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

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

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

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

Download GMDesk 0.99 in Softonic

ScrapBook Plug-in for Firefox is a Firefox extension which helps you to save web pages and manage them in any any easy to administer way.

With ScrapBook Plug-in for Firefox, you can save web pages, save snippets of Web page and even save whole websites. You can organize saved pages just in the same way as you would with Bookmarks and you can also highlight and annotate pages with an inbuilt highlighter and eraser.

ScrapBook Plug-in for Firefox also allows you to search text within web pages that you've saved although if you've got something like Google Desktop installed, this is not that necessary but still, it's useful. The problem is that if certain pages contain unknown elements, the page won't save properly or at least, when you open it, it doesn't look like the original you saved.

However, if you do need to save a webpage such as a flight ticket or proof of purchase, ScrapBook Plug-in for Firefox is a convenient and easy way to do so.

Download ScrapBook Plug-in for Firefox 1.3.3.7 in Softonic

The Start menu is supposed to give you quick access to programs and files, but it often ends up being a real mess. This is the time when you need some alternative like Executor.

Despite its scary name, Executor is a nice, useful application that enables you to open files and launch your favorite applications and websites just by typing the keywords you have previously assigned to them. What's more, as the program auto-completes each entry, the first few letters are usually enough. The program also includes some built-in keywords for the most common tasks, such as performing a Google search or opening the Control Panel.

Executor features an extensive configuration menu that enables you to customize every single detail. It also has support for skins, but the included skins are generally very dark and hard to read. Luckily enough, you can create your own personal color combination and save it as skin.

Download Executor 0.98b in Softonic

If you have all your online friends scattered across different IM networks, you need an IM client like Meebone.

With Meebone you can connect to multiple IM networks simultaneously, giving you the chance then to chat with your friends from Jabber, Meebo, MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, ICQ and Google Talk at the same time.

When you run Meebone you'll be asked to login to any of the supported networks. Then, if you want to join another network at the same time, click on the "Sign on" button at the bottom of the program's interface.

Meebone is actually an Adobe AIR desktop port of an online cross-platform IM client named Meebo. Maybe this is why its interface is not perfect yet and has some glitches, but we have to bear in mind that the program is still at a beta stage.

Meebone lets you chat with your online friends at any moment, no matter what IM network they use. The program is still in development though.

Download Meebone 0.1 Beta5 in Softonic

If you like to watch YouTube and Google Video regularly but don't want the hassle of being bombarded by everything on the site, then you can access them via Videobox.

Videobox is a simple widget that uses keywords to search for Google Video and YouTube videos from your desktop. The immediate problem with Videobox is that because both these services hare gradually being merged, you often get the same results for both but still, the search works pretty well.

Simply enter your search terms into the Videobox searchbox and hit the magnifying glass. The results in Videobox take a little longer than using the video sites directly but you'll soon be presented with a list of results from both YouTube and Google Video that match your criteria including title, description and in the case of YouTube, tags.. The disadvantage is that you don't benefit from the comments.

Videobox is a useful alternative to searching for videos via YouTube and Google Video when you don't have the time or inclination to read the comments.

Download Videobox 3.0 in Softonic

WinWAP for Windows lets you use WAP services on your Windows PC. The WAP browser is a full mobile Internet browser that allows you to use the mobile Internet services you would use on your phone's built-in browser.

The browser looks, feels and works like your regular web browser on your Desktop or Notebook computer.

The WinWAP browser is suitable to be used for both business and fun. In the business world it can be used to have access to the mobile services from your PC in addition to having access from your mobile phone. For developers of mobile services it is a very efficient tool for testing the services developed. If you are looking for fun, the WinWAP browser provides access to all the same services (chat, information, google etc.) that you use on your mobile phone. Some telecom operators require that you connect your mobile phone to your computer/PDA and use it as a GPRS-modem in order to get access to the telecom operator specific services.

Download WinWAP for Windows 4.1.0.192 in Softonic

Mail PassView allows you to view detailed information on each of the email accounts you have configured on your system. Mainly, it's used for the recovery of passwords although undoubtedly, some people will use it to crack passwords. The information it reveals includes details such as account name, name and e-mail server type of application you use, user name and password. You can save all this information in a text file or copy it to the Clipboard.

The program supports the most popular email clients such as Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook 2000 and 2002, IncrediMail, Eudora and Group Mail Free. It also reveals passwords and info for IncrediMail, Eudora, Netscape 6.x/7.x, Mozilla Thunderbird, Group Mail Free, Yahoo! Mail & Hotmail/MSN Live Mail (If the password is saved in the applications.). It can even work for Gmail if the password is saved by the Gmail Notifier application, Google Desktop, or by Google Talk.

If you've lost your passwords or just want to snoop, it's worth a try but very hit and miss in it's effectiveness.

Download Mail PassView 1.44 in Softonic

Adobe's new cross-operating system runtime opens up much more possibilities to both developers and everyday computer users. It allows developers to create new web applications using HTML, XML, Javascript and Flex. What's more they aren't limited to using Adobe's library, but can create, share and use their own to create specific web applications.

For users, it gives access to new and exciting rich internet applications (RIA) which can be run straight from their desktop. These use very little memory, are usually quick to launch and execute and have very smooth animations. A quick visit to the Adobe Showcase Gallery and you get an idea of the sort of applications that are being developed for AIR: a Google Analytics Reporting Suite, a Twitter desktop client, a movie discovery tool and much, much more. The possibilities are endless and really depend on the creativity of developers.

While I've had some errors with AIR, especially when installing new apps, I'm overall very impressed with it. Quietly but surely, we're seeing more and more exciting web applications being developed. Install AIR to be part of the web applications revolution!

Download Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) 1.1 in Softonic

Searching in Windows has always been painfully slow but Microsofts launch of Windows Search 4 aims to bring searching up to speed with applications such as Google Desktop.

Windows Search 4 uses the same indexing style approach that Google Desktop does meaning that your data is always indexed and instantly searchable. Search results are now returned in seconds rather than minutes under Windows older search tool. You can preview information that's returned in results including information within e-mail messages. The search tool is much more easily accessible too in Vista from the Start menu and XP is equipped with a deskbar for instant searches. Be warned however - the indexing file can be huge especially if you have a large amount of data on your PC so make sure you have plenty of disk space free before installing Windows Search 4 otherwise you’ll find it locks up your system before finally warning you that your disk space is low. In this release, Microsoft have finally ensured that you can also index and search encrypted files which was something missing from previous versions. This is something that should have already been included in Vista and is yet another area where Microsoft are adding and completing aspects of the system that should have been ready before it was released.

Google Desktop and Copernic Desktop Search have been on the market for years now and yet Microsoft have only just been able to implement such a basic feature into their operating system but it's definitely a vast improvement on previous Windows search tools.

Download Windows Search 4 Vista SP1 & Server 2008 in Softonic

Searching in Windows has always been painfully slow but Microsofts launch of Windows Search 4 aims to bring searching up to speed with applications such as Google Desktop.

Windows Search 4 uses the same indexing style approach that Google Desktop does meaning that your data is always indexed and instantly searchable. Search results are now returned in seconds rather than minutes under Windows older search tool. You can preview information that's returned in results including information within e-mail messages. The search tool is much more easily accessible too in Vista from the Start menu and XP is equipped with a deskbar for instant searches. Be warned however - the indexing file can be huge especially if you have a large amount of data on your PC so make sure you have plenty of disk space free before installing Windows Search 4 otherwise you’ll find it locks up your system before finally warning you that your disk space is low. In this release, Microsoft have finally ensured that you can also index and search encrypted files which was something missing from previous versions. This is something that should have already been included in Vista and is yet another area where Microsoft are adding and completing aspects of the system that should have been ready before it was released.

Google Desktop and Copernic Desktop Search have been on the market for years now and yet Microsoft have only just been able to implement such a basic feature into their operating system but it's definitely a vast improvement on previous Windows search tools.

Download Windows Search 4 XP & Server 2003 in Softonic

ReadAIR is an AIR-based RSS feed reader that you can use instead of Google Reader to review the latest posts in your favorite blogs.

This app works in a very simple way: enter your Gmail address and password, and it'll automatically fetch all your feeds, as well as your shared and starred items. The interface looks like iTunes a lot, which makes the program seem kind of familiar and easy to use.

ReadAIR works generally fine. I especially liked the way feeds are displayed on the program's interface, keeping the original post's layout at all times and using a very visually appealing text font.

However, the program also has some major flaws: to begin with, I couldn't add any new feeds (the "Add" button simply showed a blank window). Also, the only way to move through feeds is by using the mouse, meaning there's no support for keyboard shortcuts.

ReadAIR provides you with another way to access your Google Reader feeds, though it still needs to improve to become a real alternative.

Download ReadAir 0.1 in Softonic

Personas for Firefox is a special extension that improves theme management for Firefox and makes it easier.

So far, applying a new theme to your favorite web browser implies searching for it on Google, downloading the correspondent file to your PC, installing it on Firefox and then restarting the browser in order to see the results. Personas makes this whole process much simpler: just install the extension and you'll see a tiny button on the lower left corner of your browser window. Then, every time you want to apply a new theme to Firefox, simply click on this button and select it from the context menu.

Personas for Firefox currently includes about fifty themes, but chances are there'll be more in the near future, especially if we take into account that this extension also makes theme designing and updating much easier. I guess we'll have to wait patiently as you can't add any new themes to the menu, but use only the ones that come shipped with the extension.

The included themes are classified into several categories (Firefox, Holidays, Nature, Scenery, Sports and others) for a more convenient browsing. Though some of them make menu bars really hard to read, many others give a nice touch of color to the browser window. Also, bear in mind that the themes only change the main window's appearance – icons and menus remain the same.

Despite the limitations of a first version, Personas for Firefox is a great extension to change your browser's appearance in just two clicks.

Download Personas for Firefox 1.0a1 in Softonic

Long gone are the days when you took photos, printed them and kept them in your photo album. With the advent of digital cameras, our approach to pictures has completely changed. Creating, editing, publishing and sharing are now part of our daily photographic experience. JetPhoto Studio is an application to handle digital snaps on your PC and the net.

JetPhoto Studio will import pictures from your camera as soon as it is connected to your PC. We like how the main interface includes a calendar to let you browse photos by date. Jet Photo Studio has fairly basic editing tools, and functions like crop, sepia, black and white, image contrast, and auto enhancing, which will allow you to personalize your photos. You can also batch resize your photos and protect them with a watermark. JetPhoto Studio also allows you to rate photos by adding a star next to the ones you prefer. You can set tags to quickly identify related pictures, but annoyingly you’ll have to create new ones for each individual album.

On the multimedia side, JetPhoto Studio gives you a number of tools to help you play around with your pictures. Making screensavers, wallpapers and slide-shows is extremely easy and quick. You can also create two types of Flash movies, stand-alone or deluxe, the first being a typical slide show, and the second showing an animated thumbnail list of your selected images. The only downside is that you can’t set the types of animations and speed of transitions.

You can use JetPhoto Studio to send images, via MMS or infrared, to your friends’ mobiles, yet however exciting this sounds, the feature is not really up to standards. You’ll actually need to know your friend’s mobile brand and exact model and even if you do, there’s no telling whether the service will work in your country. We found that JetPhoto Studio did not support this feature in Spain.

Another promising feature is locating photos thanks to GPS. If you have a GPS receiver and Google Earth set up on your PC, this feature is especially easy to use. Connect your receiver to your PC, pick the model and your time zone, and launch Google Earth. Your selected pictures will automatically be tagged with the desired locations in your Google Earth. If you don’t have a GPS receiver, you can also point the photo location on a map. However this feature seems prone to bugs and we did not manage to generate maps properly.

JetPhoto Studio allows you to quickly upload images to the online photo sharing service Flickr, and it’s very easy to order quality printed copies via PrintExpress. The JetPhoto Server tool is also a good way for anybody with some scripting knowledge to upload and edit their photo albums onto their weblog or personal website.

We have fairly mixed feelings about Jet Photo Studio. It lets you manipulate photos in all sorts of ways, creating Flash movies, posting to Flickr or your website, and locate photos with your GPS. However sending images via mobile is not really up to scratch and Flash movies can not be customized. We were also disappointed that JetPhoto Studio doesn’t automatically import images already on your PC. A promising image viewer, but it’s not guaranteed that JetPhoto Studio will appeal to everyone.

Download JetPhoto Studio 3.12.3 in Softonic

One thing that Windows lacks is decent calendar. Active Desktop Calendar is a fully customizable calendar which features notes, tasks, alarms, and merges neatly into whatever desktop wallpaper you have.

One of the best features about this calendar is that it allows you to share dates and data with others on your network. It also integrates with Outlook so that your appointments and tasks are displayed clearly on your desktop. You can even make it synchronize with your PDA via Outlook.

The calendar is fairly customisable. There are several options for changing calendar icons, fonts and colors, marking weekdays of choice and marking dates with notes and/or alarms. If you find the calendar is running slowly or slowing your system down, you can also revert to a text only version of the calendar. If you need hard copies of your important dates, there's also a very easy to use print option for calendar data. Although it's not necessary, there's also a world clock screen saver that shows your computer's system time, plus five major time zones around the world.

All in all, this is an excellent calendar although it's going to find it hard with things such as Google Calendar which are accessible from anywhere.

Download Active Desktop Calendar 7.48 in Softonic

I'm no geologist but I know a, excuse the pun, "gem" of a program when I see one and for any rock, mineral or geologist, this surely is one.

This comprehensive encyclopedia and research base contains just about everything there is to know about rocks, minerals and gems in an easy to search format with in depth descriptions and attractive images. If you need it customised to suit the needs or focus of your organisation, it can also do that too to reduce it's huge range and depth to something more manageable.

To be precise, the developers claim it has information on 600 minerals, 300 gems, 200 rocks, around 900 glossary items and a staggering 2100 pictures. Of course, it also features the entire periodic table with detailed info on each element, isotopes, allotropes and compounds. It also saves you valuable lab time because it tells you how these react and interact with each other. To cap it all, you can also find out about the geniuses and researchers that have pioneered the geological field and those that discovered each element, rock and gem.

Perhaps it can't replace Google or a good geological encyclopedia but for a free program, this is an impressive resource.

Download Earth's Core 1.0 Beta in Softonic

Traditionally the first choice when it comes to compressing and uncompressing files, WinZip is one of the most popular downloads of all time. Despite the fact that its competitors have caught up somewhat, it remains a simple way to archive programs and reduce file sizes.

Much of the app’s success has been down to its simplicity. From the outset, the program prompts you to choose between Classic mode and Wizard mode. The wizard is great for beginners, although even the classic interface is easily negotiated, giving you instant access to a range of features such as compression ratios, password-protection and a Favorites list.

While archiving files in WinZip is quick and easy, you can’t help but thinking that the program has lost some ground on its competitors. For instance, the compression rates aren’t as high as they are in WinRAR, and you can only save files in Zip format rather than RAR, ISO or JAR. Nevertheless, the program performs well and now comes bundled with Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search, and is also fully certified for Windows Vista.

Download WinZip 11.2 in Softonic

RSS or Real Simple Syndication, is an ever more popular way to follow the news on Internet. By subscribing to an XML or RSS link, a user can receive all the latest information from multiple sources in one page. Online RSS readers like Google Reader, Bloglines or Rojo are now very popular among users yet you can also use an external RSS reader like Feeddemon to keep up with the flow of information.

Feeddemon is easy to install and although it will ask you for a Newsgator account, you can still launch it even if you don’t have one. The program can import all of your previous subscriptions or it can suggest new feeds to you in all sorts of categories like business, sports or entertainment.

Once launched, the program automatically downloads the latest posts. Feeds are saved in different categories so that you know where to find them. You can also use the search function to find a post containing a particular word. Thanks to the custom news watch, you can get Feeddemon to find news according to certain keywords. This is extremely useful if you’re doing a research paper or investigating a particular topic.

The program window includes a browser window, so you won’t need to open up your internet browser to read your feeds. Feeddemon also supports tabs, allowing you to keep a good deal of posts open for future reading. If you want to save posts, you can flag them, save them as favourites or create a newsbin to store similar articles.

Apart from letting you customize the age limit of new posts and the amount that appears daily, you can use the Clean Up Wizard to get rid of older or unread posts. This is extremely useful as, with so much information being handled, it’s easy to clutter up your newsreader with irrelevant posts.

Feeddemon handles podcasts just like any other RSS feed, however, to play them, either you’ll have to open up the MP3 file in a browser window or download it and play it with the MP3 player of your choice. It would have been more user-friendly if Feeddemon had included an embedded media player to play podcasts.

If you’re on the move, you can still check your feeds stored in Feeddemon online through your Newsgator account. If you don’t have one, take a few seconds to sign up as it’ll also let you use other Newsgator tools like Feedstation.

Apart from this full range of features, the real update in version 2.1 is that Feeddemon has finally integrated the social networking aspect. You can now configure your default blog publisher and send interesting posts to your blog or to delicious and Digg.

We enjoyed using Feeddemon and were excited by all the freedom it gave users in managing their RSS feeds. The profusion of options in the interface can confuse first time users and we’ve suffered occasional lags when updating feeds, yet that’s quite common with any RSS reader. Feeddemon is a top choice external RSS reader which any news junkie will quickly get addicted to. If you’re not so hooked on feeds, it might be too much to handle though.

Download FeedDemon 2.6 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to share more than just words over your IM - in other words, give your fingers a rest and let your voice do the talking?

Yakkle goes beyond instant messaging allowing you to use your PC to transmit your voice to friends and share your desktop with them all from within a single application. In this way, it allows you to send them text messages but also speak with them at the same time with excellent sound quality. In addition though, you can share your desktop really easily such as through photos and documents. You can even let other people control your mouse and desktop from their PC which makes it an excellent tool for diagnosing technical problems, viruses or just lending a helping had to a non-tech savvy friend. One way this application could be used productively is for teaching. A teacher is able to see exactly what the learner is doing and if necessary, make corrections or issue instructions in real time. The same goes for contract negotiations or any other kind of long distance collaboration.

This is an excellent IM/desktop sharing tool although it can work a little slowly and the interface could do with a facelift.

Download Yakkle 0.5.5.1774 Beta in Softonic

The big news at the end of Steve Jobs’ Keynote at the WWDC, was the release of Safari 3 for both Mac and Windows. Observers were quick to note that Apple’s aim was to stake its claim to a bigger share in the browser market. As Steve Jobs also pointed out, Safari will be the iPhone’s browser, so offering it for Windows feels like a natural step to take. Overall, a number of improvements were made to this latest version of Safari. However, it’s fair to point out that this is still a Beta and a number of issues can still arise until the official release. Let’s take a look at Safari 3 Beta.

Apple hails Safari has the fastest browser, both in terms of launch time and html and JavaScript performance. We did find however that it took much more time to load under XP than Vista. The classic dark grey interface will be immediately recognizable to users, but its Mac-ishness might slightly put off new users. It certainly stands out from the rest of your applications. We really liked the new tab functions, and how they can be smoothly dragged around your interface. You can also drag a tab out to view it as a separate window, or move tabs from window to window.

By clicking on the RSS tag in the URL bar, you can get a view of all the posts in a feed, which you can present chronologically and get a detailed or a title view. We were also impressed with the “Inline Find” function. Click CTRL+F to reveal the find bar under your bookmarks bar. Once you type a word in the find bar, the whole page will immediately turn a shade of grey except for the word itself. If there is more than one iteration of the word, you can scroll through them thanks to the arrow buttons on the find bar.

Safari claims to be one of the safest browsers around and supports SSL 2 and 3 and TLS as well as the basic set of proxy protocols like HTTPS or streaming proxy (RTSP). We found the name of one of the security features, “Safe Browsing”, misleading. Instead of actually upping the security of your Safari it instead limits the features of the browser by disabling history, autofill or searches. Perhaps it should have been called "Private Browsing" instead. Another element that left us frustrated was the search bar. It effectively works with Yahoo and Google but as of now doesn’t let you add any more search engines.

We experienced a number of crashes while testing Safari, particularly on XP, and noted that the browser does use up a significant amount of memory at start-up, around 60 MB to be exact. Also, we found that some popular pages (like Google or Digg!) do not render properly with Safari; a case of not being totally standards compliant perhaps? While it’s great to finally open up Safari to the PC crowd, the unstability of the browser makes you wonder if it wasn’t rushed out for the WWDC. Some interesting features, but on the whole, Safari is no match for the fully armed Firefox on PC yet.

Download Safari 3.1 in Softonic

The Google Desktop application allows users to search their desktop content quickly and easily. Praised for its ingenuity and criticised for its intrusiveness, Google Desktop brings the power of Google’s search engine technology to your PC.

After installing the application, you’ll have to give it some time to index the files on your PC, including emails, photos, chats, contacts and calendar events. Google Desktop will index the first 10,000 words in the first 100,000 documents on your PC. The application supports the majority of file types and you can decide which ones to index, or omit protected files, using the preferences menu.

In its latest version, which is compatible with Windows Vista, Google Desktop has been given a new transparent look, providing a pretty sleek feel to your PC. Your search results will appear in your browser (in the familiar Google web page format) and a small preview button allows you to view results without actually clicking on the corresponding link. Results are as precise as we’ve come to expect from Google searches, however we were slightly disappointed to learn that the application doesn’t offer logical 'OR' support or substring search. On another note, Google Desktop is not limited to your PC as you can cross index content from multiple machines and share some panel items with your friends.

Google Desktop is not only about search, though. Joining a marketplace already occupied by Apple’s Dashboard Widgets and Yahoo! Widgets, Google Desktop can be fitted with any number of little gadgets. These mini apps perform all kinds of functions, from fetching your mail to jotting down notes or checking up on your local weather. There are hundreds of gadgets to choose from to customize your desktop bar. Our personal favorites are: Google Translate, the Skype plug-in to check your credit and call your contacts, “Am I Blocked” to find out who’s blocked you on IM, Workspace to quickly move between tasks, System Stats to monitor your PC and Games, a selection of Flash games like Tetris and Moonlander.

When running, we found Google Desktop to use up around 30 MBs, but that can quickly increase if you add more gadgets to it. The application is also constantly re-indexing your files to incorporate your modifications and new elements. However you should rarely feel your PC slowing due to indexing.

When you’re dealing with Google, however, you know the main criticism will be about security. Because Google Desktop indexes all your documents, you’re basically opening up your PC and all your personal files to the Moutain View company. What some users fear is that Google could one day take advantage of that access or that a bug in the application would allow malicious users to infiltrate your PC and steal information.

While the intrusiveness of Google Desktop will give some users pause for thought on installing the app, Google Desktop is highly effective and simple to use. The gadgets you can add to its sidebar may not all be essential, but many of them are quite fun and original and let’s face it, the sidebar looks good. Give it a go if you think your PC is a mess and you need quick access to anything.

Download Google Desktop 5.7.802.22438 in Softonic