There are literally hundreds of utilities out there designed to download videos from the Net, mainly aimed at YouTube.

By it's name alone, DownUtube doesn't pretend to do anything else (although it does work with a few other sites too) but at least it does the job well. DownUtube allows you to download embedded videos and multimedia from Google Video, YouTube, Apple.com Movie Trailers and IMDB.

Like most good video downloaders, DownUtube features an integrated search facility to help you find videos on the various sites which means you don't even have to open a browser. It can also follow RSS feeds for your favourite users on YouTube. If you can't wait for your clip to download, then you can also play them because they download thanks to an integrated player called MPlayer. There are various bugs that need ironing out however - sometimes downloads will stop for no apprent reason even if your connection is fine and some videos can cause DownUtube to simply crash.

As a simple solution to your video downloading needs, DownUtube is a great search utility and downloader that eliminates the need for a browser.

Download DownUtube 3.0 Beta 3 in Softonic

Getting a video out has always been one of the best ways to while away an evening at home. However, these days few people choose to trudge down to the video store, preferring to download a movie, or plunder the near-infinite archives on popular video sharing sites such as YouTube and Google Video. Until recently it's been impossible to obtain movies from these sites without having to stream them online. However, Vdownloader is one of a number of programs changing that, allowing you to download these videos to your computer in AVI or MPEG format.

Essentially what this means is that you don't need to wait an age for popular videos to start streaming and can keep your favourites on your hard drive to watch at any time. This application does the job as simply as you could wish for. The executable makes a very small footprint and although the interface is very barren, it makes it easy to grab videos from YouTube, Google Video, Grinvi or DailyMotion very quickly. Basically all you need to do is copy and paste the link to the video into the box provided and hit ‘download'. Alternatively, you can browse the sites themselves by selecting the portal of your choice from the drop-down menu.

In one sense, the sparseness of the interface is an advantage, as it keeps things as clean and simple as possible. In another respect we were left wanting for extra features and options to help us peruse and download the videos we want. Practically the only setting you can tweak is the via the format dialog, allowing you to specify the format of the saved video (AVI or MPEG), the size of the video and the audio bitrate. We feel that the addition of a built-in video search tool or some video compression utilities would have lifted the program from being a good program to a great one.

Add to the fact that you can't download embedded movies like the ones you find on the front page of Google Video and you can't help feel frustrated that VDownloader doesn't do quite as much as it perhaps could. Having said this, the app is still in the early stages of development and the fact that it is so lightweight makes it prefect for those who want to grab video content with the minimum of fuss.

Download VDownloader 0.73 in Softonic

Download managers are one of the most important component of any PC users' tool kit since so many e-mails contains attachments that need to be downloaded on a daily basis.

That's not forgetting files and music and anything else that your hard drive accumulates during the day as you click away. Most people have a browser integrated download manager but sometimes, its nice to have a separate application to do the job in case your browser crashes and your downloads disappear with it.

Orbit Downloader is a fast, lightweight and easy-to-use free download manager which is usually based on P2P and multi-source downloading technology. This means that downloading with Orbit Downloader is usually super fast. Orbit Downloader supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS and RTSP protocols although its developers claim that it can increase speeds by up to 500% are a bit far fetched. However, you may experience increases in speed of up to two or even three times as much using Orbit Downloader depending on the file and host.

What's also impressive is that Orbit Downloader is super lightweight occupying a very minuscule amount of RAM which is important if you've got multiple downloads running at once. Orbit Downloader has also got a handy Flash capture tool which allows you to save Flash video files from YouTube and DailyMotion etc without the need to use a separate video downloader.

Fast, easy to use and very lightweight, Orbit Downloader is a competitive alternative to any browser-integrated download manager.

Download Orbit Downloader 2.7.5 in Softonic

To extract and compress your files, 7-Zip is a perfectly viable alternative to the better known WinZip or WinRAR. The application works exactly like its main competitors yet manages to mix in WinZip’s selection of tools with WinRAR’s versatility.

The 7-Zip interface is similar to that of its competitors, with a main file manager and a command line to search and select files to extract or compress. The control panel is comprised of the essential buttons like extract, add and test, but also features copy, move and delete functions to allow you to manage your files. 7-Zip extracts and compresses files as fast as WinZip and WinRAR and handles the main archive formats like ZIP, TAR, RAR and ISO.

The archiving process is where 7-Zip differs most from its rivals. Where WinZip only lets you compress to ZIP and WinRAR to RAR or ZIP, 7zip offers you up to 5 different archive formats to choose from. The application lets you choose the update mode, depending on whether you want to add and replace files, refresh the archive or just synchronize files. If you don’t want somebody opening up your archive without your permission, you can set a password to protect your archive.We particularly liked the split tool because it can cut up your archive into equal parts which fit on a floppy, CD or DVD, handy if you need to distribute a particularly large archive.

Security is where 7-Zip lags behind its main rivals. There is no option to scan archives for viruses and you can’t repair damaged or corrupted files. While you can set a password to protect your archive, you can’t choose between different levels of encryption.

7-Zip might not be as secure as WinZip or WinRAR but it is definitely more versatile. It works with more archive formats and offers many useful tools like update mode or splitting. If you feel too limited by WinZip and if you don’t like WinRAR we suggest giving 7-Zip a try and taking advantage of all its possibilities.

Download 7-Zip 4.60 in Softonic

If you want to download and convert videos from YouTube without having to spend ages doing so, look no further than this no-nonsense software. YouTube Catcher allows you to do everything (i.e. the downloading and conversion) from within the same window. All you need to do is input the link to the video and select the format you want to convert to and YouTube Catcher does the business for you - at a very quick pace to boot.

Rather handily, the program can also be used as a standalone file converter, letting you take a FLV file and transform it into a different format using a similar process. The program also dishes up a bevy of useful options, such as the ability to define the quality and resolution of the video, audio channels, codecs used and more. All in all, YouTube Catcher is a brilliant tool for quickly grabbing cool movies from the popular site.

Download YouTube Catcher 1.0.252 in Softonic

Are you forever forgetting appointments, birthdays, things to do, to walk the dog, your dentists appointments, exams, etc.?

Well, you'll know that using post-it notes is often a very disorganized affair - they get torn, lost and, before long, your desk looks like a sea of yellow sticky paper. PNotes basically allows you to write virtual post-it notes on your desktop rather than plastering them around your working environment.

PNotes is a beautifully designed and presented program which gives you an authentic sticky note feel. PNotes not only act as a visual reminder but can also be set to alert you when an appointment is near, at a time you configure.

Another really useful feature of PNotes is the ability to join groups by choice, which allows you to create, modify, delete and relocate groups by simple clicking or dragging-and-drop. You can change the group for each note written simply by dragging it to the group of your choice. Whatsmore, you can even customise the look with some pretty cool skins and even create your own with PNSkinCreator (although this has to be installed separately) so sticky yellow post it notes will never look the same again.

PNotes has recently been updated to add a much needed search and replace tool which helps you find those notes that have expired or you'd like to change using keywords. You can set the notes to appear randomly in a different colors each time you post them and you can also select whether you want your most recently created post it note to appear on top or not.

PNotes is a clever and highly useful program that will have sticky note fans reaching for their wastepaper bin and converting to this far more organized method instead.

Download PNotes 4.01 in Softonic

Automatic translators sometimes are real life-saviors, as they help us understand any text, no matter what language it's written in.

Multitranse is one of those translating applications, and one of the most completes I've seen – in terms of supported languages. Multitranse supports a total of twenty languages that you can freely combine with each other as source or target languages.

The first time you run the program you're presented with a short tutorial that shows you how easy is to use Multitranse. Then the only thing you have to do is writing the source text (or copying it from another app), selecting both the source and target languages and you're good to go.

However there's a bid downside to Multitranse and that is precisely translations themselves. I know automatic translators are far from good, but I've seen much better translations than these ones – and they're also generated by automatic apps.

Multitranse can be helpful when you need to understand the general meaning of a text written in a foreign language, but you shouldn't trust it much.

Download MultiTranse 5.0 in Softonic

When I saw this defragmentation tool I thought "Well... I don't really need this, Windows already has one". But then I saw Defraggler has been developed by the same people as Recuva and the almighty CCleaner, so I decided to give it a try. After all, I use external apps for many tasks that Windows can do by itself, so why not using a third-party defragmenter?

Defraggler is easy to install and goes straight to the point. Its most outstanding feature is the possibility to defragment individual folders and files simply by putting a tick next to them. In fact, the option to defragment the whole hard drive is much more hidden (either right click on the drive or use the top menu bar).

However, there are things I didn't like about this program. First, I found it a bit slow. Also, it would have been nice to have it minimized to the system tray or similar. Finally, I'd appreciate it if the program included some means to automate tasks: you can't schedule defrags, nor set the program to turn off the PC when it's done.

Download Defraggler 1.02.085 in Softonic

Getting copyright free desktop wallpaper is sometimes not easy, with those available often having time limits or requiring fees for permanent use.

TyphoonWallpaper, however, is a free tool that offers access to hundreds of high resolution wallpaper images. TyphoonWallpaper allows you to select a range of images that it will later cycle through automatically while you are using your PC so that you'll always have a fresh desktop.

What's particularly nice about TyphoonWallpaper is the fact that the images are not only incredibly high definition but it also supports dual monitors meaning you can have alternative desktops on different monitors attached to your PC. This even extends to three monitors connected - great for video editors. The wallpapers don't contain adware although they do feature links to try and lure you to buy more products from the developers but it's a small price to pay for some great images.

There might not be many images to choose from when compared to other desktop wallpaper sites but TyphoonWallpaper offers great images on as many monitors as you need to cover.

Download TyphoonWallpaper 1.00 in Softonic

Probably one of the parts of Windows most in need of a overhaul is Windows Explorer. OK, it's simple, easy to use and functional but it could surely be made far more intuitive and useful.

That's what the developers of Explorer++ have attempted to achieve and, for the most part, they've done a really good job. Explorer++ is a free multi-tab clone of Windows Explorer, featuring several enhancements and additions that make it a more useful tool.

Probably one of the most interesting features of the application is the ability to use tabbed browsing to manage multiple folders. Instead of multiple Windows, just use one and each tab represents an open folder. It's exactly the same principle as tabbed browsing that's now common in internet browsers.

It also features some handy shortcuts for simple file transfer operations and also allows you to split and merge files, which is something notably absent from Windows Explorer.

Explorer++ brings new functionality to Windows Explorer although it could have gone a lot further in revolutionizing this archaic part of Windows.

Download Explorer++ Alpha 2 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

If you only need to burn a CD every now and then there's no need to install a mammoth
recording suite on your system. Simply use Totally Free Burner and you'll be fine.

Totally Free Burner is a minimalist CD and DVD recording tool with which you'll be able to
burn audio and video CD, data CD and DVD and also images in BIN and ISO formats. Just
make your choice on the program's main window and Totally Free Burner will take to the
next step, presenting you with a new window where you can select the data you want to
burn.

While I like simple programs, I think Totally Free Burner goes a bit beyond the limit. It's
nice to have a quick, straightforward app to burn your CD without hassle, but the
program lacks basic features such as a proper documentation and a complete settings
menu, more than just the few options you get when you're about to start burning.

Totally Free Burner is a simple, quick recording tool with which you can burn CD and
DVD, though configuration options are somewhat scarce.

Download Totally Free Burner 3 in Softonic

E-books are a great way to carry around a huge amount of literature that would prove impractical in physical terms.

However, the perennial question with e-book readers is which one is best for your needs? FBReader makes reading e-books that bit more comfortable by making letters more readable, allowing you to navigate contents and indexes much more easily and generally enhance your reading experience.

Probably the biggest benefit of FBReader though is the ability to search and find any phrase or subject no matter how many pages are in your book. Although this is a very common function in many applications, it's something that many e-book readers don't include for some strange reason, but FBReader does. In addition, if you should need to read a page upside down (why you would I'm not sure) you can rotate pages 270 degrees.

FBReader is a very easy to use e-book reader which improves your reading experience and makes searching texts fast and simple.

Download FBReader 0.8.17 in Softonic

Apex Free 3GP Video Converter is a free converter that can convert any popular video to work on your Mobile Phone in 3GP format.

Apex Free 3GP Video Converter supports a huge number of formats. You can convert your favorite movies from AVI, DIVX, MOV, QuickTime, MPEG, VCD , DVD, WMV, ASF, RM, RMVB to 3GP. As far as converters go, Apex Free 3GP Video Converter is pretty quick and getting started is relatively easy, with a quick and clear interface.

The converter supports batch conversions so you can queue an unlimited number of files to convert and let it work through them. You can also define exactly which in and out points you want, so you can select exactly how big you want files to be. The limit is 2GB which is pretty big and you can set it to automatically shut down your PC after conversion.

Apex Free 3GP Video Converter has everything you need to convert files to 3GP format although it's shame it doesn't support just a few more file formats.

Download Apex Free 3GP Video Converter 6.49 in Softonic

After having successfully launched their own webmail service, RSS reader, online suite and many other apps, having a Google web browser was only a question of time.

Google Chrome has joined the so called web browser battle with a neatly designed web browser which, in spite of being still at a development stage, already shows a lot of potential.

The first thing that caught my attention when launching Google Chrome for the first time was its minimalist design. Besides a couple of bars and a couple of buttons, there's nothing else on the interface to steal screen space from the websites you visit – not even a status bar, as it automatically shows and hides whenever it's necessary.

Another feature I loved is the fact that Google Chrome uses the same keyboard shortcuts and mousewheel combinations as Firefox. With a zero learning curve, you immediately feel at your element and there's no need to start testing new shortcuts or reading the documentation. Other similarities to Firefox in Google Chrome include a complete download manager (which reminded me a lot of the Download Statusbar extension) and a handy password manager.

If you don't want Google Chrome to track down your browsing movements, try the incognito window. This special window won't save anything about your session (no browsing history, no cookies, etc.), so no breadcrumbs will be left after you close it.

But if there's a feature that makes Google Chrome really stand out, that's having separate processes for each one of the tabs you open. That means that you can check the amount of system resources used up by each tab, and close any of them in case of trouble without having to shut down the whole browser.

That said, I don't think Google Chrome is perfect yet. Like I said before, it's still in development so there's still plenty of room for it to grow and improve. I must say I had some stability issues when trying to install the Flash plug-in, and that I was totally unable to make the Java Virtual Machine work – which eventually prevented me from using certain web services. Despite these flaws, I really liked Google Chrome and I think it may become a serious option when choosing your web browser. Only time will tell.

Google Chrome, Google's web browser, mixes a clean, minimalist interface with a variety of powerful tools that can easily turn it into a great web browser.

Download Google Chrome 0.2.149.27 in Softonic

GAG allows you to boot up from a choice of 9 different operating systems. It can boot operating systems installed in primary and extended partitions on any available hard disk.

It doesn't need its own partition. It installs itself in the first track of the hard disk, which is reserved for this type of program. It has a timer to boot a default operating system (selectable by the user).

Hides the primary partitions which allows the user to have installed more than one DOS and/or Windows in the same hard disk. Can exchange disk drives, allowing to boot from the second, third... hard disk operating systems such as MS-DOS. Supports a great variety of keyboards (QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTZ and DVORAK keyboards). Full support for hard disks up to 4 terabytes (4096 gigabytes).

Download GAG 4.10 in Softonic

One of the best things about the PSP, apart from the brilliant games, is that you can watch films on it.

However, if your favourite films are on DVD, you'll need some way to convert them and the quality of the conversions can greatly affect your enjoyment of the films. Xilisoft DVD to PSP Converter is powerful and highly user friendly DVD to PSP converter which helps convert DVD to multiple formats including PSP, MP4, MPEG-4, H.264/PSP AVC Video, DVD to PSP audio format MP3 and DVD to PS3 Video MPEG-4. In addition, it supports DVD to PSP MP3, AAC, DVD to PS3 Video (480p, 720p, 1080i) MPEG-4. Although it's ideal for beginners, it will also appeal to those who want a bit more control over conversions due to a multitude of customisation options. Depending on whether you want your video to fill the whole screen, it allows you to convert DVD to PSP by customising the resolution, file size and even the part of the DVD that you want to rip. Even better, you can avoid ripping subtitle and audio tracks that you don't need by choosing to ignore them completely. The interface is simple but elegant with a preview window in the bottom left hand corner to help you review conversions or select the section of DVD that you want to rip. The conversion time may be a little longer than you're used to with such apps but the all round usability more than makes up for that.

A quick, easy and convenient burner that will impress with it's usability and range of conversion formats.

Download Xilisoft DVD to PSP Converter 5.0.40.0729 in Softonic

The world of dubbing and lip syncing has come a long way since the days when high-pitched voice actors would jabber away in not-so-perfect harmony to Japanese Kung Fu fighters in the martial arts movies of the 1970s. In fact, digital animation technology has improved so much that it’s now possible to animate your own talking heads from your home PC.

CrazyTalk Media Studio promises to give you all the tools you need to import images and photographs before quickly applying mouth, head and eye movement to create realistic looking avatars and fun animations. At first we were a little dubious about the value of such a product, but were soon pleasantly surprised by the power of the utility.

Granted, our initial efforts were limited to taking pictures of friends and giggling inanely as they repeated audio clips from famous movies or songs. These first experiments were a little clunky to say the least and looked far from realistic when we relied on the automatic lip-syncing functionality. However, once you delve deeper into the settings, you start to realize that you can actually produce some impressive animations.

With enough tinkering you can customize everything from the teeth in the character’s mouth to their facial movements and their range of movement. Best of all is the built-in timeline, which gives you complete control of the animation and sound, much as you would do in Flash, or a video-editing suite. Complete with alpha channel support, the program is ideal for producing talking presenters to welcome visitors to your web site or presentations. The simple-to-use export facilities allow you to save to a range of formats whether as a media file, email attachment or a personalized greeting.

There are a few flaws with the program that are a little frustrating, but they fail to prevent CrazyTalk Media Studio from being a great program. Minor niggles are the lack of MP3 audio import support, and the relatively low number of preset templates and characters. The app does have a fairly steep learning curve but it’s good fun to use and is surprisingly powerful.

Download CrazyTalk 5.0 in Softonic

If you usually have trouble when trying to remember passwords or even coming up with new ones, you need a tool like X-Lizard PM.

With X-Lizard PM you can manage all your existing usernames and passwords, and also create new ones from scratch whenever you need them. The program includes a password generator which can lend you a hand in case you run out of ideas. The password database in X-Lizard PM is safely protected by a master password and 256-bit AES encryption.

X-Lizard PM features a tabbed interface where passwords are conveniently organized in different categories such as web, programs, e-mail and so on. From there you only have to copy and paste the data whenever you need to give your user credentials.

While the tab system is quite handy, it's a pity X-Lizard PM doesn't let you create new categories. Also, I missed some sort of of browser integration to make password entering even easier.

X-Lizard PM is a simple yet efficient password manager that includes a password generator and takes care of all your confidential data.

Download X-Lizard PM 1.0.0.0 in Softonic

How often do you need to share a screenshot online? Whether it's just for fun or serious professional matters, Jet Screenshot makes it a breeze.

As a screen capturing tool, I must say Jet Screenshot is a bit limited: it only features two capturing modes (full screen and user-selected region) and some basic editing capabilities such as adding text, cropping the image and marking certain areas in your screenshot with a pen.

The main feature in Jet Screenshot though is the possibility to publish any of those captured images straight to an FTP server. You can use your own server or make use of the one provided by Jet Screenshot, which, obviously, has a few limitations regarding size and storage.

In any case, this is probably the fastest and easiest way to get your captured images online. The only thing Jet Screenshot needs to improve is the method used to show you the web link of your newly-uploaded image: the current balloon tip is certainly not very user-friendly.

With Jet Screenshot you can capture and share images online in just a couple of clicks.

Download Jet Screenshot 1.0 in Softonic