Tor is one of the most widely used anonymous surfing proxy servers used on the web and as the name suggests, OperaTor is designed for the specific needs of the Opera browser.

OperaTor is a portable software bundle which allows you to browse the web anonymously and actually combines Opera, Tor and Polipo. The developers assure that no privacy data is stored on the computer that you plug your OperaTor pendrive into. You'll experience no difference in browsing other than every HTTP request will be conducted from an anonymous IP - great if you want to hide surfing habits or prevent yourself being tracked.

The application is pretty much a plug-and-play design although note that the only protocols which OperaTor anonymizes are HTTP and HTTPS. This means that it's wise to turn off other Opera features such as Java, JavaScript and other integrated elements. In addition, some sites simply won't accept anonymous surfing via Tor. This is obviously a real pain if you want a to visit a Java enabled website and something that should definitely be fixed in future releases.

If you use Opera regularly but want to ensure your privacy then OperaTor is a quick, easy and portable solution.

Download OperaTor 3.2 in Softonic

So you’ve taken the leap and installed the versatile internet browser, Firefox, but are you ready to trade in your Outlook Express for Mozilla’s open source mail application? Thunderbird is Mozilla’s award winning and free solution to manage your mail more efficiently.

Thunderbird woos users thanks to its flurry of options and the benefits of an open source application. Automatic updates ensure that you have the latest version of Thunderbird, preventing any security threats and offering you new features as soon as they’re available.

The biggest worry for users is switching from one mail application to another and losing precious information. With Thunderbird the switch is painless because you can quickly import your mail and contacts from your Outlook and set up your POP3 or IMAP account is a snap. To stay well organized we suggest taking advantage of Thunderbird’s filters. While this option is nothing new to the experienced Outlook user, you’ll have to admit that Thunderbird makes filters much more accessible, thanks to a simple selection of combinations and actions. Create distinct folders for your personal and professional mail and your newsletters and associate them with filters to avoid the hassle of constantly sorting your mail. Another feature we could single out is the integrated spell checker, a blessing if you send many emails and can’t be bothered to constantly verify your writing.

Although it isn’t visible right away, Thunderbird also features an RSS reader. Handy if you need to follow the news or specialist websites, this tool fits seamlessly into Thunderbird and you could almost forget that it is a mail application. Paste in the RSS feed from your favorite news source and the main messages window will reveal a list of all the latest feeds. The message pane is used as an integrated browser window to display the selected article.

Email is the number one source of viruses, that’s why Thunderbird offers various levels of message encryption, a spam filter and support for valid certificates. We found the spam filter particularly effective. Set it to “learn” mode, and it teaches itself to separate the valid email from the rest of the junk. You have to be mindful of this option though, because Thunderbird can become too restrictive and may decide on its own that one of your friends is suddenly persona non grata. Reviewing your junk folder every now and then should avoid you accidentally losing friends. Thunderbird also automatically turns off Javascript and by default does not load remote images, a good way to defuse the risk of viruses from dodgy emails.

Another known feature of the Mozilla line of products is customization. Just as with Firefox, Thunderbird can integrate a slew of extensions and add-ons to rev up your inbox. You can also add or remove icons from the actions pane, selecting the ones you use most frequently.

The one place where Thunderbird fails, and professionals will confirm this, is the failure to integrate Microsoft Exchange support. An essential tool in any work environment, the collaborative messaging software is sorely missed in Thunderbird and seriously limits its usefulness in offices. Furthermore, we can question why Mozilla included an RSS reader yet failed to incorporate a calendar, standard in most mail applications nowadays.

While the lack of proper business minded features will limit Thunderbird’s point in the workplace, the simplicity, customizability and security make it a number one choice for home users. If you’re worried about your safety on the Internet or are just looking for a more efficient way of handling your mail, Thunderbird is probably the best solution out there.

Download Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 in Softonic

NoScript provides extra protection for your Mozilla/Firefox or Flock browser: this extension allows JavaScript and Java execution only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site).

This whitelist based pre-emptive script blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even not known yet!) with no loss of functionality.

You can enable JavaScript/Java execution for sites you trust with a simple left-click on the NoScript status bar icon (look at the picture), or using the contextual menu, for easier operation in popup statusbar-less windows.

Download NoScript Extension 1.8.1 in Softonic

It's not easy to get excited about the look of a PHP environment and editor but PHP Designer puts in more effort than most to create a stylish and highly usable one.

PHP Designer is a complete PHP IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and PHP editor that caters for just about all your PHP coding needs but it also applies itself to HTML, CSS and JavaScript development. The main aim of PHP Designer is to boost your productivity and make your life easier. However, because of this, it's aimed more at beginners than professional editors, although there's enough there to keep the latter interested too.

Probably the main bonus of PHP Designer is the intelligent syntax highlighting which spots errors as you type, meaning less head scratching at the end of a long coding session. This applies not just to PHP but to other languages as well. Of course, PHP Designer also comes with a debugger which can test scripts for errors and suggests possible solutions although as with all debuggers, the success rate can be hit and miss according to most users.

If you're looking for a good looking PHP editor that supports plenty of other languages too, then PHP Designer may well make your life a lot easier.

Download PHP Designer 2008 6.1 in Softonic

AllWebMenus is a DHMTL menu/Javascript menu builder for web navigation that requires absolutely no DHTML or Javascript experience. It creates any cross-browser, pop-up or drop-down web menu that works alike in all browsers supporting DHTML held by all popular platforms (PC, MAC, Unix).

DHTML/JavaScript menus are designed with a tree-like approach. Users can tailor their menus by using the Properties Pane or by choosing from a series of predefined themes from the Theme Gallery. The menu can be either vertical or horizontal (pop-up or drop-down menu), it can be movable, stay visible while scrolling, contain static or animated images, borders, colors, and much more. Once everything is set, you can use the Link Menu to Web Page command to link the menu to your Web page in a fast and easy manner.

AllWebMenus offers:

• New ready-to-use Themes
• Optimized Style Editor
• Creation and saving of customized Themes
• Free Dreamweaver extension and NetObjects Fusion component
• Import FrontPage Navigation Structures
• Support for .JPG, .GIF and .PNG image files.
• UNDO/REDO function
• Right-to-Left language support (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.)
• Non-English font support
• Optimized menu building process with separate javascripts for different browsers
• Use menus over flash objects, form elements, applets and iframes
• Use multiple menus in the same page
• Create popup, hidden, horizontal and vertical menus
• Free Sitemap generator based on the menu structure
• Specify optional Javascript Commands

Download AllWebMenus Pro 5.1.742 in Softonic

If you ever need to take a screenshot of a whole website, you'll face a common problem: how do you capture the complete webpage, from top to bottom?

The answer is SiteShoter, a really simple tool that's been specifically designed to capture websites. It's a standalone app – not a web browser plug-in – that can take screenshots from a given webpage just by entering its URL in SiteShoter's interface.

The program captures the viewable area in any resolution you set, but its most interesting feature by far is the ability to capture the whole website, from top to bottom, scrolling down the page on its own a producing an image in JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF or PNG.

SiteShoter also includes some basic configuration tools with which you can set the image quality and size and also opt to disable certain web elements such as Javascript or Flash.

Capturing complete websites is no longer a pain thanks to SiteShoter, a simple tool that can grab the whole webpage from top to bottom.

Download SiteShoter 1.18 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

The threat of website design theft is of significant concern to many website developers. Whilst copyright laws help to protect a work, they are often difficult to enforce, particularly when the dispute involves individuals in different countries. PageLock provides added physical protection by acting as a deterrent for possible offenders.

PageLock encodes HTML (the code used to design webpages) in a way that makes it difficult to make unauthorised copies whilst still allowing the resulting webpage to be displayed in a JavaScript compatible web browser without disruption to the webpage's design. PageLock also provides options for preventing text from being selected or the right mouse button being clicked in the body of the webpage.

As is the case with any copy protection technology, it is impossible to be absolutely certain that the encoding used won't be cracked. The same applies to webpages protected by PageLock. When you encode your webpages using the program, you can be assured that your page is encoded in a way that makes it more difficult for others to copy. The protection is intended to act as a deterrent for opportunistic copying of your site's design.

Download PageLock 7.2.1 in Softonic

Wimpy Player is a skinnable jukebox for your web site that automatically lists and plays an entire directory full of MP3 files. Wimpy MP3 Player allows you to both generate a PodCast feed and allows you to play podcast directly from your web site. Installation is simple, just upload Wimpy. No external program such as Quicktime, Windows Media or Real are required. You can run Wimply MP3 Player off a JavaScript or XML playlist or a MySQL database.

Download Wimpy MP3 Player 6.0.1 in Softonic

So you’ve made the leap and installed the versatile internet browser, Firefox, but are you ready to trade in your Outlook Express for Mozilla’s open source mail application? Thunderbird is Mozilla’s award winning and free solution to manage your mail more efficiently.

Thunderbird woos users thanks to its flurry of options and the benefits of an open source application. Automatic updates ensure that you have the latest version of Thunderbird, preventing any security threats and offering you new features as soon as they’re available.

The biggest worry for users is switching from one mail application to another and losing precious information. With Thunderbird the switch is painless because you can quickly import your mail and contacts from your Outlook and set up your POP3 or IMAP account is a snap. To stay well organized we suggest that you take advantage of Thunderbird’s filters. While this option is nothing new to the experienced Outlook user, you’ll come to see that Thunderbird makes filters much more accessible, thanks to a simple selection of combinations and actions. Create distinct folders for your personal and professional mail and your newsletters and associate them with filters to avoid the hassle of constantly sorting your mail. Another feature we could single out is the integrated spell checker, a blessing if you send many emails and can’t be bothered to constantly verify your writing.

Although it isn’t visible right away, Thunderbird also features an RSS reader. Handy if you need to follow the news or specialist websites, this tool fits seamlessly into Thunderbird and you could almost forget that it is a mail application. Paste in the RSS feed from your favorite news source and the main messages window will reveal a list of all the latest feeds. The message pane is used as an integrated browser window to display the selected article.

Email is the number one source of viruses, that’s why Thunderbird offers various levels of message encryption, a spam filter and support for valid certificates. We found the spam filter particularly effective. Set it to “learn” mode, and it teaches itself to separate the valid email from the rest of the junk. You have to be mindful of this option though, because Thunderbird can become too restrictive and may decide on its own that one of your friends is suddenly persona non grata. Reviewing your junk folder every now and then should avoid you accidentally losing friends. Thunderbird also automatically turns off Javascript and by default does not load remote images, a good way to defuse the risk of viruses from dodgy emails.

Another known feature of the Mozilla line of products is customization. Just as with Firefox, Thunderbird can integrate a slew of extensions and add-ons to rev up your inbox. You can also add or remove icons from the actions pane, selecting the ones you use most frequently.

The one place where Thunderbird fails, and professionals will confirm this, is the failure to integrate Microsoft Exchange support. An essential tool in any work environment, the collaborative messaging software is sorely missed in Thunderbird and seriously limits its usefulness in offices. Furthermore, we can question why Mozilla included an RSS reader yet failed to incorporate a calendar, standard in most mail applications nowadays.

While the lack of proper business minded features will limit Thunderbird’s point in the workplace, the simplicity, customizability and security make it a number one choice for home users. If you’re worried about your safety on the Internet or are just looking for a more efficient way of handling your mail, Thunderbird is probably the best solution out there.

Download Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 in Softonic

With Adobe Dreamweaver you get an intuitive yet powerful tool to design and put up your own websites. Dreamweaver is tailored both for beginners and more advanced users as it includes many tutorials and help and a solid collection of advanced features that designers will enjoy working with.

Organized in the classic Adobe style that you immediately recognize in any of the developer's programs, Dreamweaver gives you easy access to all your editing and designing tools. You can work with a full code or full design view, however most people will prefer to choose the split view, which is much more flexible to edit with.

You'll find Dreamweaver makes it easy to insert any sort of element, whether an image, a Flash file or a piece of audio. Elements can be moved around an adjusted until you are happy with the layout of your pages.

This latest version has improved the CSS capabilities in Dreamweaver with more templates, and a tool to manage your styles and move them to your own style sheets. The CSS code also comes with comments that explain how it works and how to use it, something that beginners and experienced users alike should appreciate.

I was a little disappointed that the interface only underwent slight cosmetic changes, but the biggest drawback of all to Dreamweaver in my opinion is still the price. Even though it's a powerful application, not everybody will be ready to pay $399 for it. You'll also have to make for sufficient disk space to accommodate the 1GB installer package.

Adobe Dreamweaver is a reference in terms of web designing, editing and creating and offers a lot of help and guidance.

Download Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 9.0 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

Simpedit could be taken as a simple Windows Notepad replacement, but it's really more than that. It's a complete coding editor with support for a handful of programming languages.

The program does keep the same simplicity as the Notepad, but only in appearance. When working with source code, you'll have a wide selection of tools at your fingertips. Besides the basic edition options (copy, paste, search, replace) you'll get special options for optimizing the management of HTML source code, working with online forms and more.

Simpedit makes coding more comfortable thanks to a highlighted cursor line and the use of a color code for different programming languages, although this one is not automatically applied and you have to select it from the Tools menu. As extra features, Simpedit has an "Autocorrection" option and can encrypt your code with the Twofish method.

Simpedit is a simple yet very handy source code editor with support for a wide selection of programming languages.

Download Simpedit 1.1b69 in Softonic

Create customizable DHTML popups for your website without the need to write a single line of javascript/DHTML code, using an intuitive interface and a range of templates. DHTML popups are the wave of the future for websites and content sites and Advanced DHTML Popup is the technology leader for DHTML popup design. Join the hundreds of web developers that have used Advanced DHTML Popup for their web design needs.

Download Advanced DHTML Popup 2.50 Lite in Softonic

EditPlus is an Internet-ready 32-bit Text editor, HTML editor and Programmer's editor for Windows. While it can serve as a good replacement for Notepad, it also offers many powerful features for web designers and programmers. Syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, Perl, C/C++, Java, JavaScript and VBScript is included.

There's a seamless Web browser for previewing HTML pages, and FTP commands for uploading local files to FTP server. Other features include HTML toolbar, user tools, line number, ruler, URL highlighting, auto-completion, cliptext, column selection, powerful search and replace, multiple undo/redo, spell checker, keyboard shortcuts, and more.

Download EditPlus 3.01.481 in Softonic

Creating menus can sometimes be far more complicated that it needs to be as any web designer will know.

However, there are shortcuts and applications that can help make it much less painless and SoThink DHTML menu is one of them. DHTMLMenu helps web designers create professional, dynamic drop-down menus - and the best thing of all is that it doesn't require a single line of JavaScript code. The resulting menu generated by Sothink DHTMLMenu is compatible with most major web browsers including Firefox and Internet Explorer. With this tool you can create some very impressive looking menus with lots of little add-ons by easily changing from the editor to how it will look online. For example, you can switch between standard mode and edit mode to view instantly what you've created. You can also display the editing item by border in edit mode as well as set the ruler to accurately measure the elements of your layout. To speed up your work, the program also allows you to define a number of keyboard shortcuts for the most common tasks as well as specify the exact position of the menu in a page by selecting an HTML page to preview the menu in it. Finally, if you are using a major web design package, then DHTMLMenu integrates seamlessly with most of them including Dreamweaver, FrontPage, and GoLive although you may have problems configuring it for use with the latter.

Take the pain out of menu creation for your website with this powerful program that will have you creating professional looking menus in no time whatever your web design experience.

Download Sothink DHTMLMenu 8.5 Build 80402 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

LopeEdit is a powerful programmer's editor and a replacement of Windows Notepad. It has tabs to select between open files, supports syntax highlighting of multiple programing languages (C/C++, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic, VBScript, HTML, ASP, JSP, SQL, Cobol, C#, CSS, Pascal, Perl, PHP), incorporates build-in hexadecimal editor, some util docking windows (File Browser, FTP Browser, Favorites, Projects Manager, Multiple Clipboards, Code Templates Manager, ASCII Table, MS-DOS console).

Download LopeEdit 5.4.1 in Softonic

Web Link Validator is a site manager and link checker that can help Webmasters automate the process of testing their sites for broken elements. This application finds broken links (including JavaScript and Flash windows), orphaned files, and slow-loading pages.

It can access HTTPS resources and password-protected pages, and works via a proxy server. Results are presented in a clear, easy-to-read layout and can be saved in HTML, TXT, RTF, CSV, or MS Excel format. A powerful system of filters enables in-depth research of occurring problems.

Download Web Link Validator 5.0.505 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