For a while now, computer users have been waking up to the real threats that exist while browsing the web. Every day, more turn their back on the established vulnerabilities of Internet Explorer and opt for the hottest open source project on the net, Mozilla’s Firefox. But there are plenty of alternatives that offer great features, and one of those is Avant Browser.

Based on Internet Explorer, Avant will import all your favorites automatically and also keep your settings intact. As such it makes a good alternative to the popular Firefox browser, which shuns all things IE, and may seem slightly too foreign from the conventions that many users have built up while using Microsoft’s browser. Although Avant Browser is based on the Internet Explorer engine, it doesn’t fall victim to the same security vulnerabilities (although no-one is claiming that it’s invulnerable), and while it’s at it, adds some great tools designed to enhance your browsing experience.

The Flash blocker is an effective way to keep memory usage of the browser to a minimum or to simply cut out those over-elaborate ads that invade and take over many web sites. To appeal to a wider audience, there are quick links that let you quickly translate pages to a wide selection of languages, or you can customize the look of the browser using the many skins that are included by default. Of course, no modern browser could claim to be complete without tabbed browsing and Avant really delivers the goods with a system that allows you to even reload tabs after you’ve closed them.

In fact, this browser has some of the best extras that we’ve seen to date, in particular the system whereby tabs can be resized like normal program windows letting you display multiple site windows side-by-side, within one browser window. There‘s also a useful toolbar item that displays tags describing the page that you’re on. Click on a tag and you open a list of site that result from a search using that tag or keyword; brilliant! And the piece de résistance is an automatic session saver that lets you open up all the sites you were browsing when you last closed the program.

Avant Browser is relatively unknown as a mainstream browser and as such is not restricted from experimenting and taking the best ideas from the big hitters, as well as adding its own nuggets to the mix. What you get is a very impressive selection of tools in a browser that will even run your Microsoft update without objections. Definitely worth consideration if you are thinking of changing browser.

Download Avant Browser 11.7.15 in Softonic

How many times have you tried to save streaming media locally but realised you don't have the appropriate tool? Net Transport (NetXfer) can do just that for you. Net Transport downloads MMS and RTSP streaming in multiple threads with perfect video & audio quality.

There are some other great features, like "Site Manager" which allows you to keep the active connection with the remote servers. In addition, the support for both SSL and SSH is hardly found in other upload/download tools.

Main Features:

• Simple but powerful "File Manager" to categorize and manage downloaded files
• Simple multi-user management
• Inbuilt "Site Explorer" lists the directory structure of the remote server
• FTP reuse mechanism uses one connection to get different files from the same site
• Assign every working thread a different proxy to break certain site restrictions
• Proxies with NTLM authentication can penetrate local firewall, like Microsoft ISA 2000
• Adjust the bandwidth usage of Net Transport
• Monitor browser click
• Can automatically shutdown the system or hang up the modem
• NTLM authentication is supported for both MMS and RTSP
• Use multi-threads for both MMS and RTSP to significantly reduce the time of downloads
• Automatically parse streaming script such as .asx, .smi to acquire real URLs
• Support SSH encryption for both HTTP and FTP
• Flexible "Scheduler Manager"

Download Net Transport (NetXfer) 2.64.423 in Softonic

The Google Toolbar is probably my favorite toolbar on the net and something I've gradually come to rely on everyday.

Now, it's got even better with the latest release which is packed with improvements and updates that Google fans will lap up. These include custom buttons with gadget support, synchronized toolbar settings (so you can sync two toolbars across different computers), Google Notebook integration, a word find function, suggestions for navigation errors and an improved autofiller. It also now features details of your Web History (which is totally unnecessary although very easily searchable compared to Firefox or IE). Apart from the sync feature, I think the best addition is the gadget support. Through these, Google Toolbar now supports live feeds and when you click on any of the gadget icons, the gadget pops down from the Toolbar, no matter what site you are on and close when you are done with it. You can mix and match gadgets as much as you want although the danger is you end up adding so many that the toolbar becomes bloated.

This is the best release of Google Toolbar yet and it creeps even further into territory that formerly was the domain of browsers - check it out now.

Download Google Toolbar Firefox 5.0.20080919Wb1 Beta in Softonic

If you've ever had to reinstall software after a crash or during a new installation, it's really annoying when you're asked to enter the serial number but you can't remember it.

LicenseCrawler gets round this problem by scanning the net for the license numbers and registration numbers of the software you need to reinstall. LicenseCrawler enable you to find the license keys and serial numbers for all versions of Windows and a selected number of programs although it has to be said that this list is small.

However, it's not always successful even when it claims to have found the correct serial number. Sometimes you'll find it either doesn't work or is too long or short for the field it's intended for. However, it is a hell of a lot more efficient than searching Google for serial and registration numbers and should help you find the right one within a few searches.

If you've lost your serial numbers or registration details for a particular program, LicenseCrawler is one of the quickest ways to recover it.

Download LicenseCrawler 0.0.36 in Softonic

In the ever increasing battle against malware, you can never have too many good malware removers and detectors. Malwarebytes Anti Malware scans disks and devices connected to your PC and removes all types of malware.

The program is constantly updated with a list of the latest known malware threats across the net so you'll always be fully covered although the update prompts can be annoying and should be switched off. They may also slow down your PC momentarily but it's worth it to keep up to date. The program cannot be schedule to offer real time protection bit it can scan your system at any time. There is also a list for the files in quarantine and one for those which can be ignored. If an infected file is detected, the programs "Fileassassin" can be launched although use it with caution because it is potent and you may end up deleting essential drivers and files.

If you want realtime protection, you can register online although you'll have to pay for this service.

A powerful and quick scanner but it's a shame there's no realtime protection with it.

Download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.28 in Softonic

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

Boasting the ability to improve the speed of your downloads by an incredible 300 percent, Download Accelerator Plus features multi-server connections to let you squeeze the best possible performance from your Net connection.

The beauty of the software lies in its simplicity, you just choose the file you want to download, tell the program where you want it to be filed away then forget about as DAP does all the donkey work for you. What’s more, if you get booted offline for any reason the software will automatically resume the download from the place it had already reached.

DAP even searches for “mirror sites” for you and this serves to make downloading a pretty painless process, with the app sucking up files fairly quickly. DAP is a veritable feature-fest making the whole process much easier by including functions like automatic hang-up on completion of a download, download scheduling, and dial-up configuration – a handy tool for anyone not yet blessed with broadband.

The only slight niggle for some people may be the fact that it is nigh-on impossible to turn the thing off, unlike most of its peers, where you can choose to manually download something fairly easily. Having said this, because the program is so easy to use and integrates beautifully with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera browsers, there really is little reason why you wouldn’t want this great utility keeping watch of your downloads all the time.

Download Download Accelerator Plus 8.7 in Softonic

For all those in agreement with the French government that proprietary formats are damaging to the legitimate spread of digital music, then Tunebite will be right up your street. Proprietary music is essentially locked, so it can only be played using a particular brand of player. This software can be used to make any music playable on whatever portable devices you have or to burn your own music CD. It works by creating a playlist in the file’s native player, (Media Player for WMA, iTunes for M4B, M4P) playing the list and recording each track as an unprotected file. It could be seen as the modern equivalent of recording radio onto cassette, although Tunebite will automatically separate the different tracks.

The installation of this program is a bit tongue-in-cheek with a notice to say that you may see a warning during the process, swiftly followed by a pop-up warning letting you know that a particular driver hasn’t been registered with Microsoft. Following the advice of the previous notice and ignoring the warning dialog lets you finish the process. You are then taken to the configuration wizard where you complete six steps to choose what file format you want to record in.

The interface is so intuitive that when you first open the program you should have no doubt as to how to get recording. The three main elements of the interface are clearly marked as the “songs to record” window, the “recorded songs” window and an unmistakable “GO!” button in the centre. To get started you can either drag and drop your music files or use the “add file” or “add folder” buttons within the program. From there, it’s a simple matter of clicking the “GO!” button and letting Tunebite go to work.

Because the files are protected, they must be played through their own player, for example iTunes, and recorded in real-time. During our test, we happened to have another audio player in use as the recording began and as a result, the unprotected file was an incomprehensible mix of two tracks. This also means that if Tunebite is making a recording, you shouldn’t use your computer for other tasks such as browsing the net since every click sound that plays when you hit a link or even the Start Menu button will be recorded as well. With recording taking place in real-time you should plan for times when you won’t be using the computer, especially if you have a large music collection.

Tunebite is a solution to a problem that many music lovers face as control over their digital content becomes tighter and more restrictive. Protected tracks that have been paid for can easily be copied to any MP3 player or burned to CD for use in regular stereos. Admittedly, the method for recording is not ideal for everybody, but used properly, the results will be of the highest standard possible today.

Download Tunebite 5.1.120 in Softonic

Maxthon (formerly MyIE2) is a multipage browser based on the Internet Explorer core. It can open multiple Web pages in just one window, and it takes only a few system resources when you're surfing with the integrated user interface. The application supports special plug-ins and IE extensions, and its features include autoscrolling, form autofilling, external tools, plug-in support, a newsgroup-browsing mode, mouse gestures, customizable skins, and an Autohide panel.

Download Maxthon Standard 1.6.4.20 build 50 in Softonic

Anyone with kids worries about what they might be exposed to on the Internet. To protect them you need to make sure you can monitor their usage of both the internet and the computer. Net Nanny is a parental control tool built to help you do this.

First things first, Net Nanny lets you block inconvenient material such as adult sites, violence or drug related websites. In all there are 31 categories of sensitive material that you can choose to block or not. Net Nanny also integrates Safe Search, a feature which works with most search engines like Yahoo! or Google.

Net Nanny also lets you set time restrictions and decide when your computer is blocked. You can also put limits on games played on internet by your kids.

The best way to use Net Nanny is probably to create profiles for each of your kids and set filters, different login types and passwords for each of them.

Net Nanny will also generate reports of login and usage and keep you aware of any attempts at accessing restricted material.

Although the installation is a little lengthy, Net Nanny will give you good control over what your children can access on your computer.

Download Net Nanny Parental Controls 5.6 in Softonic

Wikipedia has to be one of the most widely checked resources on the internet but what happens if you don't have a connection to the net?

WikiTaxi is a useful little tool that allows you to do exactly that - download Wikipedia to your hard drive and consult it without even having to access the Internet. However there is a catch - you need a hell of a lot of spare drive space. Because Wikipedia is constantly growing, WikiTaxi uses compression to make sure that the database fits on an 8 GB memory stick - still pretty impressive.

On the plus side, Wikitaxi requires no installation. Just extract the WikiTaxi archive to any folder, and it's ready to go. The folder can be on a fixed hard drive, or a portable device like memory stick or flash card. WikiTaxi does also modify a small options *.ini file which it places right next to its own executable so it does modify your PC a little.

WikiTaxi is a brilliant innovation that makes reading Wikipedia without an internet connection a reality but it does require a lot of free disk space.

Download WikiTaxi 1.0.3 in Softonic

Ever needed to get detailed information about your PC but felt too lazy to look around for the specifications? Well, don’t bother yourself browsing the net or leafing through your PC’s instruction manual; set up a system analysis application like Belarc Advisor instead. This program will profile your PC, giving you thorough information on every aspect of your machine.

Installing the application only takes a few seconds and it will analyze your PC right away. Make sure you are connected to Internet, as Belarc Advisor only works inside a browser window. It displays not only your hardware specs like controllers, bus adapters or the capacity of your processor but also software versions and licenses. Belarc Advisor also provides you with a list of all missing and installed Microsoft 'hotfixes' with a direct link to the corresponding update page.

Belarc Advisor also carries out a CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmark of your PC according to elements such as event log policies, security options and users rights. For each category, Belarc will give you a grade out of 10, with elements you comply with given a green check and those you fail given a red cross. If you click on a particular element you will be taken to a suggestions page. For example, click on “password age” and a new tab will open up with information on how and why to change your password regularly. We recommend looking over Belarc Advisor’s suggestions for any element in the benchmark that your PC might have failed. Try implementing their tips and do the benchmark test again to see if your PC gets a better score.

While the amount of information can easily overwhelm new users, Belarc Advisor is an excellent and speedy solution to get detailed specs on your PC. Providing details on your hardware and software and featuring a thorough benchmarking test, Belarc Advisor should come in handy when upgrading your PC or looking for any vulnerability to patch.

Download Belarc Advisor 7.2.24.6 in Softonic

Sharing video is becoming increasingly important with bandwidths and hard drives getting bigger.

It's about time then than someone harnessed the power of P2P technology to share video which is what the developers of SwarmPlayer have done. SwarmPlayer essentially combines three ways of video watching and sharing i.e. Downloading videos, streaming videos, and watching videos while they are being generated i.e. via webcam. Effectively, SwarmPlayer allows a single player to download movies, watch video-on-demand, and watch live video streams using one technology, while taking advantage of the popularity and maturity of existing BitTorrent clients.

At the moment SwarmPlayer is purely in testing mode and you can only watch two videos -
a BBC test program (a weather report) and something called the "Fabchannel" which is basically a webcam on a TV station rooftop in Amsterdam - not very interesting. However, the SwarmPlayer principle looks good - you can see how many people are watching a stream at one time via the stats page which is great for those that are learning to produce their own broadcasts and want to know how popular it is via SwarmPlayer.

SwarmPlayer is potentially a new and exciting way to share video over the net although it may be a while before the finished product is released.

Download SwarmPlayer 1.0.1 in Softonic

Some video converters change movie formats and that's it, but AVS Video Converter does much more besides conversions.

AVS Video Converter allows you to capture the latest video formats which means DVD, SVCD or VCD's although it doesn't support HDV or BluRay yet. The video editor, while very basic, allows you to edit in classic style along a timeline and there's a handy wizard that helps you burn creations afterwards.

The latest release allows you to change the look with various skins so you can give it your own personal look which is unusual for a video editor. One excellent feature of the editor is that it helps you cut out adverts and other annoying commercial features which interrupt your films (useful if you've downloaded films or TV shows from the net). It uses a "Scene detection algorithm" to do this by splitting the video into various episodes leaving only the scenes you need.

An excellent all-in-one video converter and editor that will ensure your TV shows or movies are never ruined by TV ads again.

Download AVSVideoConverter 5.6.1.715 in Softonic

FileZilla has become one of the most popular FTP clients on the net and with good reason - it's fast, reliable and packed with lots of cool features.

Now things just got better with the introduction of a portable version that you can take anywhere - superb for web administrators of all abilities and backgrounds. Like it's bigger brother, the program supports the resuming of downloads and uploads, detects when a connection has timed out and features support for firewalls, SFTP, SSL and more. Best of all, it's retained the drag and drop functionality of the original too so it's easy enough for use for anyone not familiar with FTP clients. The interface and preferences are a bit limited but you can see at a glance all of your transfers. It also includes a handy "Quickconnect" function which basically allows you to reconnect to your most frequent FTP sites instantly. You'll also be impressed by the general speed of the application although it does tend to drop connections as a security timeout feature which can be annoying. You can also set limits on how much of your bandwidth it uses if you're worried about it hogging it.

The classic FTP client that you can now take anywhere - what more could you ask for.

Download FileZilla Portable 3.0.11.1 in Softonic

Complete Cleanup will cleanup all major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Mozilla, and AOL. This works with all versions both past and present. It will show you all your file statistics, and will allow you to safely remove all the privacy related files, browser data, space wasting files, and various other unwanted garbage files found on your PC. Even if you do not know much about computers or files, you cannot make a mistake, as the software finds only garbage data and safely removes it for you!

It also cleans up many non-internet files, including your recent documents list, temp files, excess index files, various registry entries, run history, find history, thumb cache, and more. Normal deletes using the browsers will leave files in a state where the data can be recovered, as numerous file recover utilities are available on the net, but the secure file wiping feature of Complete Cleanup will render the file unrecoverable and permanently deleted. All cleanups can be chosen by you, or you can conveniently clean everything with one button click. Not only will this help protect your privacy, but it will also free up alot of your extra disk space, helping keep your system at peak performance.

Download Complete Cleanup 5.04 in Softonic

If you've ever needed a reliable cross platform server, then you should look no further than the Apache HTTP Server which over the years has become on of the most popular open source servers on the net.

It was born out of the Apache HTTP Server Project in an effort to develop and maintain an open-source HTTP server for modern operating systems including UNIX and Windows NT. A survey by Netcraft found that more than 68% of the web sites on the Internet are using Apache which the developers claim make it more widely used than all other web servers combined so you know you're in good hands from the start.

However, be warned if you've never used or configured a server before as this is not loaded with wizards and quick start hints to get you going. Fortunately, there is extensive documentation however that takes you through the whole installation process step by step, plus there's an extensive Wiki.

When you run the installation file, you'll be prompted whether or not you want to run Apache for all users (installing Apache as a Service), or if you want it installed to run in a console window when you choose the Start Apache shortcut. You'll then be asked for your Server name, Domain name and an administrative email account. After this, Apache takes care of much of the configuration but you'll still need to know a little about where and how you want it to install files in various directories.

Apache Server is one of the most successful cross platform open source servers on the net - invest the time in learning how to configure it and you won't be disappointed.

Download Apache HTTP Server 2.2.9 in Softonic

OneLoupe is a digital rectangular lens to zoom in on anything that appears on your screen. The only way you can open this program is by clicking on the icon in the system tray. Once you have done that you can move the lens around and, by turning the mouse’s scroll wheel, zoom in and out up to 9X.

The application is extremely light and can be useful for everyone, not just for people with sight problems. There are two major weak points I’ve noticed, though. One is that you can’t launch the program by simply pressing a combination of keys or with the right click button of the mouse. The other is that when zooming in, the application doesn’t even try to recalculate what’s displayed and both text and images become highly pixilated. Especially with texts, I don’t think it would have been a very difficult algorithm to implement.

While the lens is on, if you press the ‘b’ key, the program copies what’s being magnified to the clipboard. This is a useful and time-saving function, especially for presentations or whenever you need a visual example of what you are talking about.

OneLoupe can open a digital lens to zoom in on a text or a picture and paste what’s spotlighted in the clipboard with just one click.

Download OneLoupe 1.01 in Softonic

Mobile Net Switch is an award-winning program for Windows XP and Windows Vista that enables you to use your computer on more than one network with the click of a button. Mobile Net Switch allows you to automatically select the correct drive mappings, printer settings, IP settings, WiFi settings and much more.

The powerful easy to use interface allows you to configure your computer for every network you will be connecting to (Workgroup or Domain). It's the perfect solution for everyone with a mobile computer who is using it on more than one network (e.g. when you are using your machine on multiple locations, offices or at home).

Each location is stored in a profile. Simply select a profile and your drives will be mapped correctly, the correct default printer will be selected, IP Addresses will be set correctly, the correct Proxy Server will be configured, and much more. You will be able to use your machine on any network with ease!

Download Mobile Net Switch 3.68 in Softonic

The quest for ever increasing download speed is like a quest for the holy grail and HiDownload attempts to reach nirvana through mutli-threading.

HiDownload is basically a multi-threaded download manager that allows you to download individual files (or lists of files) from web and FTP sites to get the most out of your broadband or dial-up connection. The program supports multimedia streaming with all important pause and resume features which allow you to download movies, music and capture streaming video at your own pace or to avoid disappointment if you suffer a broken connection. In addition, it provides all the standard features of a download manager, including scheduling, a drop basket, download history, clipboard monitoring, download categories as well as zip previews and more.
To look at, the interface is nothing special but it does clearly display your current downloads plus a browser window in the left hand pane from where you can locate files on your hard drive. The big question is, does it really speed-up downloads then? Well, as an alternative download manager for either IE or Firefox, it's certainly a better option giving you much greater control over how your downloads work. However, the actual speed differences are negligible and depend greatly on the state of your connection and that of the server delivering the file.

As an alternative download manager for your browser, HiDownload is a decent choice but don't expect it to perform miracles on your download speeds.

Download HiDownload Pro 7.18 in Softonic