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 ALShow codecs included movie player lets your watch all your videos, movies, and DVDs without searching for video codecs or audio codecs. From AVI to XviD, playing movies is first-click easy with codecs for all popular video, audio, and movie formats. ALShow also recognizes codecs that you do not have and automatically helps instantly install the right codecs. ALShow loads movies fast and plays movies smoothly.

No more video playback stuttering. Audio, video, and screen captures let you save portions of movies to share with friends. You can also import them to your favorite audio or video editor. Video looping lets you repeat parts of a movie. Captions and subtitles are supported for monitor and TV output. The ESC key hides ALShow when you are supposed to do homework. Click the tray icon to resume playing your DVD movie or video.

Download ALShow 1.62 Beta in Softonic

OpenOffice 3.0 is already here, at least in beta version. The most popular alternative to the almighty Microsoft suite has released its first public beta to allow users to provide feedback and help fine-tune the final product. So here's our two cents.

First, though the OpenOffice site displays a warning about possible instability issues in this beta, fear them not. The complete suite was perfectly stable during our tests, with all its applications running as smoothly as expected. This new OpenOffice is compatible with all file formats from Microsoft Office, including the latest docx, xlsx, pptx and so on from Office 2008.

All OpenOffice tools, along with your more recent documents, are easily accessible from a launcher ("Start Centre") with freshly designed icons, which is one of the main new features in this version. The launcher includes a handy template manager as well, though it's quite empty at the moment.

The suite's applications met our expectations in every aspect: they're easy to use (especially if you're used to working with Microsoft's suite) and feature all the necessary tools to create complete documents, spreadsheets, presentations and databases. I particularly liked the wizard-style interface in Impress (the "Power-Point" app) which enables you to create presentations in no time.

OpenOffice 3.0 left a very good taste in our mouths. In spite of being labeled as Beta, the whole suite works perfectly fine and enables you to enjoy all of its new features right now.

Download OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta 2 in Softonic

Sandboxie is an interesting alternative to traditional anti-virus/anti-spyware software. According to the developers, when you run a program on your computer, data flows from the hard disk to the program via read operations. The data is then processed and displayed, and finally flows back from the program to the hard disk via write operations. For example, if you run the Freecell program to play a game, it starts by reading the previously recorded statistics, displaying and altering them as you play the game, and finally writing them back to disk for future reference.

Sandboxie changes the rules such that write operations do not make it back to your hard disk. The key is the transient nature of the sandbox which makes it easy to get rid of everything in it. If you were to throw away the sandbox, by deleting everything in it, the sandboxed statistics would be gone for good, as if they had never been there in the first place. You maye in fact prefer to run your Web browser inside the sandbox most of the time. This way any incoming, unsolicited software (spyware, malware and the like) that you download, will be trapped in the sandbox. Changes made to your list of Favorites or Bookmarks, hijacking of your preferred start page, new and unwanted icons on your desktop - all these, and more, are trapped in and bound to the sandbox.

This is a very original solution to the perennial problems caused by adware, spyware and malware. However, it's dubious as to whether it can deal with the continual sophistication of such programs.

Download Sandboxie 3.30 in Softonic

Rainlendar is a lightweight and customizable calendar for your desktop.

When I first launched Rainlendar I was impressed by the widget-like appearance. Widget are small, handy gadgets that can pop up on your screen to show you all types of information, from weather forecasts, to stock charts or the time and date. They are usually small, attractive and very discreetly fit on your desktop. Rainlendar’s elements similarly have that cloud-like feel. The notes, events and calendar windows float around on your desktop and can be moved about your screen and disappear or reappear in a touch.

Rainlendar stands out from classic calendar programs thanks to a highly customizable interface and the possibility to quickly and effortlessly jot down notes and important events. Although it only comes with two different skins, the program offers a link to www.customize.org, where you should find the style which suits your tastes. But Rainlendar doesn’t stop there. You can set up hotkeys to manage Rainlendar at the push of a key and, thanks to various plug-ins present in the program, integrate Rainlendar directly to other utilities like Outlook and iCalendar. Rainlendar is always within reach as a tray icon on your desktop and bringing it up just takes a click of your mouse.

Unfortunately Rainlendar’s real originality is also its weakness. The program offers a wide range of skins but adding these to the program is far from straightforward. You have to drag your downloaded skin into the Skins folder for the Rainlendar program file and then browse to the new skin from the ‘Edit Skin’ option in Rainlendar’s drop down menu.

If you like to keep your calendar on your PC, but find the one offered by Windows too dull, Rainlendar is a good alternative. You’ll enjoy setting your own style and the way it discreetly fits onto your desktop.

Download Rainlendar 2.4 in Softonic

Onlineeye optimizes PC Internet performance. The real-time Graphic Analyzer separately measures download and upload speed/time. A zoomable and printable graph shows 24 hours of speed history, allowing you to see what Internet activity took place when you were away from the computer. The active taskbar icon graphs the current speed. The networkmonitor shows every internetactivity of your DSL connection and lets you unmask spyware.

Download Onlineeye Pro 2.2.1 in Softonic

CurrPorts displays the list of all currently opened TCP/IP and UDP ports on your local computer. For each port in the list, information about the process that opened the port is also displayed, including the process name, full path of the process, version information of the process (product name, file description, and so on), the time that the process was created, and the user that created it.

In addition, CurrPorts allows you to close unwanted TCP connections, kill the process that opened the ports, and save the TCP/UDP ports information to HTML file , XML file, or to tab-delimited text file. CurrPorts also automatically mark with pink color suspicious TCP/UDP ports owned by unidentified applications (Applications without version information and icons).

Download CurrPorts 1.48 in Softonic

If you want to access your favorite programs as quickly as possible, you may find Microsoft Speed Launcher interesting.

Microsoft Speed Launcher is an application launcher from which you can access and run your most frequently used programs. Not only does it work with software, but it can also open web pages. Plus the program comes with a few handy shortcuts bundled as an example.

Microsoft Speed Launcher stays on your desktop at all times for quicker access, but being a semi-transparent icon on the bottom right corner it won't disturb you. You can always reduce the size of the icon or hide it completely (in which case you'll have to use a keyboard shortcut to open the launcher).

You can easily customize Microsoft Speed Launcher with your favorite programs, either using the built-in shortcut manager or simply dragging and dropping the executable file on the launcher's icon.

Microsoft Speed Launcher works fine as an app launcher, but it's not certainly the handiest I've seen. I miss having more configuration options plus a more comfy way to access shortcuts. Then again, the program is still under development, so hopefully it'll be improved in future versions.

Microsoft Speed Launcher lets you quickly access applications and websites from a desktop customizable menu.

Download Microsoft Speed Launch 1.0.811.0 in Softonic

Many Windows users stay with the standard applications included in the operating system for their most common tasks, like managing files with the integrated File Explorer. However, there are alternative file managers that can also help you to do the job – and sometimes even better than Windows Explorer! Total Commander is one of them.

First of all, be warned that Total Commander is intended for medium to advanced users, and especially for those who like working mainly via keyboard shortcuts. It's not that Total Commander can't be used with your mouse; it's just that it's optimized to be keyboard-controlled.

Total Commander doesn't have what we could describe as an eye-catching design. In fact, it looks pretty dull. It does, however, support three possible views (Full, Brief and Tree) and also uses a double-pane interface, which seem to be quite a common characteristic among other alternative file managers.

This double pane allows you to perform file management tasks like moving and copying in a much more comfortable way. But Total Commander has other aces up its sleeve. It includes extra integrated applications like an FTP client, a ZIP viewer, a renaming tool, a disk space analyzer and a file synchronizer. Another great tool I found to be especially interesting is one that allows you to control, manage and edit file associations so they're not suddenly messed up by a program that you just installed.

Like we said before, Total Commander is intended to be used mainly with your keyboard. This is why it offers handy shortcuts for common tasks like viewing, editing, copying, moving or deleting files. But if you find it hard to abandon your mouse, don't worry: you can use the icons on the program's toolbar as shortcuts for Notepad, Wordpad and the Control Panel, and also add your own shortcuts to your favorite applications via the Configuration > Button bar menu. In fact, Total Commander has such an exhaustive configuration menu that you'll be able to tweak every single detail of the program.

In all, Total Commander is an excellent application that could almost be described as a professional file manager for the advanced user. If you prefer more simple apps then you’d better stick to Windows Explorer.

Download Total Commander 7.04a in Softonic

Some years ago ICQ was one of the most popular IM applications among Internet users. But when Microsoft launched MSN Messenger, many of these users forgot about their original IM client and joined a network that was growing very quickly. In the meantime, ICQ continued to be upgraded until finally reaching version 6, which sets a new milestone in the history of this classic piece of software.

To begin with, the installation process is fast and easy, the only downside being the fact that you must set ICQ Search as your web browser's default search engine, as there's no way of getting around this option.

This new ICQ boasts a fresh-looking interface which has been completely redesigned. Also, you can customize it with skins, although you'll have to download them because there's not a single skin included in the program. It does include, however, a very complete personal profile which you can fill in with all your information, including name, location, interests, spoken languages and a personal avatar that ICQ oddly refers to as "devil".

Generally speaking, ICQ 6 offers all the functions that we find in other IM applications, namely instant written messages, voice calls and video calls. All of these are complemented with a very nice set of animated smilies and the so called "Tzers" which are the equivalent to Messenger's "Winks". Chat sessions can be grouped together under the same window, which prevents your taskbar getting cluttered. ICQ allows you to start text conversations right from the contact list using the Quick message feature. There's also the option to send SMS messages to your contacts, but this is not available in all countries yet.

This new version promises to give you complete control over configuration settings. However, we must admit that we had some trouble in finding them, until we happened to click on the "Main" button on the interface. The configuration options are quite complete indeed, allowing you to change every single detail regarding sounds, notifications, privacy and security, message history, appearance and the program's general behaviour.

In all, ICQ seems to have developed a new version with a fresh redesign only to measure up to its main competitors but without really offering any new functions. Again, choosing ICQ (or any other IM app) ends up being just a question of which IM your friends use.

Download ICQ 6.0.0.6063 in Softonic

Following the release of new versions of both Internet Explorer and Firefox, the infamous 'browser wars' are flaring up again. Despite both Firefox 1.5 and the Beta of IE7 making significant strides, it would be be foolish to think this was a two-horse race. While gaining a good reputation with geeks and power users, Opera has long been a bit-part player among the big boys of the browser world. However, if this preview release is anything to go by, the Norwegian-built browser could finally be ready to punch with the heavyweights.

Opera has been pioneering new ways of browsing the web for some time. It has had tabbed browsing since the days before tabbed browsing was cool and developed the innovative 'mouse gestures' control system, where you navigate through the web just by holding the mouse button and flicking your wrist. The developers even dabbled with a multi-pane interface for viewing several pages within one interface.

The good news is that Opera has lost none of its appetite for innovation, and version 9 is packed with new goodies that will have the programmers at Mozilla and Microsoft choking on their doughnuts. For starters the app runs much quicker than the previous release, making it arguably the quickest browser around (except perhaps for Safari) at rendering pages. Incredibly, despite this boost in performance, the program appears to use less memory than version 8.5, making it far less draining on system resources than Firefox and IE.

In terms of features Opera is the gift that keeps on giving. New to the program comes OSX Tiger-style 'widgets', allowing you to check news, convert currency, view the weather and so on through a series of draggable pop-ups which anchor themselves in front of the browser. Although there aren’t many widgets to choose from at present, this is sure to change once the tech-minded Opera fans start developing more.

Another great addition to Opera 9 is BitTorrent support, allowing you to download torrents directly within the browser – a feature that amazingly no one had thought of before. This system works very smoothly, which makes us wonder why RSS feed reading support in Opera is still so poor.

Among the other new treats within the program is a nifty new search feature which lets you add any search engine to the search bar in the main toolbar. This means you can instantly access searches within your favorite online destinations (Softonic, for instance).

Tabbed browsing remains, although some users may be annoyed to discover that Opera has added close tab buttons to the tabs themselves rather than as a separate button. Having said this, the new web page preview thumbnails that appear when you rollover a tab are a real masterstroke. Mouse gestures are still there too, along with the addition of Total Recall-style voice commands – another example of how cutting-edge this browser is.

Opera's developers have been keen to ramp up security features too, and although they aren't highly original, the new content blocking and pop-up blocking functions serve their purpose effectively. What's more, it's refreshing to see a browser that embraces the latest web standards so freely, with the latest release boasting support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 tags.

The browser is remarkably stable and is far better behaved than Internet Explorer 7. Combined with its speed, innovative features and standards support, Opera is undoubtedly web software's best-kept secret, and the final release may prove to be even better than Firefox. Don't say anything though, or everyone will want it.

Download Opera 9.52 in Softonic

Making your own icons is a cool way to add a touch of class to your desktop without adding any widgets or changing the theme.

Easy Picture2Icon allows you to create snappy and customised Windows icons based on your favourite images and designs. So for example, if you have a favourite photo, Easy Picture2Icon can simply process it and turn it instantly into an icon you can use on your desktop. It doesn't accept all file types but at the moment, Easy Picture2Icon is able to convert digital pictures into BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPG and PNG files to Windows icons (ICO).

However, that's as far as it goes because Easy Picture2Icon then allows you to use your favourite graphical editor to retouch and add your own special effects to icons. Easy Picture2Icon does however allow you to make transparent icons and you can choose which color to make transparent.

Easy Picture2Icon is a great way to get started creating your own icons although it's a shame it doesn't come bundled with a more comprehensive editor.

Download Easy Picture2Icon 2.5 in Softonic

Pitaschio is a free, easy application that makes it more convenient to use Microsoft Windows. This tool includes a large number of useful functions to tweak the way windows behave, disable certain keys and collect statistics about the usage of keyboard and mouse.

Take a look at what Pitaschio can do for you:

• Stick window to other windows when moving and resizing
• Restrict window position to inside of the screen
• Minimize window to system tray
• Use small icons in the desktop
• Disable Windows key, Insert key, Alt key etc.
• Lock mouse or keyboard while you are cleaning keyboard or mouse
• Take statistics about mouse and keyboard
• Calculate Moon's age

Download Pitaschio 2.24 in Softonic

Some months ago I learnt about Greasemonkey, a Firefox extension that enables you to customize the appearance and behaviour of certain web pages by means of some Javascript snippets. But that coding bit somehow kept me away from testing it. You know, I'm a lazy user and I want software apps to do all the work by themselves.

Now I've found this great extension that features the best Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail. You don't even need to have Greasemonkey itself installed. Better Gmail is the only thing you need to add new functionalities to your Gmail inbox, customize its appearance and improve your productivity.

Among other things, you'll be able to see previews of message content, identify attachments with a file type icon, save searches, add skins to Gmail's interface and even integrate Google Reader under the Gmail page.

Unfortunately I had problems with some of the scripts (label coloring wouldn't work for me) but in general terms this makes a great extension for Gmail fans.

If you think Gmail is great, install this Firefox extension and make it even better with new functionalities and an improved look.

Download Better Gmail 2.0.6 in Softonic

Registry errors are one of the main reasons for the slow operation of your PC or frequent crashes. Baku can ensure that if your registry does have malicious entries, they can be removed safely. Baku also deletes empty folders, 'History' folder contents, 'Recent documents' folder contents, 'Temp' folder contents and temporary internet files. It can also search Windows log files, shortcuts to missing files and folders and user specified file types. The registry scan itself aims to remove unused and obsolete keys, including ActiveX, Application Paths, Fonts, Help files, Icon files and pesky uninstallers.

Like all such programs, it backs up your registry in case of any wrongful changes although I found that this wasn't exactly easy to restore. Probably the most useful function is the registry compacting facility which does seem to make a notable difference to the running speed of your PC. The developers claim the program uniquely works by recreating each registry hive "from scratch", thus removing any slack space that may be left from previously modified or deleted keys. Note that this function does NOT change the contents of the registry in any way, nor does it physically defrag the registry files on the drive. Be warned though that it takes a little longer than programs such as CCleaner and you'll have to wait more than few minutes for the registry backup to be made.

Download Baku 3.6.3.31921 in Softonic

ScribeFire (previously Performancing for Firefox) is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.

Just hit F8 or click the little pencil icon at the bottom right to bring up the blog editor and easily post to your Wordpress, MovableType or Blogger blogs. You can also drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.

ScribeFire also offers Technocrati support and Delicious integration. It also supports trackbacks and creating drafts.

Download ScribeFire 2.3.1 in Softonic

There are great sites on the Internet to watch videos, but most of them don't allow you to directly download those clips to your PC. A good option is having this extension installed on Firefox, enabling you to download embedded video files from a great variety of video sites all over the Internet.

Although it gave us some error messages (it wasn't able to find anything on a Youtube video page) Fast Video Dowloader is still a convenient tool to download embedded clips. It sits unobtrusively on Firefox's statusbar and saves video files in several formats, depending on which website you're downloading from.

Download Fast Video Download Firefox Extension 1.6.1 in Softonic

Simple Mail is a Firefox extension that can turn your favorite web browser into a basic, yet fully functional email client.

Once installed, you can configure Simple Mail with your email account details and manage your mailbox from just another tab in Firefox. The extension works with POP3, SMTP and IMAP email accounts – no webmail support here, but hey, simply open another tab and browse to your webmail page. Also, you can set up as many simultaneous accounts as you want.

Simply Mail behaves just like any regular email client: you'll be able to check your messages, reply to them, see any attached files and of course send new messages from a full featured rich text editor. The program also includes some nice options such as an address book or the possibility to download just message headers. Just bear in mind that this is meant to be a simple, lightweight client so there won't be extra features like signatures or spam filters.

If you only need a basic, simple-to-use email client for your POP3 email account, then Simply Mail can be a perfect solution, as long as you use Firefox as your web browser.

Download Simple Mail 2.69 in Softonic

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

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

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

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

Download Launchy 2.1.2 in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to align all the Windows you have open on your desktop Mac OS style?

If so, and this should be standard with Windows in my opinion, allSnap Portable is a small system tray app that makes all top level windows automatically align like they do in programs such as Winamp or Photoshop. Simply double click on the allSnap Portable system tray icon or right click on it and your windows will snap into line.

Once allSnap Portable is up and running, all windows will snap into each other and the desktop while you are re-moving and re-sizing. Alternatively, you can hold down ALT while sizing and moving windows to toggle allSnap Portable on and off if the snapping becomes a bit too annoying (which it can do if you don't particularly want your Windows). You can access the allSnap Portable program settings by clicking on the system tray icon as well.

allSnap Portable is a nice little windows organisation tool that rips of Mac OS a little bit but that's no bad thing in my book.

Download allSnap Portable 1.41 Beta in Softonic