From slow beginnings, BitComet has risen to become one of the most popular torrent client downloads on Softonic. For users accustomed to the often sparse interfaces of torrent apps, BitComet surprises with its flashy icons and multitude of options that give you more control over your downloads. For those that want a no-fuss client, the extra features may simply get in the way.

Once a torrent is selected for download with BitComet, a dialog pops up allowing you to determine the location to save to and select exactly which files in the torrent you want. Once downloading, the regular stop, pause, cancel, update etc options are all available plus a handy “remove torrent & all files” option which removes all trace of an unwanted torrent from your PC. Many users report the download rates are good although note no particular difference with other client speeds. The best feature however is a ‘preview media’ option, which forces the torrent to download sequentially instead of randomly thus allowing you to preview any multimedia downloads. It’s a great way to avoid broken links, but, on the downside, it will slow down your download considerably.

Another interesting feature is the ‘intelligent disk cache’ which really comes into its own on high speed connections. If you are lucky enough to get download transfer rates of 500 kb/s or higher, activating it allows BitComet to cache the data to access the disk less frequently. The result of this is that it doesn’t slow down your PC as receiving large amounts of data can sometimes do.

Forum reports from foreign users suggest that the program has not been translated properly from English, yet this doesn’t affect the capacities of BitComet. The other downside is that the uninstall procedure is not particularly clean. The application directory remains as does the registry entry although you can remove the former manually and the latter with any good registry cleaner.

There are simpler clients out there, such as uTorrent uTorrent and Azureus that offer the same download rates but with less fuss. If you have a particularly fast connection, can’t wait for your files to download before watching them and enjoy a torrent client with lots of whistles and bells, BitComet might be for you.

Download BitComet 1.05 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 - CCleaner it's one of the best cleaning systems out there.

For me, the beauty of CCleaner 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. CCleaner 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 in CCleaner 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. CCleaner 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 of CCleaner now works on Vista with Admin permissions where available and features various bug fixes and improvements 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 2.12.660 in Softonic

FreeRip is a freeware Windows application that lets you save audio CD tracks to Wav, MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC audio files. FreeRIP is also an audio file converter and it can convert audio files from one of the named formats to another.

Converting your audio CD collection to digital audio files to move to your portable digital audio player (including iPod), mobile phone, car audio system, or whatever, is a matter of minutes with FreeRIP. Just start FreeRIP, put audio CD in and click on Rip button.

FreeRIP is a CD ripper, this means that it can record digital audio tracks directly from audio CD to files onto your hard drive (this process is known as "ripping"). You can save tracks as CD quality WAV files or encode them to a lossy (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA) or lossless (FLAC) audio format.

FreeRIP supports extended tagging and ID3 v2 standard, so that you can add information to audio tracks like artist name, song title, lyrics and so on, and FreeRIP will store them in the audio file itself. It also provide access to FreeRIP CD Database, an Open Source, collaborative CD information repository. It also provides backward compatibility with well known freedb CD database.

FreeRIP lets you convert audio files from a format to another: its integrated audio converter helps you to convert as many files you want between the most famous audio formats.

It also includes a contextual search button to help you finding information, images, videos and lyrics about the selected track or artist. Find a song lyrics in few seconds: select the track, select "Search Lyrics ..." menu option and browse search results to find what you need.

Download FreeRIP MP3 3.091 in Softonic

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer.

This includes files emptied from the Windows Recycle Bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or even MP3 players.

It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses.

Download Recuva 1.19.350 in Softonic

PFrank is simple but convenient way to change and alter multiple files in one go without having to go through them one by one.

The developer claims to have been motivated by the lack of a decent renaming program as most have to be run with multiple passes using different sets of renaming sequences until finally getting the required names. PFrank allows you to rename everything you want to in one go using a Windows Explorer style interface. However, it does have a lot of options for deciding how and what type of files you want to rename which can be a bit tricky. For this reason, the developer has started a forum which deals with most of the main problems. Particularly with the new features that have been added, you may experience problems. These include the new plugin for insertion of meta data from raw image files (e.g. cr2, nef, sr2) and a much improved undo facility, new filters, new positioning controls and the ability for users to plug in their own renaming commands. There's also a recently added custom list manager for managing any number of custom lists for repeat file changing.

For those that do a lot of file changing and renaming, PFrank is an excellent mass file name changer that will ensure you save time.

Download PFrank 2.24 in Softonic

Like many other things in Windows, Vista failed to address some pretty basic issues that still persist.

One of those is the simple act of file renaming which you still can't do in bulk. However, with this program, you can easily solve that problem plus many other file renaming issues. With this tool you can organize your music, picture, video, or any other types of files with much greater speed and flexibility than ordinarily in Windows. PFrank comes equipped wit a very useful preview button which allows you to preview changes before you make them. You can select several files at once - in fact as many as you want - and rename them all at the same time. The author claims that there is virtually no renaming function that can't be carried out by this program but if there is something you can't do, you can probably find out how to do it on the developer forums.

A useful little utility that's flexible and should come as standard with Windows Vista.

Download PFrank (Vista) 2.24 in Softonic

I must admit I don't like updating my software. It's just too boring a task to do: search the web, then download the new file, then install it on the PC... no, thanks. Fortunately for me and for all the people who also remain blissfully outdated, someone has come out with UpdateStar.

This tool scans your system and finds all available updates for the applications installed on your PC. Bear in mind that it doesn't work with anything you have, because the updating process it's based on a database created and maintained by the program's developers. But still, it does recognize the most popular tools and provides links to download them directly from its interface.

UpdateStar can be scheduled to look for updates on a regular basis and also enables you to mark certain apps so that they're not updated. However, I really missed the possibility to add my own apps to the list, or at least having the opportunity to check the database used by the program itself.

UpdateStar helps you keep your software updated, although it still needs some improvement.

Download UpdateStar 2.3.654 Beta in Softonic

Floola is a freeware application to efficiently manage your iPod or your Motorola mobile phone (any model supporting iTunes).

It can be run directly from your iPod and needs no installation under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows (Windows Vista is supported).

Floola supports all most common used features including podcasts. Take a look at the feature list to see what you are missing!

Download Floola 3.5 in Softonic

Even if you’re extremely careful about downloading only music which is compatible with your player, there comes a moment when you need to convert audio files from one format to another. And if you have never used this kind of software before, you may feel a little bit lost at the beginning: which program should I use? Will it have support for this or that?

Free MP3 WMA Converter is probably one of the best answers one could give to these questions. In spite of being quite plain both in aspect and functionalities, this little app does its job and does it well. So don’t let yourself be fooled by its simplicity and spare us five minutes to take a deeper look.

The process of installing Free MP3 WMA Converter follows the standard steps and includes the possibility of also installing Pando, a free tool to share large files through e-mail. But you can simply skip that point if you’re not interested in it.

Once installed on your system, the program allows you to choose the interface language, a nice feature for non-English speakers. However, it wouldn’t be really necessary, as Free MP3 WMA Converter is incredibly simple to use: first, select the files you want to convert; then, choose the target format; finally, click on the “Convert” button. Easy as pie! Plus, the conversion itself is surprisingly fast. The program even displays a neat progress bar so that you can control the whole process in detail.

If there is a drawback to Free MP3 WMA Converter, it’s the range of supported formats. Only six of them (AAC, APE, MP3, Ogg, WAV and WMA) but at least they’re the most used and popular ones. Besides, the program features separate conversion options for each one of them, so you can always achieve the quality of sound you wanted. Another thing this program lacks is having a wider choice of options, such as volume normalization, a built-in tag editor or other similar extra functions that can be found in most conversion tools.

In short, if you’re looking for an audio file converter and don’t know where to begin, just give Free MP3 WMA Converter a chance. It may suit your needs, as long as they’re simple enough.

Download Free Mp3 Wma Converter 1.7.3 in Softonic

DSynchronize is a freeware utility that let you periodically synchronize two or more folders in a LAN. It is possible to specify the time and the day on which the sync have to run, and to create some "filters". There is also an option to add the date and time of the sync to the name of the folder, to obtain a series of backups, classified by date and time.

Download DSynchronize 2.30.1 in Softonic

Let's admit it: Windows Vista does have some graphical eyecandy that many of us would like to enjoy too, that is, if we could have it without having to give up on our beloved XP.

Well, who say we can't? Here's the trick: download TrueTransparency, copy it to any folder on your hard drive (no installation required) and you'll be able to add a sleek transparency effect to your windows. It's as easy as that! Just bear in mind that it may not work with all your apps (during my tests, for instance, Winamp didn't get the Vista look) but most system windows and standard applications will show off a shiny transparent look.

Like I said, the program doesn't require installation and hardly uses any system resources. From the little icon displayed on the system tray you can change between two different skins, set the program to be run on Windows startup and also close it when you grow tired of so much transparency and want to go back to traditional Windows XP windows.

TrueTransparency is a very quick, simple way to have the Vista transparency effect on your XP windows.

Download TrueTransparency 0.9.4 in Softonic

IcoFX is an award winning freeware icon editor. It is an all-in-one solution for icon creation, extraction and editing. It is designed to work with Windows XP and Windows Vista icons supporting transparency.

With a wealth of tools and more than 40 effects at your fingertips, there’s virtually no limit to the icons you can create. You can convert your favorite images into icons, or icons into images. With IcoFX you can extract icons from other files, including Windows Vista files. You can easily work with multiple files using the batch processing capability of IcoFX.

This is what IcoFX has to offer:

• Support for transparency (alpha channel)
• Batch processing for import, export and extract
• More than 40 effects + custom filter
• Resolutions up to 256x256
• Data types: 2, 16, 256, True Color, True Color + Alpha
• Extract icons from 32 bit exe and dll
• Import and export images
• Transparent, Brighten/Darken, Blur/Sharpen tools

Download IcoFX 1.63 in Softonic

The major developers might not agree with us but the rise of open source equivalents to large, expensive packages has arguably been the most exciting development in the software industry in the last few years. The GIMP and Mozilla Thunderbird are two leading lights of the open source phenomenon and have collectively saved users millions as alternatives to their big-budget rivals.

Artweaver certainly has the credentials to take on the big players and comes stacked with an ample range of brushes, which can be tweaked and customized easily to suit your designs. Just like its more illustrious rivals, the brush selection can be beefed up through plug-ins, although the range of available brushes is pitiful compared with those you can download for Adobe Illustrator. Nevertheless, it's promising to see freeware products embracing extendability in this way.

Other welcome features include a mighty effects selection, layers and transparency functionality, plus support for a range of file formats. You can also add text layers, making it great for creating logos or promotional material. However, it's when you put pen to paper that Artweaver stumbles somewhat. The fact is that the app renders certain brush strokes much slower than its major rivals, and unless you're packing heat processor-wise you're likely to be frustrated by the lag time waiting for the strokes to appear on the page. For such a polished program otherwise, this drawback threatens to stifle its attempts to win over the graphic design market. This said, for a pre-release version ArtWeaver is an impressive piece of kit.

Download Artweaver 0.5.3 in Softonic

CPU-Z is a freeware utility that provides some information on your CPU with which you can identify areas that may be optimized to improve the efficiency of your system. Some of the topics checked by this sofware include:

• Processor name and vendor
• Core stepping and process
• Processor package
• Processor current core voltage
• Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier
• Partial overclock detection
• Processor features, including supported instructions sets
• L1 and L2 cache informations : location, size, speed, technology
• Motherboard informations : BIOS, chipset, memory, AGP

Download CPU-Z 1.47 in Softonic

CUE Splitter is a freeware tool that can split a single big audio track, mostly an album or a compilation, into the relative individual audio tracks, using informations contained in the associated "CUE" file. Sometimes you can find a big compressed audio file (for example MP3, APE, FLAC, OGG, WAV, WMA, etc...) equipped with a small "CUE" text file that contain informations about tracks title, artist and length. Usually these couple of files are generated by programs like EAC, CDRWin, BPM Studio, GoldWave or similar.

With CUE Splitter you can obtain splitted audio track files without burning any CDR or decoding/re-encoding any audio data! Moreover audio files are automatically named using a user-defined "file mask" string, it's tags are filled with informations extracted from "CUE" file and, optionally, an M3U playlist file can be generated (option enabled by default).

Download CUE Splitter 1.2 in Softonic

The nightmare before Christmas? Almost. In Christmas Crisis you need to help out Santa delivering presents by guiding his sleigh and dropping presents over houses, whilst avoiding jets and airplanes. The game is certainly a good idea for the holidays and an original adaptation of the Space Invaders style, yet Christmas Crisis is on the whole rather disappointing.

First of all, and this may sound cheesy, but I quite like when there's a little introduction to the game, or at least some sort of setting. Christmas Crisis drops you right in without any explanation as to why you need to replace Santa. There's only a small window to explain the controls.

Movements in Christmas Crisis are simple. Use your arrow keys to navigate your sleigh and the space bar to shoot the presents onto houses. On the whole though, they feel a bit clunky, and there's a little delay every time you move the sleigh. Christmas Crisis is a bit difficult and I couldn't manage to hit all the houses in the first level. Getting used to it doesn't take much though, but the increase of planes flying around as you pass levels does make it challenging.

Even though the game lacks an introduction, and controls are clunky, Christmas Crisis is an OK time waster for the holidays.

Download Christmas Crisis 1.2.3 in Softonic

SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature and show hard disk temperatures. SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on some hardware (but this should be considered a bonus feature).

At the lowest level, SpeedFan is a hardware monitor software that can access temperature sensors, but its main feature is that it can change fan speeds (depending on the capabilities of your sensor chip and your hardware) according to the temperatures inside your PC, thus reducing noise and power consumption.

Download SpeedFan 4.35 in Softonic

There's an increasing demand for alternatives to Adobe's resource hogging, RAM sapping, not least expensive PDF creator and PrimoPDF weighs in as an excellent alternative.

The fact that this program is free makes it all the more appealing. One of the problems with these PDF programs is that invariably, they change the formatting of your text, once you've converted your Word, Publisher etc. document to PDF. PrimoPDF largely avoids this however converting to PDF as faithfully as the original. It's also remarkably fast and the installation is equally speedy.

Once installed, the program appears as a virtual printer in your Printer Driver preferences too. The main downside, of which there are few, is that you are regularly prompted to register although this is a small price to pay for an excellent program. It's also a bit unreliable when converting images. Text is fine but images can sometimes be in the wrong position or formatted incorrectly when converting from Office documents. It also doesn't use Windows standard way of saving documents - it has it's own format which doesn't suggest a file name but it's a small drawback.

A really excellent PDF creator that will have Adobe critics laughing all the way to their virtual printers.

Download PrimoPDF 4.1.0.9 in Softonic

As far as FTP clients go, Core FTP Lite is one of the most comprehensive out there. It allows you to do pretty much anything that you can do with FTP transfers. It features everything from SFTP (SSH), SSL, TLS, IDN, browser integration, site to site transfers to FTP transfer resume, drag and drop support and command line transfers.

Where Cute FTP really distinguishes itself is through it's security features. Not many FTP clients support so many different security protocols meaning you can upload and download to FTP servers with peace of mind. This is essential if you're administering a website that holds. The list of features doesn't stop there though and is truly mind boggling. It also supports Auto retry of failed transfers, bandwidth control throttle, remote file searching and .htaccess/.htpasswd editing amongst many many more.

If you're looking for a fully comprehensive free solution to FTP transfers, then you can't do much better than Core FTP Lite. If you're new to FTP transfers however, you'd probably be better off with something a bit simpler.

Download Core FTP Lite 2.1.1573 in Softonic

Some anti-virus programs cause more problems than they solve. Avast! Home Edition anti-virus is thankfully not one of those as it exceeds expectations while remaining free. Lightweight, vigilant and most importantly, effective, this could be the answer to your prayers if you’ve had no luck finding a virus checker you like.

The developers make a point of stressing that this program is strictly not for institutional use – it is designed specifically for the threats most home users face daily. Their philosophy is that efficient home virus protection is essential in preventing users one day being struck by a serious global virus. What impresses you immediately with Avast! is its vigilance. It’s likely that within minutes of installation, you’ll receive a pop up alert due to a Trojan or virus that had been incubating on your PC. If not, rest assured that it won’t be long before Avast! sets off its trademark siren and alerts you that something has been detected. The latest version of

Avast’s antivirus kernel promises 100% detection of ‘In-the-Wild’ viruses (viruses already spreading between users) and excellent detection of Trojan horses. Avast! provides 24 hour protection via its ‘On-Access’ scanner but you can initiate manual scans via the fairly simple user interface. You can start additional modules from here, such as the Virus Chest, Updater or Log Viewer. Another great feature of Avast! is the option to change the skin of this interface. The developer website features practically hundreds of distinctive designs made by aficionados and even offers a guide to designing your own.

Something often overlooked by major virus checking packages is P2P applications installed on your PC but Avast! covers this with a P2P and Instant Messenger shield. Whilst chat applications themselves do not impose any serious security risks in terms of viruses, their less sophisticated file sharing methods can easily lead to virus infections if not properly monitored. With so many infected files on P2P networks such as Kazaa and eMule too, it’s also good to know that Avast! won’t let you open them without quietly checking them first.

The program also features both a Web and Network shield that constantly monitors traffic. The Web Shield acts as a transparent HTTP proxy and is compatible with all major web browsers. One of the truly outstanding features of Avast! is that unlike heavyweights such as Kaspersky or Norton, you hardly notice it working in the background. This is because of a unique feature the developers call ‘Intelligent Stream Scan’ that scans objects on-the-fly, without needing to cache them locally. Even the virus updates are unobtrusive. Avast! downloads the updates gradually and only those that are absolutely essential instead of the whole database. You receive a ‘Virus database has been updated’ voice message every time this has been completed along with a small popup which you can turn off if it annoys you.

There really is little to fault Avast! on in a market that is saturated with too many ineffective virus checkers. Although it doesn’t guzzle resources, if you’re running it on an older machine, you might find it slows you down. Some new users also complain that conducting a simple manual scan is more complicated than it should be but if you’ve spent anytime with virus checkers, you’ll realise that its more than worth your while getting to know this excellent program.

Download Avast! Home 4.8.1229 in Softonic