The Gimp is the open source reference in image manipulation. This free application will allow you to retouch, author and edit your photos thanks to a wide set of tools.

Let’s quickly go through what you can do with the Gimp. The painting function has the essential clone, airbrush or pencil tools and a powerful gradient and blend tool. You can also create and save your own brushes and patterns for later use. The program lets you manipulate your photos, adding layers, doing Bezier and polygonal selections or setting text. Load and save animations in a frame-as-layer format and batch process all your photos for quick editing. The multi-windowed interface can be moved around to fit your needs and resized according to your desktop space.

What’s more, the Gimp can be expanded with over 100 different plug-ins and extensions available on the Gimp’s website. These apply in majority for layer effects such as render, distort or blur and make a great addition to the ones already present in the program.

While the Gimp is user friendly, the installation process can result a bit hairy. Because the application works under the GTK Runtime Environment, you will have to install this kit to successfully launch the program. The process is fairly lengthy and some error messages tend to pop up, however if you persist, you will be able to install the Gimp properly on your PC

Despite this fairly hazardous installation process, the Gimp is a program we recommend. Whether you’re out of dough or are looking for a free alternative to Photoshop, the Gimp is excellent image manipulation software with all the tools you’d expect. The friendly interface and expandability make this a program of choice.

Download The GIMP 2.6.1 in Softonic

It's really unbelievable to find free software applications as amazing as Photoscape. But as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. Here you have a really excellent photo editing tool that includes just about everything you need to view, optimize, edit, print and have fun with your photos, all for free.

Photoscape strikes us from the very beginning with an uncommon interface design from which you can choose what you want to do: view pictures, optimize those that didn't come out so well, print several photos on a single page collage-style or perhaps add any of the dozens of filters and special effects included in the program. Other extra tools featured in Photoscape are a file renamer, a color picker, a screen capture tool and even a RAW converter.

We really have nothing negative to say about Photoscape. Just download it, test it, love it and keep it forever. It's free!

Download Photoscape 3.2 in Softonic

ContactKeeper is a free personal information manager to store contact information about your friends, family, and colleges in one database file. You will never forget a birthday any more thanks to the integrated birthday reminder!

The pick of the bunch is the possibility to let ContactKeeper generate a birthday calender based on the dates of birth of the persons in the database!ContactKeeper is consciously very flexible, for example, only first name or last name is required, but not both, ContactKeeper is also consciously equipped with only a few basic fields, you can put extra information in the Note field.

You have also the freedom under wich format you want to save phone numbers of an address, for that reason the address is stored in one field only and the street name for example isn't seperated from the postal code and city name. ContactKeeper can be very usefull in case you lose your gsm with all the numbers of your friends for example, so you still have a back-up.

Download ContactKeeper 1.4.1 in Softonic

Racer is a free cross-platform car simulation project (for non-commercial use), using professional car physics papers to achieve a realistic feeling. Cars, tracks and such can be created relatively easy (compared to other, more closed, driving simulations). The 3D and other file formats are, or should be, documented.

Editors and support programs are also available to get a very customizable and expandable simulator. OpenGL is used for rendering.

Download Racer 0.6.4c Beta in Softonic

If you run a web business and collect information about your users through online forms then you'll know how annoying the problem of faked or invalid email addresses can be.

Atomic Mail Verifier is designed to provide a fast and reliable way of checking that all addresses in a database or email repository actually lead somewhere. This can save you a lot of hassle in when you come to send mail-outs, because it means that you don't keep getting bounced messages and you can be sure that all of your lcorrespondance actually reaches someone the other end.

Though not the most elegant of applications I've tried, Atomic Mail Verifier is certainly highly functional. Just import the mail file to load all of the addresses into the main window. Now, you can verify the addresses by choosing one of the three verification models from the 'Verify' tab: by syntax, domain, or email address. The program will quickly ping the addresses to find out if they exist or not, and highlight them in red or green depending on the outcome.

There are a few connection settings you can play around with too, but I found them pretty unaccessible and you don't really get any explanations of what the all do. Likewise, some of the other aspects of the interface are a little clunky. for instance, I was unable to find a way of deleting multiple addresses from the main window simultaneously.

Despite its rather awkward GUI, Atomic Mail Verifier does offer a pretty reliable way to validate email addresses in a database.

Download Atomic Mail Verifier 5.20 in Softonic

Creating customized DVD movies is a piece of cake with Droppix DVD Maker. The program takes care of everything so that you only have to worry about enjoying your favorite videos from the couch.

You can use any video files stored in your local drive (the program supports the most popular formats) or import videos right away from famous video websites like Youtube, Daily Motion or Google Video with just a single click. Droppix DVD Maker also includes several ready-to-use menu templates you can use to create personalized DVD menus, though the method to change them is not very well implemented (a double click on the current menu image would be much more intuitive than having to open the program's settings menu).

Another drawback to Droppix DVD Maker is the fact that you can't preview the video before converting and recording it to the actual disc, while other similar tools usually include a built-in player. At least the conversion process is easy and quite fast too.

Droppix DVD Maker lets you create customized DVD movies in a very easy way, but lacks some handy features found in other similar tools.

Download Droppix DVD Maker 1.5.0 in Softonic

The task manager that comes bundled with Windows by default should be enough for most people but others, mainly power users, will definitely prefer something like Anvir Task Manager.

This highly detailed task management tool analyzes everything that's currently active on your system and displays it on a tabbed interface: running applications, active processes and services, programs that are scheduled to run upon Windows start, percentage of CPU and RAM in use, and more. No wonder the program's interface looks so confusing the first time you launch Anvir Task Manager... I wouldn't be surprised to see beginners being scared away.

Besides what you can see at first sight, there are a bunch of context menus and balloon tips in Anvir Task Manager that come up only when you hover the mouse over or click on certain elements. So my advice here is to try clicking everywhere and keep on finding new tools and functions.

Apart from the program's own tools, Anvir Task Manager also includes quick shortcuts to Windows' built-in system maintenance tools. I especially liked the two icons the programs puts on the system tray that enable you to control RAM usage and CPU load at a glance.

Anvir Task Manager is certainly much more than just a management tool for active processes: it's a complete app that lets you control everything that's going on while you're using the computer.

Download AnVir Task Manager 5.2.0 Free in Softonic

There was a time when video files all conformed to some basic requirements and could be played without protest using any media software. As technologies change and licensing becomes more restrictive and specific, simply playing a video file has now become a challenge and thanks to the plethora of obscure proprietary formats now available, finding a media player that works for the majority has become more hassle than it’s worth. Thankfully the open source community have come up with a solution in the form of VLC, otherwise know as VideoLAN Client.

This cross platform player doesn't strike as particularly good-looking when put side by side with Windows Media Player or Winamp, but you'll appreciate its far superior usability within moments. Its power can be demonstrated with any video files you happen to be downloading, which can be played in whatever form they exist, be it an actual video format or an unclassified temporary one. As you preview a video, it will skip the parts that have yet to be downloaded and let you see the rest – Media Player in comparison, can't preview files in this way.

Apart from playing incomplete videos, because lets face it not many people want to do that anyway, VLC has support for a huge range of video formats. If it doesn't recognize the file type it will try playing it anyway often successfully or if it's an encrypted file it will display the scrambled video in its raw form. The interface is stripped down to the bare bones, with the apparent objective of making it as unobtrusive as possible. With superb hotkey support, you can do practically everything you want without touching your mouse.

Put simply, VLC is a video player that doesn't stray in to other areas. There is only one alternative skin available, but all it will take is one look and you'll quickly be switching back to the default.

This free player should appeal to true cinephiles who want as little distraction as possible from their viewing experience. Being open source it's free to use and thanks to a small file size and a friendly installation process, we would recommend it to absolutely everyone as their "backup" or "catch-all" video player.

Download VLC Media Player 0.9.4 in Softonic

Poster Forge is a fun tool that enables you to create posters with your own digital pictures in a very easy way. Unlike other similar tools, which only create larger versions of the image for you to print out, Poster Forge adds some cool effects that can turn any picture into a motivational poster, movie poster or a Far West "Wanted" style poster.

The program's interface is divided into three tabs (one for each kind of poster) and includes all the tools you need to customize them. Simply add a picture, type in any text you want, tweak a few settings and you're pretty much done. Unfortunately, there were things I couldn't customize, such as font size. Also, even though there's a tool to move the picture around and make it fit better, it's very limited and sometimes the picture needs to be cropped with a third-party app.

Once finished, the poster can be saved as an image file or conveniently printed as a poster with the built-in printing tool, which enables you to optimize poster printing and make them easier to assemble.

Turn your photos into original posters very easily and in just a few minutes.

Download Poster Forge 1.01.11 in Softonic

Security is one of the main concerns among computer users. This is why it's important to count on reliable applications that can protect our system and data from potential dangers. Sometimes free security apps are regarded as being less safe but you might change your mind after testing AVG Antivirus.

AVG is one of the handiest antivirus systems I've seen so far (and believe me, I've tested a few). Being a smaller application, AVG may not feature such a wide range of tools or utilities as the other antivirus programs do. However, it makes up for it by offering a neat, effective protection which stays silently minimized in your system tray and only activates when needed.

This is precisely one of the best things about AVG. It works completely in the background, without the need of half the system resources and of course, without constantly bothering you with warning windows or update messages. You can just go on with your work and you won't even notice you have an antivirus application up and running. Being the free version of a complete program, AVG shows the odd nagging notification encouraging you to buy AVG Professional which may annoy the more sensitive users.

AVG features real time system protection, an email scanner (which doesn't prevent spam from coming into your mailbox though – spam filter is a Pro-only feature) and as new features in AVG 8, an anti-spyware tool and the so called LinkScanner technology to protect your web browsing. The whole package should be enough to ensure you're not infected with any virus. Also, it integrates seamlessly with Windows Explorer, thus allowing you to scan files from their context menus. AVG's virus database is automatically updated on a daily basis, so you're always protected even from the most recently discovered threats. The program supports scheduled scans as well.

AVG Antivirus remains a perfect security solution for the average computer user, providing quite a powerful weapon against viruses.

Download AVG Anti-Virus System Free Edition 8.0.173 in Softonic

Sandbox-style games - games where you can freely explore a totally interactive universe and engage in secondary missions while following the main plot – seem to be quite trendy today. Just think about GTA IV or Saints Row 2.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames follows this trend and presents you with a free-to-discover war zone immersed in chaos after a political coup in Venezuela. A corrupted, ambitious tyrant has overthrown the Government to grab hold of the rich Venezuelan oil supplies and the whole country is out of control. But don't worry, this is precisely your element.

Why? Because you're not a soldier, but a mercenary: and as such, you'll be willing to accept all kinds of dirty jobs, as long as they pay enough for them. There are no rules, no mercy, no morality and no remorse. This is a question of survival. This is war, and everything goes.

As well as the missions you have to complete as mercenary in order to earn money, there's a ton of other things you can do. There's a huge map you're free to explore, along with all kinds of vehicles and a extensive collection of weapons to try.

While the game's main story and the approach developers have taken to it are quite attractive, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames has one big drawback: controls. Like other titles we've reviewed before this game has been designed for consoles, and that makes it ridiculously difficult to manage with a keyboard. In cases like these, a gamepad is more than recommended.

Also note that you're going to need a very powerful machine in order to run Mercenaries 2: World in Flames as smoothly as possible and be able to enjoy the game's highly realistic graphics. Otherwise the image will be so clunky and full of glitches that you'll be dead before you can spot your enemies.

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is an attractive, action-packed war adventure that unfortunately runs better on a console.

Download Mercenaries 2: World in Flames in Softonic

There are literally dozens of options out there for FLV playback and FLVPLayer4Free tries to weigh in as one of the more customisable FLV players. Normally, FLV players are rather rudimentary affairs since Flash is not a particularly easy format to work with. However FLVPlayer4Free has tried to add some glitz to the Flash reproduction genre. Amongst many things, you can drag & drop FLV files straight into FLV player and save frames of your favourite films as images although only in three formats - JPG, PNG and BMP. You can instruct it to play in full screen mode and to stop anything else getting in the way of your viewing experience, keep the screen always in the foreground. There are a few limited volume settings including a mute option and you can also put FLV films or videos on a loop if you want. One very simple thing that I find many FLV players ignore is an elapsed time feature which is one thing that is included in FLVPlayer4Free. You can also play as many FLV files as you want at the same time although why anyone would want to do this, I'm not sure since you only have one soundcard to put it all through.

Overall, FLVPlayer4Free is one of the more comprehensive FLV Players on the market although I'm still awaiting the day when FLV players get really serious.

Download FLVPlayer4Free 3.2 in Softonic

If you're anything like me, you get bored of your desktop wallpaper very quickly. And like me, you'll be interested in testing tools like Wallpapers from MSN.

This app is a complete wallpaper manager that includes a collection of more than 50 images you can use as desktop background right away. You can also add you own photos to the Wallpapers from MSN collection and comfortably browse through them thanks to a thumbnail list and a small preview window.

What makes Wallpapers from MSN different from other similar applications is the fact that you can add special effects to the images. By "special effects" I mean you can add clipart on top of the image, insert a line or two of text and, of course, crop, resize and adapt the image to make it fit your computer monitor.

On the downside, there's no clear indication if you'll be able to download more wallpapers apart from the ones that come already bundled with the program. Also, Wallpapers from MSN is certainly a bit too heavy on resources to have it permanently running in the background – a requisite if you want it to cycle through your wallpapers automatically.

If you're a wallpaper collector, Wallpapers from MSN is made for you: a wallpaper manager that includes more than 50 images and also lets you edit them.

Download Wallpapers from MSN Beta 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

eToro is not a bullfighting game, although this is the impression you get from its name. In fact, it's a game about trading foreign currencies and making money out of it.

You can play eToro just for fun or for real money. In both cases, transaction values are authentic and obtained live from stock markets. However, we strongly recommend you to practice a little bit before putting your money into any real risk.

The game looks really complicated at first sight, but fortunately it includes a complete Help area with highly detailed tutorials. I particularly like having an embedded chat client to hang out with other traders while you wait for the right moment to buy or sell.

eToro enables you to learn the basics of Forex trading and make some real money.

Download eToro 1.3 in Softonic

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

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

What do you get if you mix balls, puzzles and action and add your own level editor in their for good measure?

The answer is Axiebal 7 which sees you control a ball through a valley of torment and even allows you to design your own levels. Axiebal 7 works on a top-down view and scrolling levels to give you the feel of a hand held console game. Your aim is basically to guide the ball through several death defying levels while avoiding all kinds of obstacles and dangers that lie in your way.

On your way, you must collect flags until you reach your base again. However, the biggest danger you'll face is falling off a cliff so steering your ball to reach the craftily placed flags is not as easy as it may sound. There are also solid walls that stand in your way but you can blow them up with bombs to find your way home. Best of all however is the Axiebal 7 level editor which gives you the option to create your own challenges and courses when the default levels become too boring.

For a free fun game, Axiebal 7 is a decent time waster and offers a nice combination of action and puzzles.

Download Axiebal 7 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

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