Neither the download managers that come bundled with Firefox or IE are particularly impressive so it's a good idea to add a third party downloader or plugin.

Fresh Download claims it can "turbo charge" downloads to make them download in less than half the time they would normally. It works with both FTP and HTTP protocols and gives you a whole range of control over how downloads are completed. Included is a pause and resume feature which is very useful for broken downloads or those downloads that suddenly and annoyingly time out. The program achieves such high speeds due to it's ability to connect to multiple connections and it works across most major browsers. if you don't want to carry out downloads immediately, you can also schedule them for a later date and it can even download links that you've copied to your clipboard or dragged into the main interface from your desktop. If you're downloading zip files, it can also decompress them automatically with it's own Zip extractor although note that it's not particularly powerful or fast - you'd be better using WinZip or WinRAR.

Although you won't notice huge download speeds, you will notice an improvement and besides, this is a much easier way to manage downloads.

Download Fresh Download 8.06 in Softonic

A smart freeware program that can clear all forms of mal-ware from your computer. Spybot S&D is a powerful application that offers a default mode and an advanced mode.

When you install this program, you are immediately given the choice to update, which is of course all important when dealing with the various forms of spyware that you want to be protected from. Unfortunately, when updating, progress can seem rapid and then stop for no apparent reason, for several minutes before finishing off the job.

Once you get over that small hiccup, you are prompted to create a system backup, just in case the program happens to remove something that is actually quite important for the smooth running of your system. It should go without saying that making this backup is recommended after which you may finally immunize your system from a growing database of malicious processes.

The program has plenty of options for tweaking and customizing scans as well as some unrelated functions like the secure shredder and a start-up manager.

Although this is a powerful piece of anti-spyware software, it may be better to see it as part of your security solution. For example, team this up with Ad-Aware SE and you should be covered from practically every form of threat to your online safety.

Download SpyBot Search & Destroy 1.6.0 in Softonic

CCleaner is a small utility that will take care of a few of the important maintenance tasks that every computer user should carry out as regularly as possible to keep their systems in top shape. Fast, reliable and easy to use - it's one of the best cleaning systems out there.

For me, the beauty of this program is the speed at which it carries out the various scans and fixes. Its main purpose is to clean any unnecessary files from your hard-drive and on opening the program you see the various aspects of Windows that you can search through and clear. It will also detect your installed applications that may hold on to files which are no longer any use, such as Google Earth histories or Flash Player configurations.

The interface is very easy to navigate and before taking any action, you will always be asked to confirm that you are sure about what you want to do. There is a useful registry checker that will quickly check its integrity, and let you fix bad entries after making a backup. The uninstall and startup tools are handy to have and simply add to the usability of this very rounded little maintenance assistant.

The most recent release now works on Vista with Admin permissions where available and features various bug fixes and imrpovements to the translated versions.

CCleaner makes keeping your PC clean easy for beginners and experts alike. It's small, fast, comprehensive, and free to download it - get cleaning now!

Download CCleaner 2.09.600 in Softonic

If your computer's performance suddenly starts to get worse and the whole system behaves in an abnormal way, you're likely to have some kind of malware in your hard drive. Anyway, just to be sure, you can launch this program and see for yourself.

RunScanner analyzes your system (with two possible alternatives, quick or full scan) and displays all running processes in Windows file system and Registry. Each one of the elements has some icons to its left that provide you with more information about it, although you'll have to check that online as the program doesn't include a help file.

Scans are very quick (even the full one) and can help you discover what's wrong with your system. Just bear in mind that this is not a definitive solution and that you need to be sure of what you're doing before actually deleting anything. Just in case, the program includes a backup option to unroll unwanted changes.

RunScanner also features a process killer and a hosts file editor.

Download RunScanner 1.6.3.0 in Softonic

If you're looking for an easygoing action game, one you can play just for fun even if you're not very good at shooters, you should definitely give Bloodmasters a go.

Featuring a top-down perspective like old style games, this action title enables you to fight against other players both in LAN and online battles that can take place in different maps. The aim depends on the type of game you're playing: Deathmatch, Scavenger or Capture the flag, either in individual competition or by teams.

The game's graphics are quite simple and the maps are ridiculously small, consisting mainly of a large room with corridors, stairs and dark spots where you can hide away from your enemies. There are different weapons and ammo scattered all over the map for you to pick up and use.

Bloodmasters lacks single player mode, which makes it quite limited in terms of gameplay. During our tests we could only find three online servers to play, but I guess the funniest way to enjoy the game is by fighting against friends on a local network.

Bloodmasters is an easy, old school multiplayer action game with an overhead view. Despite its tiny maps and basic graphics, it's loads of fun when played against friends online or in a LAN.

Download BloodMasters 1.0 in Softonic

Cookies, for those who do not know, are small files that Web pages store on your hard drive to remember you for your next visit.

In some cases however, cookies are used for other purposes like tracking your movements our or obtaining statistics on your surfing behavior. These are often then used for advertising or marketing purposes. Should you not want to leave any trace of your experience, then Freedom is an ideal application for you because it carries out automatic deletion of cookies from time to time - the default is every five minutes but you can change it. Once installed, the program can work against cookies in two different ways. First it can remove all trace of them all in one go or it can work selectively taking the ones that only you ask it to. If there is a cookie in particular you want to maintain on your hard drive, Freedom has an exclusion list (White List) to ensure that some cookies are left behind.

If you want to surf in peace and are sick of pop ups, then Freedom is a simple app and incredibly efficient so make sure you definitely want it to remove the cookies you've asked it to!

Download Freedom 1.2 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to extract the audio from that great concert you have on DVD? Until now, DVD audio ripping was a complicated task that only advanced users could face with some probability to success. But with Free DVD MP3 Ripper, everything just turned much easier.

This simple tool can rip the audio track from your DVDs and save it to MP3, so that you can enjoy that concert in your iPod on the move, or extract certain movie fragments to use them in your own video creations. The program supports not only DVD but also VCD, SVCD, MPG and MPEG movies. Besides, it also enables you to choose between several MP3 settings and edit the ID3 tags of the file you're about to create.

Free DVD MP3 Ripper is very easy to use. However, bear in mind that you may need the appropriate codecs to be able to preview the video in the embedded player and also to extract audio files successfully.

With Free DVD MP3 Ripper you can easily save DVD soundtracks as MP3.

Download Free DVD MP3 Ripper 1.21 in Softonic

This video converter looks pretty basic, but despite its simple interface it really works very well. Digital Video Converter supports the most popular formats and converts videos in just two clicks, that is, as long as you have the necessary codecs installed on your computer.

Simply select the video you want to convert and its target format. You'll also be able to tweak some settings such as width, height and frame rate. The result can then be played on your favorite video player.

Convert any videos to popular formats very easily.

Download Digital Video Converter 1.2.0.16 in Softonic

Credit Repair Planner helps create an optimized repayment schedule which factors in credit improvement. The concept is simple: pay off the highest-interest cards first while bearing in mind that carrying in excess of 50% on any revolving credit line dings your credit score.

Credit Repair Planner will break this down into two repayment schedules - the first to get all cards down below 50% and the second to take them down the rest of the way. Although Credit Repair Planner is useful for scheduling repayment, it is meant primarily as an educational tool - making the path to credit-repayment explicit, concrete and visual. A clear understanding of the debt-repayment path is a crucial part of lifelong debt management issues.

To use Credit Repair Planner, just download and run - the program is entirely self-contained and requires no installation (it can also be run directly from fixed media such as floppy or CD). Credit Repair Planner is a single, clean, compact executable with no spyware or DLL dependencies. It is part of an expanding collection of freeware tools available from atilla-credit-repair.info.

Download Credit Repair Planner 113.132 in Softonic

Back2zip uses the industry's most powerful ZIP and ZIP-64 technologies to constantly monitor your documents and make sure that they are always properly backed up to ZIP files. Back2zip can work away completely in the background without interrupting your work. It just takes just two minutes to download and set up - then it works away quietly and automatically protecting your documents so you can enjoy total peace of mind.

Back2zip is completely free with no spyware or shareware. It does not install any DLLs or other software on your computer. It's really freeware and does not nag you to purchase or buy anything.

Download Back2zip 125.117a in Softonic

Traffic metered charge plans are essiential for broadband internet usage. Home users are not only able to count the traffic, but are also able to monitor which hosts, services or ports are the top traffic consumers. MZL & Novatech TrafficStatistic for Windows shows the consumed traffic volume comfortably in system tray. It's free - without any adware or spyware inside and without any time limitation. Just download it, install it and find out how easy this bandwidth monitor is to use.

Professional users appreciate the underlying IPTDR engine. On a dedicated server it allows to monitor bandwidth consumption and in conjunction with a Time Interval Report incidents of high bandwidth usage in the past can be examined. In a network environment the strengthes of the system are that the IP Traffic Detail Record (IPTDR) engine resolves hostnames to the IP address on the fly, so it can work in a DHCP enabled network. Enhanced with a Multi Optional Report, which cost less than many shareware programs, MZL & Novatech's traffic statistics freeware can be enhanced up to a billing and accounting system of an internet cafe or WLAN access point.

Key features:

• Real-time bandwidth monitoring in tray
• Traffic development reporting
• Detailed reporting on hosts and services
• Optional filters to exclude internal traffic
• No further hardware or software needed
• DHCP capable IPTDR engine

Download MZL & Novatech Traffic Statistics 1.2.0.1 in Softonic

Free WMA MP3 Converter transforms annoying WMA audio files to Mp3 format so you can play them in iTunes. You’ll appreciate how easy it is to search for WMA files, select the bitrate, one of the 3 sample rates available and start converting. The whole process is fairly quick and is presented to you in a little pop up window, which can be minimized to tray. The tag editor is where you can add information such as title, artist or genre. You can batch convert as many files as you want. Once the operation is complete you can check file size and duration of the file and make sure the conversion has been successful.

The majority of audio file converters support all audio file types and can convert to dozens of audio formats in a large range of bitrates and sample rates. Free WMA MP3 Converter is only useful for one type of conversion. This program is great if you have loads of music files in the Windows Media format and are looking for a quick way of converting them to the more common MP3 format. If you’re looking for a versatile audio converter however you should turn to Xilisoft Audio Converter, Switch Free or AudioConvert. And Free WMA MP3 Converter only works one way, so if you’re looking to turn MP3s into WMA, check out Free MP3 WMA Converter.

Download Free WMA to MP3 Converter 1.16 in Softonic

DCleaner is a utility that will clear as many temporary and redundant files from your computer as possible without (hopefully) removing anything of importance to you or to the functioning of your PC.

The minimal size of this software means that it install and runs efficiently, and although it can play a important role in keeping a hard drive clear of unnecessary files, we can't help but notice that in reality DCleaner is a stripped-down version of CCleaner. While DCleaner was released more recently, it doesn't seem to have learned from the example of the more experienced and comprehensive CCleaner. And if the developer didn't want comparisons of the two to be made, the program should have been given a different name.

Our biggest criticism of DCleaner is the interface design. Put simply, it is ghastly, and this fact alone immediately made us wary of trusting it to delete potentially vital files from our system. It's unforgivable that such a simple program requires slide bars and next buttons for the menu items when the program window itself takes up one quarter of the screen and doesn't allow you to resize. What's more, you would be forgiven for missing the 'Run Cleaner' button altogether because of its drab design and peculiar positioning in the top-left corner of the window.

We were also taken by surprise with the link to the DCleaner website, which comes in the form of the only graphical element on screen, and once clicked, produces an error message and closes the program. That's one feature that will have a lot of people scratching their heads!

All in all, DCleaner does perform an important role in any computer user's routine, and will help most make the best possible use out of their hard disk space. Nevertheless, there is a program that does the same thing, and more, with the added bonus of better packaging- and it starts with 'C'.

Download DCleaner 1.08.211 in Softonic

With Voice mail Compressor you can send voice email messages to anyone with an e-mail address. Voice Mail Compressor generates compressed .wav files reducing the size from 16 to 10 times. The recipient doesn't need any special software to listen your messages, by just double-clicking the file, you can listen it using the default audio player.

Features:

• Works with the Windows® bundled ACM codecs ( present in all 32 bits windows versions).
• You can select the codec of the output voice file.
• Only 32 KB for a 30 second voice message with the DSP True Speech® Codec.
• Only 50 KB for a 30 second voice message with the GSM 6.10® Codec
• Only 30 KB for a 30 second voice message with the Lame MP3® Encoder, now with the mp3 format, Linux, Mac, Pocket PC and Palm users can listen your messages too.
• Simple, minimalist and intuitive graphic interface.
• Send the voice file automatically with your favorite pop3 email client or save it in a hard disk folder for use with your web-based email account.
• Compatible with all MAPI e-mails clients ( Mozilla Thunderbird®, Eudora®, Outlook Express®, etc...).
• Easily share Voice Mail Compressor with your friends ( less than 1 MB for the installer file).
• Voice Mail Compressor is 100% freeware, no ads, no limitations, no adware, no banners, no spyware etc....

Download Voice Mail Compressor 2.20 in Softonic

All-in-One Secretmaker is designed for everyone who wants to avoid unpleasant experiences, protect their privacy and use the Internet efficiently for private or business. It combines 7 powerful tools including a Spam Fighter, Pop-Up Killer, Cookie Eraser, History Cleaner, Privacy Protector, Banner Blocker and Worm Hunter.

It will protect you from spyware, trackware, and viruses. Spam Fighter rates spam and works with any POP3 e-mail client, and the automated whitelist keeps preferred contacts up-to-date. Banner Blocker reduces advertising banners, and Movie Blocker blocks Flash ads. Pop-up Blocker stops unwanted pop-ups, and Privacy Protector hides your identity while you surf. Cookie Eraser circumvents profiling. History Cleaner clears needless files, logs, and tracks. Various whitelists allow user-specific optimizations.

Download All-in-One Secretmaker 4.2.7.5 in Softonic

Free iPod Video Converter provides an easy and completed way to convert all popular video formats to iPod video. You can enjoy DVD/VCD and AVI, MPEG, WMV, RM, RMVB, DivX, ASF, VOB video files in your iPod with few clicks. The program is a freeware and does not contain any form of malware, including but not limited to: spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors.

Download Free iPod Video Converter 1.32 in Softonic

SimpleDownload is an easy to use freeware download manager. Greatly speed up downloads, download large files over poor internet connections, resume broken downloads, pause downloads or shut down and resume when it suits you, automatically organise new downloads as you like and have complete control over the number of connections for each file. No ads to slow your downloads, no spyware to slow your system and no trial period.

Download SimpleDownload 3.1 in Softonic

Features:

• Need access to your computer from a restrictive work internet connection?
• Tired of drawn out phone calls helping people with computer problems?
• Need a remote conferencing and demonstration platform that doesn't cost the earth?
• Find other remote control solutions clumsy and slow?
• Want a no-ads, no-spyware FREE solution to all of the above?

SimpleDesktop uses a revolutionary new method of navigating a remote computer through a window making using a computer either in a window or full screen a real possibility.

Download SimpleDesktop 2.8 in Softonic