Image burning is one of the fastest and most efficient ways to save large amounts of data to DVD or CD.

Images are increasingly popular on torrent sites and other download portals because they allow users to download high volumes of data in a relatively small file. What's more, it's instantly ready for DVD or disk burning. ImgBurn is an ultra-lightweight CD/DVD/HD/DVD and Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit. It has several 'Modes', with each one performing a different task.

These include "Read" which reads a disc to an image file; "Build" which creates an image file from files on your computer or network; "Write" which writes an image file to a disc and "Verify" which checks whether a disk is 100% readable. With this last option, you can also ensure that the data is correct by asking ImgBurn to compare your disk against an image file. Finally, you have "Discovery" which puts your drive to the test to find just what kind of speeds and disk types it can support.

If you are experiencing any burning problems, it may be that your drive is not fast enough to handle the settings you have configured or that you are using the wrong kind of disks.

A very lightweight an powerful image burner that requires little experience but will ensure all your images are burned in a flash.

Download ImgBurn 2.4.2.0 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

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

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

VirtualDub is a video capture and processing utility licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is designed to be a general utility that can trim and clean up video before exporting to tape or processing with another program. It does not possess the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video.

It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files, which you can extend with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is best at processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and handle BMP image sets.

Download VirtualDub 1.8.5 Stable in Softonic

Are you a real Softonic fan? If so, this toolbar has been especially developed for you.

The Softonic Toolbar brings the latest reviews, updates, blog posts and software apps published on Softonic right to your web browser. You'll be able to read all the new content published on the site with a single click and you'll always be up to date with the latest program versions and software news.

What's more, this toolbar also features a series of online services, such as local weather forecast, an embedded search engine, an email notifier, a translation service powered by Babylon and a radio player with support for streaming radio stations, although you may need to download a separate plug-in to make it work properly. I found the email notifier particularly useful, as it supports multiple Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and POP3 accounts.

The Softonic Toolbar also includes a configuration menu where you can customize it by choosing the elements you want to be displayed.

A web browser toolbar that brings you all the best from the web: a variety of online services and all the latest news on Softonic and insideTonic.

Download Softonic Toolbar in Softonic

It's hard to imagine eMule being made any easier but easyMule does a pretty good job of it for those that find the world's number one P2P client a bit too complicated.

easyMule offers a sleek interface that looks almost identical to eMule but has obviously been stripped down. Conveniently, you can play files while you are downloading (as long as there's enough to read), which reduces the risk of downloading fake or corrupted files. In addition, easyMule features a safety disk buffer which protects your hard drive from malicious files before they manage to damage your system.

easyMule uses exactly the same P2P principle as eMule to connect to networks although not exactly the same servers. This brings one of the major weaknesses of easyMule to light - it doesn't really offer as many hits as eMule. However, it does offer a decent hit rate and download speeds are comparable.

easyMule is definitely easier than eMule to use although I can only imagine that young kids would really benefit from this as eMule is not a complicated program.

Download easyMule 1.03 in Softonic

ComicRack brings more entertainment to comic lovers by providing an excellent tool to read electronic comics in your PC. It supports several formats and allows displaying comics in several ways, such as two pages view or full screen.

The program also includes some useful tools, like a magnifier to pay attention to every single detail and a smart list system to organize your comic collection and share it locally, like the iTunes library. These lists can be displayed on either side of the interface or at the bottom, but they take too much space.

ComicRack works very well and enables you to enjoy comics in a very natural way. It's also easy to use, although you'll have to test every single function by yourself as there's no help available.

Download ComicRack 0.9.93 in Softonic

As USB sticks and other flash memory drives increase in storage capacity, so does their popularity as software repositories. Many applications have developed special versions for these devices, usually known as "portable". One of them is CCleaner Portable.

In a few words, CCleaner Portable is the pocket version of CCleaner, an excellent cleaning tool with which you can erase unused files, thus gaining back valuable free disk space and making Windows run faster and smoother. The great advantage about CCleaner Portable is that it allows you to do just the same without leaving any evidence of use on the computer. In fact, you don't even need to install it. Simply run it from your USB memory stick and you'll have immediate access to all of its features. CCleaner Portable does create some necessary keys in Windows Registry, but these are deleted when the program is closed, so there'll be no trace of it left on the system.

Regarding its functions, CCleaner Portable does a very satisfactory job. The program helps you to get rid of many different files such as Internet cookies, temporary files, log files or all those leftovers found after months of installing and uninstalling applications. The configuration menu features interesting options like the possibility to keep certain cookies which may be useful for you or the ability to add custom file types to the delete filter. Apart from freeing up disk space, CCleaner Portable also lets you uninstall applications, find broken registry keys and list all the programs set to run when Windows launches.

On the down side, CCleaner Portable does not allow you to undo changes, so you must be very sure about what you want to erase before clicking on "Yes". Also, the program can take a few minutes before finishing the analysis that must be done prior to deletion. However, this is probably due to the fact that CCleaner Portable runs from a USB device and that we checked all the available options when cleaning our system – the test found 558 MB of removable material, which obviously took a while to be deleted.

All in all, CCleaner Portable is every bit as good as its "big brother" and comes in really handy when you want to use it on any PC without installing anything or leaving any traces behind you.

Download CCleaner Portable 2.11.636 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

No matter how organized you keep stuff in your computer, the only way to know how space is distributed on your hard drive is using a tool like fOsi X.

With fOsi X you can analyze your hard drive (or any other drive you select) and automatically get a complete graphical report that displays the space each one of your folders takes up. The visual analysis in fOsi X is much easier to read and understand, and gives a clearer view on how hard drive space is being used on your computer.

fOsi X lets you choose between bar charts or pie charts and also features the possibility to add a symbol legend and rotate the chart in real time. If you want to the save the report, the only way to do it is either by copying to the Clipboard or saving it as an image file.

With fOsi X you can obtain an instantaneous graphical chart that shows how hard drive space is distributed on your computer.

Download fOsi X Lite 1.3.1 in Softonic

Librarian Pro is a very flexible application to organize all your books, movies, games or whatever you wish to keep a list of. Although the program still feels quite unstable (importing or exporting didn't work properly for me), we'll let that go for now as the program is still a pre-release. What makes Librarian Pro interesting is how easy it is to view your list and create new smart collections.

You can customize the layout of lists you export and send them to the web or to your iPod. Librarian can also import elements from mulitple sources, like borrowers from your Address Book or item information from a number of sites. You can view your Amazon cart from the application and even retrieve things like album covers.

Librarian Pro is a great program to keep updated lists of your favorite items and always be aware of who's borrowed what from you.

Download Librarian Pro 1.3.3 in Softonic

With the release of Vuze, Azureus is jumping onto the legal torrent bandwagon. This application features the classic and extensive Azureus torrent client and adds to it an online platform from which you can download and submit legal audio and video content.

Vuze’s interface is a complete shake-up to what Azureus users are used to. The bittorrent developer has decided to focus on online multimedia content and introduce user participation. The first thing the user sees is a list of thumbnails of the latest videos uploaded to Vuze. You can browse these files by using the left side menu, divided in time, main channels and tags. The menu at the top also links to hot and new content. Vuze takes the web 2.0 road and you’ll see that most of the files have tags. You can write out a comment and leave a rating. The program also makes it a no brainer to send a video by email and link to content directly from your blog or website. There’s also a little diggit tag for each file, to submit them to the ultra famous social news site. It’s still a shame that Azureus omitted all the other famous social networking sites like del.icio.us or reddit. Maybe in a few months?

If you’re only interested in using Vuze as a torrent client, click the “Advanced tab” and you will be taken to the original Azureus interface. You can open up the gazillion configuration options that have come to define this as the most exhaustive bittorrent client on the planet. There’s even access to extra plug-ins like 3D view, RSS feed scanner or share exporter.

We won’t expand on the qualities of the Azureus client, for which you can read a review here. Vuze tries to innovate by adding social tools to the program and providing legal content. There’s up to nine channels to choose from, be it Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Sabotage the Film School or Travel, yet we were disappointed with the content in general. On some channels there’s very little to watch and on others you don’t necessarily find what you were hoping for. The trailers channel for example, offers new video games trailers instead of releases of movies. However, with Azureus striking up a partnership with the BBC, you’ll soon get Dr Who, The League of Gentleman and Invasion Earth and surely other content providers will flock to Vuze. Taking this into account, Vuze also includes a special tag to let you know if a file is High Definition or not.

On the downside Vuze does nothing to atone the principal drawback to Azureus: the over extensive use of PC memory. Yes, Vuze is still a bandwidth hog, and there’s nothing to do about it. We also find the new interface to be incredibly cluttered. The old downloads and currently downloading windows are too similar to have to be separated and we don’t understand why Vuze includes a Library tab when you can access content straight from the Home tab.

While the whole interface felt a bit clunky, and the number of legal content is still limited, Vuze is a promising application for sharing and enjoying legal content. If you’re already hooked on the original Azureus bittorrent client, take a leap into the future with Vuze.

Download Azureus (Vuze) 3 1.1.0 in Softonic

Have you ever stopped to think how many button presses and mouse clicks you've made on your computer over the years? Well, you need wonder no longer thanks to WorkMeter XP.

A simple yet somewhat amusing program, WorkMeter XP measures a range of different actions performed on your PC as you work. It notes the number of keystrokes you make, the number of mouse clicks, along with the mouse trajectory in pixels and meters. You'll need to make sure you have the correct monitor size selected in the WorkMeter XP interface, otherwise the information it gives you will not be accurate.

Besides just recording the stats as you type, WorkMeter XP also keeps a history of your records, so you can compare the amount of key presses and mouse movement over time, which I thought was an interesting feature. You also get an option for auto-starting WorkMeter XP at Windows startup.

Ultimately I guess WorkMeter XP doesn't really serve any purpose other than being a brief novelty. Actually the best use I found for it was to race your pals to being the quickest to move the mouse a total of 100 meters.

If you're interested to know exactly how many buttons you press on a daily basis, WorkMeter XP provides an accurate and easy-to-read solution.

Download WorkMeter XP in Softonic

There is nothing that annoys me more in Firefox when a PDF document tries to open and crashes the browser. That was until I tried PDF Download.

PDF Download prevents this problem ever arising by allowing you to control exactly how and when PDF files are opened or downloaded. Instead of opening PDF files "blind" which is currently the case, PDF Download lets you know exactly how big it is with options of whether to convert it, open it, download it or convert to HTML. PDF Download stops the annoying problem of PDF files taking ages to open - especially big ones. With PDF Download, you can see instantly whether its a big file, in which case, it's advisable to download it for reading later as opening a big PDF file is like waiting for Christmas to arrive sometimes.

The PDF Download plugin usually presents you with 3 options unless you've instructed it to do the same thing by default all the time - convert the PDF to HTML, download the PDF or open the PDF in the browser. One bonus with PDF Download, that perhaps separates it from others, is that it's not just limited to Adobe Reader. PDF Download also works with Foxit Reader and other PDF readers although to be honest, if you're using Foxit, you won't find much use for PDF Download anyway as it opens PDF files much more smoothly than Adobe Reader.

PDF Download is an excellent PDF tool which will result in fewer Firefox crashes although not everytime as it still seems susceptible to crashes when opening PDF files in the browser.

Download PDF Download 2.0.0.0 in Softonic

One of the worst problems with Adobe's Acrobat reader is that it often takes about a week to load PDFs. OK, maybe not quite that long, but it is very slow.

SumatraPDF is one of several apps knocking around that are designed to simplify your PDF viewing - and it doesn't do a bad job either. Opening files in the program is virtually as quick as opening and closing your eyes and it doesn't take a genius to find your way around the interface.

Options are a little thin on the ground but SumatraPDF provides a very comfortable environment for reading PDFs and you can print documents without much hassle. Give me this over Acrobat any day for looking at eBooks.

Download Sumatra PDF 0.9 in Softonic

You probably visit the same websites every day, when you turn on your PC. It's some sort of ritual, like having a strong, delicious cup of coffee every morning. So what not mixing both things together?

Morning Coffee is a Firefox extension with which you can easily organize those routine web readings. In a way it works as a folder in the bookmarks toolbar, because it can open several tabs simultaneously. But the main difference is that these tabs can be configured according to the day of the week. So you can, for example, include some Internet blogs in your Morning Coffee for weekdays, and then add videogame magazines and personal websites for the weekend Morning Coffee.

The only thing I missed was having the possibility to open these tasty morning coffees right upon starting the browser, as a homepage. However it looks like they're working on this feature to implement it in later versions.

A helpful extension to manage websites you visit on a daily basis

Download Morning Coffee Extension 1.32 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

Stickman is a 2D animation tool that is supposed to make animated cartoon creation much easier. And I say supposed because I've faced great difficulties when testing this program.

The upside to Stickman is that it includes a vast catalog of ready-to-use backgrounds, figures and all kinds of elements. Being an online database, we strongly recommend that you download it to your hard drive so that it's always available for you.

But in spite of that, I personally didn’t find the program that easy to use. There was no default scene included to begin working with and I couldn't even put a single character onto a background scene. Luckily enough, Stickman includes video tutorials and very complete documentation, so after struggling with the program for a while, I was able to produce something. My advice then would be to be patient and read the documentation carefully if you want to take advantage of Stickman's possibilities.

Download Stickman 5.2.23 in Softonic

If you fancy designing a new website for yourself, then turn back now, Twisted Brush has not been developed to give clean crisp graphics, and will frustrate you unless you use it for what it was designed for, art. Having established that this is a program for drawing, it follows that the most natural way to sketch anything and in turn to use this software effectively is with a pen and a drawing tablet.

When the program starts, you’re assaulted by the quick-start guide that is designed to gently introduce you to the features. In reality it’s a bunch of screenshots crammed with info bubbles that contain un-detailed information and no links to find out more. That said, how many people stop to read welcome screens anyway?

A lot of effort was put into making TwistedBrush a realistic substitute for actual painting and when you start working with the various brushes you see just how well they interact with the colors to create a convincing portrait. Undoubtedly the greatest strength of this program is the vast selection of brush types and styles that are available to use. From simple fine pens, to wet oil brushes, to progressive 3D designs, you’ll find them all. The beauty of each brush is that they can be used quickly and easily, with stunning effects.

You will also find support for all the major image file formats, including TIFF, PSD, JPG, GIF, and PNG and there is an option to create a script, either to record the steps taken in the painting process, to insert a message, or to insert random dabs of paint, something that doesn’t quite seem to add to the functionality (although any Dadaists out there may disagree about that).

While getting to grips with the program, it seemed that there was one feature that had been unforgettably forgotten, the select tool. After using Photoshop for so long, this seems like a key tool in any imaging software that the TwistedBrush developers have overlooked. Alternatively it could be the very omission of the select tool that sets this program apart with the production process being more of an evolution rather than a construction.

TwistedBrush is a quality painting application that, judging from its interface and features, is aimed at anyone with a drawing tablet. There are tons of great brushes to experiment with but for anyone relying on the lowly mouse and the lack of a selection tool, it may become very frustrating, very quickly.

Download TwistedBrush Pro Studio 15.51 in Softonic