaster can strike at any time. Programs such as Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery are designed to help limit the damage to your productivity.

Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery lets you recover data from NTFS, NTFS5, drives and also boasts support for recovering data from dynamic drives created on NT/2000/XP/2003 platforms. So if you've accidentally deleted files or folders you need, formatted a drive by mistake, have corrupted partition tables, or if you've managed to delete partitions, Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery will chase away your nightmares.

Using Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery is surprisingly straightforward thanks to its wizard-based user interface. You're given a series of options to either Recover your data, Recover data from a disk image, Clone a disk, or create a new disk image. With all of these Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery guides you through the recovery process step-by-step, so you can operate it without any in-depth knowledge of disk drives.

As you might have guessed from the name, unfortunately Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery only recovers NTFS data, so you'll need a separate application if you want to restore data from a FAT drive. Nevertheless, the inclusion of a File Tracer tool to hunt for specific missing files, makes Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery one of the most comprehensive and easy-to-use NTFS recovery apps around.

If you've suffered the agony of losing data then Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery is a wise choice to relieve your worries.

Download Disk Doctors NTFS Data Recovery 2.0.1 in Softonic

We've all had the horrible feeling of deleting an important file by mistake. But you don't have to resign yourself to losing it forever thanks to Disk Doctors Undelete.

Disk Doctors Undelete is designed to recover data from hard drives, flash drives, USB drives, ZIP, SD Cards, MMC, and Firewire drives. The disk scanning technology within Disk Doctors Undelete allows it to perform deep scans to rescue important files from both FAT and NTFS file systems.

Thanks to the wizard-based interface, you can start scanning with Disk Doctors Undelete quickly and easily. You simply select the logical drive you want to recover data from, 'Next' and the program will return a list of files that have been deleted from your PC. This is displayed in tree structure format, and you can highlight any of the files or folders to peruse them. There's also a search tool that lets you enter a filename or partial filename to search for.

Unfortunately, the files I deleted in my tests weren't picked up by Disk Doctors Undelete. This could be that I wasn't searching in the right directory, but navigation in the tree structure view can become quite confusing.

Disk Doctors Undelete is an interesting and potentially powerful app, slightly let down by the poor searching interface.

Download Disk Doctors Undelete 1.0.0 in Softonic