Creating customized DVD movies is a piece of cake with Droppix DVD Maker. The program takes care of everything so that you only have to worry about enjoying your favorite videos from the couch.

You can use any video files stored in your local drive (the program supports the most popular formats) or import videos right away from famous video websites like Youtube, Daily Motion or Google Video with just a single click. Droppix DVD Maker also includes several ready-to-use menu templates you can use to create personalized DVD menus, though the method to change them is not very well implemented (a double click on the current menu image would be much more intuitive than having to open the program's settings menu).

Another drawback to Droppix DVD Maker is the fact that you can't preview the video before converting and recording it to the actual disc, while other similar tools usually include a built-in player. At least the conversion process is easy and quite fast too.

Droppix DVD Maker lets you create customized DVD movies in a very easy way, but lacks some handy features found in other similar tools.

Mac users are often said to be the most loyal customers in the computer market, but that's because they have very good reasons, such as iTunes, to stick to Apple products. And if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't miss the opportunity to have this application on my Windows PC.

iTunes has become one of the most popular music managers available today. When you run it for the first time, you can choose your music folders or let the program take care of everything. Then you can keep on adding new music, videos, podcasts and other multimedia elements from various sources and – of course - synchronize all this content with your iPod or iPhone thanks to a perfectly seamless integration.

Managing your iTunes library is a piece of cake. The program's interface is simple and straightforward, plus there are right-click shortcuts and keyboard hotkeys for many tasks. You can view extended information about each track and edit their tags, give them a score with the iTunes star ranking tool and comfortably browse through your collection with the amazing Cover Flow system. And for those of you who work in a LAN environment, the great news is that you can share your music libraries with your network mates.

One thing I particularly like of iTunes as music manager is its ability to create playlists. The Smart Playlist tool enables you to create almost any kind of playlist based on just about any criteria you set: artist, genre, date added, star ranking or even the number of times you've played each song. Another great playlist is the so called Party Shuffle, which comes in very handy when you invite some friends over to your place. You can then leave iTunes working as a DJ and play music on its own, but if you drop by the PC at any time, you can freely add more songs to the list or rearrange them in any way.

However, if there's something where iTunes is not perfect yet, that's the player function. You may disagree here, but I think the iTunes player falls too short, especially when compared to its music manager side. It does have some interesting features, like the Smart shuffle function and crossfading playback, but I still find it too simple. The visual effects in the Viewer window are particularly poor. I also missed the ability to control the player from anywhere with global hotkeys, which is great if you listen to music while you're working on the PC with other apps. Fortunately there are some plug-ins that cover this need.

In all, despite these slight flaws, iTunes is probably the best choice to manage your music collection –and that includes Windows users.

MuvAudio is a .NET software application for recording/converting the audio of most video/audio items that are playable by Windows Media Player into MP3 (CBR and VBR), WMA, OGG, MP4, FLAC, WAV and more... Have you ever wanted to watch your favorite movie on-the-go, but you don't have a portable DVD player? Why not listen to it instead? With MuvAudio, now you can.

Have a portable player that doesn't play the type of file you wish it did? Now you can convert it to a format that your player supports. Easily. MuvAudio takes real-time recording to the next level allowing possibilities never before achieved by either digital conversion programs or real-time recording programs.

Features of MuvAudio 2:

• Converts at up to 10X* real-time. A breakthrough in the real-time recording world
• Convert to MP3 (CBR and VBR), WMA (Lossless), FLAC, OGG, MP4, WAV and more...
• Supports MP3, WMA, OGG, and FLAC meta-tagging of, Author, Title, Album, Year, Genre, and Track Number
• Automatically downloads and embeds album cover art directly into MP3 files
• Record the audio from most filetypes playable by Windows Media Player© (dvr-ms, rmi, mpeg, mpg, mpe, miv, mp2, wav, ivf, mpv2, mp2v, mpa, aif, aifc, aiff, au, snd, mp3, wmv, wma, asf, wvx, wmx, and avi)
• Watch Folder Mode lets you set a directory to watch for items to convert and automatically converts them
• Reproduces the best possible quality recording of any real-time recording program
• Supports "Sound Seclusion": MuvAudio2 only records the audio file, not other sounds made by your computer. Now you can use your computer while recording

Far from being just office workhorses, computers are also thought of as complete entertainment systems that you can use to chat with friends, play videogames or watch movies. Regarding this last option, there's a wide range of DVD players out there, but we'll focus our attention on one of them: Power DVD.

The program's installation process is very quick. It includes Google Toolbar as an add-on but you can decline its installation if you're not interested. Once launched, you gain access to its main interface which, to be honest, is not especially nice: a close-up of a girl wearing weird sunglasses is not the kind of thing you expect to see on the screen when opening a DVD player. It would look much better with some abstract design or just the program logo instead. Anyway, configuration settings allow you to customize this interface with skins but there are no skins included. At least you can change the color scheme by clicking on the display.

Power DVD is generally very easy to use. All the buttons on the player panel have tooltips to give you hints about their usage. Also, most of their functions can be performed with the mouse or the keyboard (using the hotkey displayed in the tooltip). When playing a movie in full screen mode, the panel hides automatically and shows only if you move the mouse. Still, you can access all the program's functions through a comprehensive context menu by right-clicking anywhere on the image.

As for the playing functions, the movie flows very smoothly even when you move the window around or play it in full screen mode. Sound can be configured in different ways, depending on your hardware means (from headphones to an 8-speaker surround system) in order to obtain the best possible sound quality. During our tests, we also found some interesting tools: one offers the possibility to change playing speed and therefore obtain slow or fast motion images; another one lets you take snapshots of your favourite scenes in the movie, according to the settings in Configuration – Player – Advanced - Snapshot; and finally a tool called "Say it again" with which you can repeat certain dialogues over and over again. This may be useful for foreign language students or movie fans who like to learn certain script lines by heart.

Power DVD is then a perfect solution for your all DVD playing needs. It may seem quite simple at first sight but after all, you don't need much more apart from "play" and "pause" to happily watch a movie on your PC. And in case you want to know more about the program and their developers, have a look at our interview with Dr. Jau Huang, Cyberlink's founder.

GOM Player is a free multimedia player with popular audio and video codecs built-in. So anytime you want to watch video or listen to music, you don't need to look for the necessary codecs.

Here's some of the features you will find in this great player:

Codec Finder

GOM Player includes many codecs (XviD, DivX, FLV1, AC3, OGG, MP4, H263 and more) so you won't need to install separate codecs for most videos. For those videos that require a separate codec, GOM Player will find one and direct you to a place where you can download open source version of the codec.

Play Broken AVI Files

AVI files can't be played if the index is broken, or the file isn't completely downloaded. This is because index is located at the end of the file. GOM Player's patented technology enables users to view files with broken index or that are still being downloaded.

Powerful Subtitle Support

GOM Player supports SMI, SRT, RT, SUB(with IDX) files for subtitle. You can specify margin, location, size, resolution, font and others. You can also enable shadow, view ASF files with subtitle, karaoke subtitle mode. You can even synchronize subtitle and video if there's any mismatch.

Convenient Playlist

GOM Player supports playlist formats such as M3U, PLS, ASX. You can include different media types on a playlist. Also, it also lets you edit playlists for different media types. It's easy to create and edit your own multimedia playlist with GOM Player.

Support Different Media Types

Along with different media format such as AVI, MPG, MPEG and DAT, GOM Player also supports streaming Windows media format (WMV, ASF, ASX). You can also watch DVD-quality videos with 5.1 channel audio output.

Screen Capture

Screen capture allows you to take a screenshot of your video directly from GOM Player. Using the Burst Capture feature, you can take continuous screenshots upto 999 shots.

Advanced Features

There are other endless number of advanced features. Customize brightness, contrast and saturation. Sharpen and add noise to your video. Try audio equalizer. Repeat a section of your video with our A-B Repeat feature. Fast forward/rewind a few seconds using left/right keys.

Got a music collection with hundreds of poorly labeled mp3 files? Like having complete information about your music files – album, performer, genre, lyrics, year of release, and so on? Hate editing tags manually?

mp3Tag is a tag processor for MP3, WMA, OGG, APE, AAC, MPP/MPC/MP+, MP4/M4a files with great features, like an automated search for lyrics and pictures (album covers); tags import from Amazon and FreeDB. Another important advantage is the automatic tag filling option, which works great for mp3 albums that come without tags and meaningless file names, like 01.mp3, 02.mp3, 03.mp3, etc. The program takes the track lengths and compares this information with FreeDB data to find the appropriate album to import tags from. After confirmation the information is stored in the tags and if required can be used to rename the files.

mp3Tag allows the users to view and edit tag information, save lyrics and pictures inside MP3, M4a or WMA-files, view technical information about music files and delete unused MP3-tags.The program is capable of changing one or more tag fields simultaneously (including multiple files), generating WinAmp and Windows Media Player playlists, exporting tag information, renaming groups of files according to their tag data and much more. And special feature for iPod lovers – m4a tag editor!

One of the best Firefox extensions you'll find, FoxyTunes lets you control any media player from your browser.

FoxyTunes is really the ideal add-on if you listen to your music all the time and are tired of switching back and forth between your browser and your media player. The extension fits discreetly at the bottom of your browser window, and includes all the basic playback buttons. You can also have it appear as a floating window, called FoxyTunes Mini. Advanced users will also enjoy being able to control it via keyboard shortcuts.

What makes FoxyTunes such an exceptional add-on though is its customizability. Not only can you add all sorts of skins, but you can also associate with any of the most popular media player, including online services like Last.FM, Pandora or Rhapsody Online. And since Yahoo! has acquired FoxyTunes you'll also now get fresh content from Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Music related to the music you're playing.

Via FoxyTunes Planet, which opens up in a new browser window, you can get search for any track, album or artist and get all sorts of content such as video, articles or audio from your results.

Despite the volume slider not being very precise, FoxyTunes is the ultimate Firefox extension for music lovers. It works with any player and also displays additional content on the music you're playing.

As video goes the way of the good old cassette tape, DVD has become universally adopted as the format of choice for watching movies. Of course, the medium is not infallible, and DVDs are as prone to scratching or damage as VHS tapes were to getting chewed by the machine. CloneDVD represents one of the easiest ways to back up your movies to disk, ensuring that even novice users don't have to worry about loss or damage of their favorite films.

The interface is wonderfully simple to use, allowing you to select your source location and destination through an obvious wizard-style menu system. The beauty of the program is that it gives you a number of options for cloning to help you compress the file size without compromising movie quality. For instance, you can choose to omit certain extras from your DVD such as foreign language subtitles or theatrical trailers. Copying speed is among the fastest around, allowing you to copy to an ISO file on your hard drive or directly to recordable DVD in a flash.

Although the application doesn't allow you to clone copy-protected media, this is of course, illegal anyway, and if you want to perform such operations then there are alternative applications available that can be used alongside CloneDVD. If it's simplicity of use and speed that you require then CloneDVD is more than capable.

Choosing a multimedia player used to be a real no-brainer. However, during recent times the raft of new features and updates added to classic media players like Winamp, Windows Media Player, and even iTunes have left the apps increasingly bloated. Far from being the slick, well-oiled machines they once were, these programs have been stuffed with so much that they are in danger of ending up like a sluggish, overweight athlete still holding on to past glories.

For those looking for a fresh alternative to these ballooning apps, The KM Player could be your ticket. The application has a small desktop footprint and its minimalist interface, somewhat akin to the original Winamp 5, means that access and playback are quick and hassle-free. Like Winamp, the interface is fully skinable, and there are some nice aesthetic touches, such as the changing of colour on the player with every new track. There are all sorts of options to help you pimp your player, such as visualizations, plug-ins and playback options, but the beauty of KM Player is that these are turned on at your request rather than being forced upon you at the outset.

The application handles both audio and video, and supports a wide range of different formats, meaning that once installed, you should never need to touch another player. Video playback is particularly impressive thanks to the range of processing tools available that allow you to sharpen, change picture properties, apply filters and even make video captures from within the program.

Yahoo! Messenger has long been one of the world's most popular IM clients, mainly because Yahoo! itself is such a large presence in the realms of web-mail, communities and so on. It now sits comfortably in second place to Windows Live Messenger in terms of user-base.

Among the new features in Yahoo! Messenger 9, the emphasis is very much on looks rather than functions. For example, the brand new IMVironment feature (which completely customises your chat windows) looks pretty impressive at first until you realise that nearly all of them are simply complex advertisements or marketing campaigns from firms like Gatorade and Kleenex. Improvements to the way contacts' images are displayed, as well as new photo-sharing via the excellent Flickr are welcome additions but even they can't dispel the bad smell emanating from IMVironment.

New emoticons have been added to this latest version of Yahoo! Messenger, as have new skins for the main window. To me, these represent fairly minor aesthetic changes rather than important new functionalities, and as such aren't enough of a reason to upgrade. More handy features like improved handling of PC to PC calls, MP3 voicemail, and better integration with Yahoo! sites have also been included but again, none except for the Flickr tool seems really useful. Really, this Beta feels as if it's about matching Live Messenger for features and not much more.

Yahoo! Messenger probably isn't aimed at users like me who prize usability and simplicity above bright colours and lots of advertising. If you like the sound of branding every chat window you use with Kleenex or Axe deodorant then Yahoo! Messenger 9 Beta is for you. If you'd rather use a simple, elegant and uncluttered chat interface, switch to Google Talk and you'll never look back.

A bloated, brightly coloured IM client packed with advertising and not much more.

Nearly all software can be categorised as being from one of two groups: the programs that do one thing, normally fairly well, and the programs which do everything - often with some loss of quality. Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite (EMCS) is a classic case of the second type. While its capabilities are huge and impressive, they bring with them other problems like reduced performance and long load times.

The original cornerstone of Roxio's flagship product is CD and DVD burning. EMCS still packs a powerful tool for writing to disks but it's really all the extra functionality that makes this suite interesting. EMCS does it all: photo slide shows, video editing, iPod and MP3 player management, secure backups, multimedia organisation and video playback - to name but a few.

We tested each of the components and found that most of them perform to at least a satisfactory level. Sadly, Roxio included several design-related elements which annoy (like using custom window decorations, buttons and even file browsers when the Windows default shell is perfectly usable). Also, the suite contains numerous advertisements for new Roxio services which appear a little odd given that this isn't a free program. Likewise, Roxio's insistence on opening web links using Internet Explorer whether it's your default browser or not was disappointing: it's never a good sign when a program effectively forces you to do things its way or not at all.

The worst feature of the suite is without doubt the video player (called 'CinePlayer') which is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill movie player. After loading for nearly 30 seconds, it took ages to load a simple DivX file and crashed when a couple of buttons were clicked. When free players like VLC can do so much better, one has to wonder why Roxio didn't make an effort to deliver a really fast, lightweight player instead of the slovenly, unstable one bundled in this suite.

All that said, Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite is actually a pretty good bundle. We love the photo editing application which is fairly fast and has just the right balance of basic and advanced tools. The mobile phone photo wizard is a particularly cool utility which really did help camera-phone pictures look better.

The most significant problem with Roxio is the way it treats your PC. This is not a program which is designed to be removed once installed. It installs so many components to your system that you can easily lose track of them... and it fails to include a comprehensive uninstall application for the whole bundle. Instead, you must uninstall each component separately, a time consuming and irritating hassle. I'm still having trouble getting the 1.4 GB installer off my computer!

Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite is a powerful and comprehensive media suite. If you're looking for one bundle of software, which you'll never remove from your computer, to handle all your media tasks then this is the software for you. If, however, you prize quality over convenience, and have some respect for your hard-disk and registry, Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite is not recommended.

Napster will always hold fond memories for me because back in the day, it was the first application I used for P2P file sharing. After a much publicised legal battle, now Napster has put itself on the right side of the law with a subscription based service for millions of Mp3s.

Since its inception, the look of Napster has been improved several times and it now offers an elegant interface through which you can search and purchase music from 99 cents per song or $9.95 per album. If you're a big music fan however, you'll find it much more economical to subscribe to Napster's premium service for $9.95 per month, which offers unlimited downloading, 40 commercial-free interactive radio stations and a collection of community features. These include options to e-mail tracks to friends and share play lists with other Napster users. In fact, this remarkable value for money is probably Napster's major advantage over competitors such as iTunes Music Store which work out considerably more expensive. The other positive aspects of Napster are that you can preview songs before you buy them, many users say there are tons more songs than on iTunes, there's a community radio station and even an inbox for e-mail.

Of course, the downside is that if you're one of the world's millions of iPod users, you won't be able to transfer Napster tracks to it because the files are in in WMA format. In fact, you won't be able to transfer them to any portable music player unless they can play Windows Media Player 9 DRM protected files. In addition, the number of times you can copy the files is also limited. On the plus side, the bit-rate is a healthy 192 Kbs and burning CDs on Napster is really easy, involving just a few button clicks and some simple steps to configure your preferences and there are no limits on how many times you can burn a file.

Overall, Napster has come a long way since its early days in the late 1990s and is a worthy competitor to iTunes. However, if only there was less DRM on their files, it would score much more highly.

Color7 Music Editor is a visual audio editor and recorder software solution, which supports many advanced and powerful operations with audio data.

You can use Color7 Music Editor to record your own music, voice, or other audio, edit it, mix it with other audio or musical parts, add effects like Reverb, Chorus, and Echo, and master it so that you can burn it to a CD, post it on the World Wide Web, or e-mail it.

What you can do:

• Open, create, and save audio files in any of the supported formats (can also save any portion of a loaded file to disk as a new file)
• Display audio data waveform (Zoom Full, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Zoom Vertical)
• Record audio data from a microphone or any other available input device (You can record audio from DVD/VCD/CD Player, tapes and LP's, MP3 Player, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, web page, internet conversation, internet news, internet radio station and more)
• Edit audio files visually (Cut, Copy, Delete Selection, Delete Silence, Paste, Paste From File, Mix, Mix From File)
• Apply various effects (Amplify, Compressor, Delay, Equalize, Fade In and Fade Out, Flanger, Invert, Normalize, Phaser, Reverb, Reverse, Silence, Shrink, Stretch, etc.)
• Apply different filters to any selected portion of audio files (BandPass Filter, FFT Filter, HighPass Filter, HighShelf Filter,LowPass Filter, LowShelf Filter, Notch Filter)
• Convert an audio file from one format to another
• Use marker to locate the selected part or special part of the audio data
• Add and edit extra information to your audio files (Album, Artist, Comments, Copyright, Genre, Title, Year)

One way of enriching your musical experience is to learn the lyrics to all those songs you know and love. Thanks to Evil Lyrics, music lovers have an easy way to do just that every time they listen to MP3’s on their PC. Evil Lyrics is a small plug-in that displays the lyrics of songs as they play as long as you’ve got an internet connection.

Once installed, Evil Lyrics starts every time you open your default media player. The window floats in a small browser style window at the side of the player but it can be minimised to the tray if you don’t want it sat there. The window also provides additional links to Google searches, Amazon album profiles, translations, offline storage and other album or song related data. The plug-in was designed originally for Winamp (which is what we tested it in) but it now works with Windows Media Player, Foobar2000 and Sonique. It’s also supposed to be compatible with Media Player XP although many users have reported problems with this particular player.

One of the best features of Evil Lyrics is that it’s very light and does the job discreetly without affecting other running applications. But most importantly, does it recall the lyrics accurately? Well, the truth is it’s not perfect but it does surprisingly well. In tests, we found that at least 80% of the time, it displayed the correct lyrics for the song in progress. The accuracy of this is very much down to you though. If the ID tags of your MP3’s are not entered accurately, then you’ll either end up with some very random results or simply nothing at all. There is a ‘Search Again’ button if this happens in which case Evil Lyrics tries to find the next closest match but we found it very rarely worked accurately. More often than not, you’ll end up with Michael Jackson rather than Jackson Browne when using this secondary option. Evil Lyrics retrieves the info from it’s ‘Ello Lyrics’ database which claims to have literally hundreds of thousands of songs.

One nice little feature is that lyrics are cached for offline playback so you can also read your favourite lyrics on the move. There’s also a karaoke mode where Evil Lyrics searches its karaoke database for lyrics but this is significantly more limited than the normal database. In classic karaoke style, the lyrics appear in huge luminous letters within the window which can be expanded to fill the screen meaning you can host your own karaoke parties.

On the downside, as mentioned earlier, it’s not 100% accurate with the lyrics. In the case of Winamp too, there doesn’t seem to be any way to minimize and restore Evil Lyrics when you minimize and restore the audio player itself. Nevertheless, it’s a fun little plug-in that’ll help you get more out of music or at the least, improve your karaoke skills.

SuperVideoCap allows you capture to Video/VCR/TV program from DV/DC/TV tuner card/Webcam/capture card to AVI, DIVX, XVID, or WMV file. It offers support for auto-capture, custom WMV profile, snapshot bitmap, JPEG from DV/DC/TV tuner card/Webcam/capture card.

Broadcast from anything that you can plug into your audio or video card, including a DV, DC, Webcam, video camera, TV tuner, VCR, VCD player and your friends can view your content with Microsoft Windows Media Player or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

• Supports auto-capture
• Supports Custom WMV Profile. You can configure streams to use Window Media Video 9 Codec, VBR and CBR bitrates, uncompressed audio or video stream, Video Size, Buffer Size, Frame rate, etc.
• SnapShot Bitmap, JPEG from DV,DC,TV Tuner Card, Web Cam, Capture Card
• Real time video preview
• WDM streaming device selection and setting
• Delivering live audio and video content in real time to client computers
• Broadcast from anything that you can plug into your audio or video card, including a DV, DC, Web Cam, Video Camera, TV Tuner, VCR, VCD Player ,etc and your friends can view your content with Microsoft Windows Media Player or Microsoft Internet Explorer

Potaro is an application for streaming audio and video over a local network and the Internet. Stream MP3, MPEG, AVI, and other media files over the internet. Watch and control your home TV over the internet. The built-in web server allows multiple users to connect and view live streaming audio and video from your web cam, TV tuner card, or the music CD in your CD-Rom. View JPG, GIF and BMP images stored on your disk drives.

All you need is a JavaScript enabled web browser, Windows Media Player, and a broadband connection at your remote location. Potaro will stream any media format as long as you have the DirectX filter installed on your PC. A user name and password is required for access to the server. Security includes the ability to allow or block IP addresses.

This is what Potaro has to offer:

• Stream MP3 and other audio files
• Stream MPEG, AVI and other video formats
• Play audio and video files from a M3U or PLS playlist
• View images stored on your disk drives
• Play CDs and DVDs over the internet
• Stream audio from your sound card
• Stream video from a web camera
• Watch TV anywhere by streaming video from your TV Tuner card
• Change channels on your TV tuner card
• Comes with a plugin for the USB-UIRT Infrared device. USB-UIRT will allow you to change channels on your satellite receiver or cable box

moreTunes fetches data about the music being played on your media player (Winamp 5 or Windows Media Player 9). It gets the list of albums, lyrics, album covers and a lot more. With moreTunes, you can also repair the ID3 tags automatically, rename your files in a convenient way and search similar music.

Take a look at what moreTunes has to offer:

• View the albums of an artist
• View the tracks of an album
• Buy music on Amazon
• Automatic search of songs played with Winamp 5, WMP 9 or Media Monkey
• Search for similar music
• Scan your playlist
• Album covers
• Amazon customer reviews
• MP3 ID3 v2 tags editor
• Suggestions to repair the ID3 tags
• Rename your mp3s
• Scan your playlist
• Album covers
• Amazon customer reviews
• MP3 ID3 v2 tags editor
• Suggestions to repair the ID3 tags
• Rename your MP3 files

BlogJet is a weblog client for Windows that allows you to manage your blog without opening a browser. Designed for those who are more concerned with the editing and maintenance of their blog, rather than tinkering about with lots of code, the application boasts a number of useful features to improve the management of your blog.

Easy to use

The program's intuitive Account Wizard helps you to create a new blog or use an existing one with BlogJet (it supports almost all leading blog services). Furthermore, the intuitive smart interface of BlogJet will help you to start using the program right away.

Rich word processor

The built-in word processor allows you to format your posts according to your tastes and needs, without needing any specialist skills. From changing colors and fonts, through underlining, italicizing or making a text bold, everything can be performed with just one click or by pressing a combination of hotkeys.

Add fun elements

If you want to add some fun to your blog, there are 20 high-quality smileys and the Now Playing feature, which detects the name of the artist and the song title for the track being currently played in Windows Media Player, Winamp, or iTunes. It can even insert a link to this song in iTunes Music Store, so that readers can buy your favorite music.

Voice attachments

Take a microphone and record your voice, which can then be attached to your post and uploaded to your blog. Unlike web-based audio blogging services, there are no monthly fees, and it does not require external plug-ins

Are you sick of automatic Window's updates? xpy is a discrete tool which disables the default threats of a Windows XP installation. Besides disabling Windows and some of its components to communicate with Microsoft servers, xpy improves privacy settings and your system’s security.

It can disble various functions including Windows "calling home”, questionable services and can also block Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and Windows Messenger updates.

Though xpy is smaller than 60 kilobytes, it can close serious threats (i.e. DCOM) on long distance, where large service-packs can only protect you until a new security hole has been found.

Small tool which disables the default threats of a Windows XP installation. Besides disabling Windows and some of its components to communicate with Microsoft servers, xpy improves privacy settings and your system's security. Though xpy is smaller than 60 kilobytes, it can close serious threats (i.e. DCOM) definitively, where large service-packs can only protect you until a new security hole has been found.

Features:

• Disable Windows "calling home"
• Disable questionable services
• Disarm Internet Explorer
• Disarm Windows Media Player
• Remove Windows Messenger
• Improve privacy and security
• Improve performance