Maintaining Windows in decent working order can be a full time job and it's a pain to have to download multiple programs to keep everything in check.

Pristy Utils 2009 is a collection of tools to maintain your PC. It features everything from a power scheme manager to a web management utility and Vista tweaker

The first Pristy Utils 2009 utility, System PowerDown serves to schedule shutdowns, restarts, suspensions and blocking sessions in the PC after a specified time. Web assistant is the second application which works as a quick shortcut for different Web related uses such as sending mails, files over the internet etc. The third tool is called PC detector. It displays all the information from your computer hardware in eight different sections: - CPU, screen, sound, memory, network, disk storage devices, and so on.

Finally, Pristy Utils 2009 has three applications for maintenance tasks - a cleaner to free RAM Memory, File Wipeout for secure deletion of files, and a desktop clock which is basically a widget for the desktop. More recently, Pristy Utils 2009 has been bolstered with a Vista booster that defrags your boot sequence. However, what this program is crying out for is a defragmentation tool - it's all very well cleaning up your hard drive but it doesn't speed them up which is where a defrag tool would come in really useful.

Pristy Utils 2009 is a great all round lightweight maintenance and web management tool although it lacks a few essentials.

Download Pristy Utils 2009 1.0.8 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

There are tweakers and then there are tweakers which really get deep inside of Windows to the parts that others that don't reach and Nawras PC Supervisor is definitely one of the latter.

Nawras PC Supervisor runs a scan of your system and presents a list of Windows functions that are normally hidden from view but which can make a significant difference to the running of your machine. Unless you've got an in-depth knowledge of the Windows registry, then majority of the tweaks in Nawras PC Supervisor will be new to you.

Possible tweaks are categorized by type such as Control Panel, Disk Drives, Startup, or other functions involving Internet Explorer or Media Player that may be slowing down your machine. Once found, you simply ask Nawras PC Supervisor to tweak them and it makes changes to the registry. Of course, any changes made to the registry shouldn't be done lightly and it makes a backup of your current settings should the worst happen. The tweaks take no more than a few seconds and you should notice an increase in operating speed depending on what you've tweaked.

Despite the slightly misleading name, Nawras PC Supervisor is more of a tweaker than a PC protector and will help you tweak Windows hidden recesses.

Download Nawras PC Supervisor 3.0 in Softonic

The torrent phenomenon is one of the most hyped about in the world of technology among Peer to Peer (P2P) users. It consists of sharing large files, like movies, software, or games anonymously and quickly with other peers. The file you want to download is cut up into small segments shared by users, creating what is called a swarm, and does not go through a central server, significantly reducing the bulk of file transfers, The Bittorrent client is actually the first P2P application to use this technology and became immensely popular when it was released. Torrents are considered by online users as a great way to download recently released movies or tv shows.

Thanks to a straightforward, uncluttered interface Bittorrent appears as a friendly torrent client that beginners will feel comfortable with. We particularly appreciated the integrated search box to look for files on the bittorrent website. Once you’ve found the torrent you want, download it to your PC, open it up inside Bittorrent and let the client do its job. The speed at which you download will depend on the number of seeds, that is people who have the complete file and are sharing it. The more seeds there are the quicker files will download.

You can set multiple torrent downloads and the downloading speed is fairly quick. It’s easy to configure the client and we suggest choosing the right port and setting upload and download rate limits to avoid hogging your bandwidth. It’s also good to set your downloads by priority to monitor more precisely how your torrents are doing.

Compared to the exhaustive Azureus, Bittorrent is very simplistic. It doesn’t provide half as many statistics and doesn’t let you customize the interface. Integrating a search box is a great idea, but it limits searches to the bittorrent website, not considered the most thorough source by torrent aficionados.

If you’re a newbie to the torrent world, Bittorrent is a good bet. It’s safe, stable and sharp. Associated with the huge database of legal torrents that is the bittorrent website, it makes for a very rich P2P experience. Advanced users will probably frown upon its lack of options but others should give it a try.

Download BitTorrent 6.1 in Softonic

There are so many graphics cards and chipsets nowadays that compatibility problems with software inevitably arise. PowerStrip provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the Matrox Millennium I to the latest ATI X850 and NVidia SLI solutions.

The developers claim this is the only program of its type to support multiple graphics cards from multiple chipset vendors, simultaneously, under every Windows operating system from Windows 95 to the x64-bit edition of XP. A simple menu pop up from the system tray provides access to some 500 controls over your display hardware, including color correction tools, period level adjustments over screen geometry, and driver independent clock controls.

The program automatically detects when programs are launched and responds by activating specific display settings, gamma adjustments, performance switches and even clock speeds - returning everything to normal when the program closes. A quick setup wizard gets you up and running with minimal fuss and and live updates are supported to ensure you're always running the latest release.

If you've had problems with games or compatibility issues with other software, look no further than PowerStrip.

Download PowerStrip 3.82.632 in Softonic

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

Download Onlineeye Pro 2.2.1 in Softonic

CCleaner is a small utility that will take care of a few of the important maintenance tasks that every computer user should carry out as regularly as possible to keep their systems in top shape. Fast, reliable and easy to use - CCleaner it's one of the best cleaning systems out there.

For me, the beauty of CCleaner is the speed at which it carries out the various scans and fixes. Its main purpose is to clean any unnecessary files from your hard-drive and on opening the program you see the various aspects of Windows that you can search through and clear. CCleaner will also detect your installed applications that may hold on to files which are no longer any use, such as Google Earth histories or Flash Player configurations.

The interface in CCleaner is very easy to navigate and before taking any action, you will always be asked to confirm that you are sure about what you want to do. There is a useful registry checker that will quickly check its integrity, and let you fix bad entries after making a backup. CCleaner uninstall and startup tools are handy to have and simply add to the usability of this very rounded little maintenance assistant.

The most recent release of CCleaner now works on Vista with Admin permissions where available and features various bug fixes and improvements to the translated versions.

CCleaner makes keeping your PC clean easy for beginners and experts alike. It's small, fast, comprehensive, and free to download it - get cleaning now!

Download CCleaner 2.11.636 in Softonic

When analyzing a software application one must praise its virtues, but also look for possible flaws that developers can improve in future versions. However, in the case of Glary Utilities it's really difficult to find anything that we don't like.

This excellent toolkit includes a handful of system utilities that enable you to tweak, repair, optimize and improve your system's performance. Tools are conveniently categorized so that you can quickly find what you're looking for: disk cleaner, uninstall manager, memory optimizer, file shredder, duplicates finder, tracks eraser... just about any tool you need. They're all generally very intuitive and in case they make important changes to the system (like the Registry repairing tool) the program creates a backup copy first.

Not all the tools included in Glary Utilities include configuration settings, something we missed in some of them such as the Disk cleaner. Also, we would like to have a Firefox Assistant, the same way the program includes an Internet Explorer Assistant.

Download Glary Utilities 2.6.1 in Softonic

SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature and show hard disk temperatures. SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on some hardware (but this should be considered a bonus feature).

At the lowest level, SpeedFan is a hardware monitor software that can access temperature sensors, but its main feature is that it can change fan speeds (depending on the capabilities of your sensor chip and your hardware) according to the temperatures inside your PC, thus reducing noise and power consumption.

Download SpeedFan 4.35 in Softonic

PC Tools Disk Suite attempts to cover all possible angles when it comes to hard drive management.

PC Tools Disk Suite offers all in one hard drive management that integrates disk optimization, a cleanup tool, a defrag utility and even a partitioning and backup tool in one well presented and easy to use pack. Like most PC Tools products, the interface is the same as used across the entire line of products and clearly presents the options available to you.

As is to be expected, the cleanup and optimize feature of PC Tools Disk Suite aims to reduce unnecessary files and indicates how much free disk space it's recovered for you at any one time. The defrag tool reorganizes files on your disk and should speed up your system and it supports both FAT and NTFS drives. It's nice that you can select whether to defrag quickly or slowly in PC Tools Disk Suite although the fast defrag doesn't seem to make much difference at all. On the other hand, the long defrag does take a while and you¡'d be best to use it overnight.

The PC Tools Disk Suite Backup feature allows you select which files you want to backup regularly either manually or via scheduler and finally the Partition feature allows you to create, merge, split, resize, delete, copy, and move partitions. However, you'd be highly advised to backup all your data using the total backup option on PC Tools Disk Suite as disk partitions can result in lost or corrupted data very easily if you don't know what you are doing.

PC Tools Disk Suite is an incredibly comprehensive suite that covers all the major areas you need to keep your PC in tip top condition.

Download PC Tools Disk Suite in Softonic

Just when you thought that the snake concept had died on the PC and was relegated to the world of free mobile phone games, Snake Charmer arrives.

Snake Charmer has nothing to do with Indian men playing music to dancing pythons in sacks or boxes. It's quite simply the classic Snake game. Snake Charmer is one more snake clone. Snake Charmer has clearly been designed with the office worker in mind - one of it's few "extras" is a Boss Key that you can hit if you get caught wasting time while you should be working.

In addition, there is a top score list should you want to prove your superiority to friends and there are a few levels to choose from which differ only in the speed at which the snake travels across your screen. It would have been far more interesting if the developers had tried to give Snake a modern new look with realistic snake style graphics but as it is, Snake Charmer looks like something you might have played on your Commodore VIC20.

It doesn't look pretty and it's no classic version of Snake but if you're a snake fan, you'll enjoy Snake Charmer for just a few minutes at least.

Download Snake Charmer 1.0 in Softonic

uTorrent has quickly become a favorite among torrent users worldwide thanks to an innovative interface, minute CPU usage and extensive download details.

The program is undoubtedly one of the most reliable torrent clients on the market, thanks to an ultra quick installation process and a minimal use of PC resources. You can have a good number of torrents downloading and still be able to use your PC without suffering any lags.

The interface is simple to use and is divided into the list of torrents and extensive details like peer data, download and upload speeds, file pieces and blocks, or a graph of your current speeds. In an attempt to help you structure all your torrents, the application allows you to set labels to your individual downloads. You can also view the torrents according to whether they are downloading, completed, active or inactive. If you download a good deal of torrents at a time this is a good way of keeping track of the progress of them all. Furthermore, you can easily set up the web interface for uTorrent, which allows you to check your torrents from any PC connected to the internet. All you need is to have one PC taking care of the downloads and set up access to the interface of your uTorrent session.

uTorrent makes it easy for you to look for new downloads without opening up your browser. You can search the main torrent sites by typing the name of the file you are looking for in the box on the top right corner of the interface. uTorrent also includes an RSS downloader to receive feeds of your favourite torrent sites. This little feature is great to check out all new torrents in one click.

The first time you launch uTorrent it lets you check your connection settings online and verify whether your ports are functioning properly. The preferences menu is also replete with tweaking possibilities. You can customize queuing, scheduling and downloading. Setting the location of downloaded files is the only bit that could confuse users as uTorrent makes a difference between new downloads and completed downloads.

You might have guessed it, here at Softonic we have a soft spot for uTorrent. Not only does the mini torrent client use up very little memory, it also comes with loads of information and customization features to make your downloading experience as simple and automated as possible. If you’re tired of the bandwidth hogging Azureus or bored of the basic Bittorrent client, check out uTorrent.

Download uTorrent (µTorrent) 1.8 in Softonic

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

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

Download Baku 3.6.3.31921 in Softonic

Have you ever needed to remotely control another machine but found that most software designed to do so leads to unreliable or slow connections? Anyplace Control aims to simplify and speed-up this process by allowing you to securely control remote computers and transfer files via the Internet or LAN.

Once connected, the program displays the remote computer's desktop on your local screen and lets you use your mouse and keyboard to control that PC remotely. This is invaluable if you need to offer technical support to someone who lives or works a long way from you or you need to share a file or presentation. Unlike many similar desktop sharing systems, there's also a built-in File Transfer feature which lets you transfer files between computers with relative ease.

You can perform a whole manner of tasks once you take control of a PC. With Anyplace Control, you can restart and shutdown a remote PC, lock a remote mouse or keyboard, and do various other remote tasks such as looking for potential problems. For Network Administrators, this tool will prove particularly useful because there's a wizard that allows you to setup Anyplace Control on multiple PC's.

This is a great tool for anyone needing to do some remote admin although the inititial connection time can be rather long. There are more efficient programs for the same task, such as Crossloop, but the fact that this includes a File Transfer feature makes it a more complete solution.

Download Anyplace Control 4.7.1.0 in Softonic

Master touch type is one of the most valuable things you can learn to do if you work in front of a PC all the time.

All The Right Type 3 Plus is a fun way for kids to do exactly that set in a space-age scenario and a futuristic campus that you might expect The Jetsons would study at. According to the developers, All The Right Type has been adopted in classrooms across the USA because it uses uses tried and tested classroom teaching methods to develop typing skills. All The Right Type instructs students on everything from realistic posture and finger positions to shortcuts to speeding-up your typing.

For teachers, All The Right Type is a very useful resource because it allows you to print certificates and awards for achievement and you get special effects when your student completes a task successfully. All The Right Type encourages students work at their own pace and also automatically grades and monitors students on their progress without the teacher having to be looking over their shoulder all the time. The graphics in All The Right Type are not exactly great but that's not really what this program should be judged on. What All The Right Type does do, for kids anyway, is entertain with meteorites, spaceships and planets while their typing skills should improve.

Kids (up to 8 years) will find this fun while teachers can sit back and let All The Right Type do the hard work while they can sit back.

Download All The Right Type 3 Plus in Softonic

Copying DVDs (for your own use, of course) is becoming increasingly difficult as manufacturers improve the security encoding on DVDs. AnyDVD however claims to be able to crack any DVD encryption code and judging by the number of downloads, Softonic users are certainly endorsing it too.

The beauty of AnyDVD is that it simply works in the background to automatically remove the copy protection of a DVD movie as soon as it's inserted into the drive. In this way, it can decrypt data without actually saving it to your hard-disk. You can watch the DVD at the same time or just insert a disk and let AnyDVD do its stuff. When you insert a disk, you are automatically prompted whether you want to decrypt it. When it has finished inspecting the disk, the program prompts you to backup the DVD using your preferred backup tool such as CloneDVD or Power DVD Copy.

The programme goes much further than this though. A handy bonus is that you can also remove the RPC region code, thereby making the movie region free and viewable on any DVD player. This is especially useful for those who buy many of their disks abroad or travel a lot. If you want to create a stripped-down version of a DVD, it can also remove unwanted movie features, including subtitles and extras for example. The programme also moves beyond decryption and allows you to control the speed of your DVD drive. This is useful if you’re having trouble playing a DVD properly or if the noise of your drive is causing annoyance. Finally, there’s also an option to display the frequency of your monitor for both NTSC and PAL displays although you probably won’t use this unless you’re having serious display issues.

The only drawback of AnyDVD is the number of daily updates that are released. Whilst this is obviously a good thing in terms of keeping it up-to-date with the latest encryption methods, the update alerts can be rather annoying and are prone to slowing your computer down.

However, this is a small price to pay for a programme that seems able to crack all but the toughest disks and for anyone who likes to create backups of their favourite DVDs, it’s an essential addition to your software collection.

Download AnyDVD HD 6.4.5.6 in Softonic

From slow beginnings, BitComet has risen to become one of the most popular torrent client downloads on Softonic. For users accustomed to the often sparse interfaces of torrent apps, BitComet surprises with its flashy icons and multitude of options that give you more control over your downloads. For those that want a no-fuss client, the extra features may simply get in the way.

Once a torrent is selected for download with BitComet, a dialog pops up allowing you to determine the location to save to and select exactly which files in the torrent you want. Once downloading, the regular stop, pause, cancel, update etc options are all available plus a handy “remove torrent & all files” option which removes all trace of an unwanted torrent from your PC. Many users report the download rates are good although note no particular difference with other client speeds. The best feature however is a ‘preview media’ option, which forces the torrent to download sequentially instead of randomly thus allowing you to preview any multimedia downloads. It’s a great way to avoid broken links, but, on the downside, it will slow down your download considerably.

Another interesting feature is the ‘intelligent disk cache’ which really comes into its own on high speed connections. If you are lucky enough to get download transfer rates of 500 kb/s or higher, activating it allows BitComet to cache the data to access the disk less frequently. The result of this is that it doesn’t slow down your PC as receiving large amounts of data can sometimes do.

Forum reports from foreign users suggest that the program has not been translated properly from English, yet this doesn’t affect the capacities of BitComet. The other downside is that the uninstall procedure is not particularly clean. The application directory remains as does the registry entry although you can remove the former manually and the latter with any good registry cleaner.

There are simpler clients out there, such as uTorrent uTorrent and Azureus that offer the same download rates but with less fuss. If you have a particularly fast connection, can’t wait for your files to download before watching them and enjoy a torrent client with lots of whistles and bells, BitComet might be for you.

Download BitComet 1.03 in Softonic

To keep your hard drive operating smoothly, there’s nothing more important than defragmenting it. Daily use of your PC means that your hard drive becomes disorganised, which leads to system slowdowns, PC crashes, slow start-ups and shutdowns and sometimes system failures. Auslogics Disk Defrag is basically a better looking version of Windows own defrag tool but does it do the job any better?

Auslogics Disk Defrag supports FAT 16, FAT 32 and NTFS volumes, which basically means it will work on almost any PC hard drive. What you instantly notice with this program is its simplicity. The big difference between Auslogics Disk Defrag and the built-in Windows equivalent is speed. Most users report that Auslogics Disk Defrag can defragment a hard drive in around half the time that Windows can. This is really important because one of the reasons Windows users give up on the inbuilt defrag tool is the increasing amount of time it takes to defrag the PC as it gets older. As a rough guide Auslogics Disk Defrag can defrag a full 75GB drive in around 2 hours, which is pretty impressive.

Another plus is that it’s pretty light on system resources - you can have it running in the background and it won’t hog your CPU although for best results, we don’t advise trying to use your computer whilst running a defrag tool. We found the program to be very stable too, with no major crashes or freezes during the defrag process. However, some users report that it has crashed programs that are running at the same time while using vb6 runtime files or .net framework.

On the downside, the program does not offer much in the way of advanced features. For example, you can’t set it to automatically shut-down your PC when it’s finished (useful if you leave it on overnight) and you can’t instruct it to exclude or ignore certain files or folders.

Our overall impression of Auslogics Disk Defrag is that it offers significant speed advantages over Windows defrag tool with a slightly nicer interface. If you’re tired of hanging around waiting for your drive to defrag, give this a go and you might be impressed by the results.

Download Auslogics Disk Defrag 1.4.16.308 in Softonic

If you're a serious gamer then you'll need some help to get the most out of your system and ensure your graphics card is performing to the peak of it's abilities.

Game Gain 2 is the latest version of this popular gaming assistant which attempts to take gaming to the next level. It can help you enjoy games like you never have done before by using those parts of your processor and graphics card that had formerly laid dormant. The program is remarkably easy to use requiring just the tweaking of a few throttles and switches to blast your PC into the gaming stratosphere. However, you should use this utility with caution because it does change registry settings that could unbalance your system if your registry is already damaged. It works by making direct changes to system registry and system files to enhance memory, screen drawing, animations, refresh rates, CPU threading speeds. However the developers assure that it only optimises based on the capabilities of your system and won't try and push it past anything it can't handle. If you do experience problems afterwards, the system analyzer should help remedy them.

A great tool for gamers although if you've got the latest Intel Quad processors, you'll probably have little use for it.

Download GameGain 2.7.7.2008 in Softonic

The all-new PcMedik 6 sets the standard for PC optimizing software. One of the first products to enhance PC performance, it increases overall speed and squeezes out every last bit of performance your computer is capable of.

PcMedik also locates and repairs problems with software and hardware incompatibilities which lead to computer performance issues. Very easy to use, fully compliant with all versions of Microsoft Windows and adjusts itself to your computer specifications. Take your existing PC and revitalize it the easy way.

Download PCMedik 6.7.7.2008 in Softonic