freeware

Power Downloader tries his best to help all, but recently his friend Francois Foto approached him with a tricky problem: is there a way to easily convert photos from one format to another? ''Ze emphasees,'' said Francois, ''eez on easy.'' Power had a simple solution, a freeware program called XnView.

XnView is a robust program, an image browser and viewer as well as a converter. For conversions, though, it can handle more than 400 formats from Camera RAW, JPG, GIF, TIFF, and other still image formats all the way through AVI, MOV, MPEG, and a multitude of movie formats. Metadata … Read more

Barely noticed before last summer, Avira Antivir has received an increasing amount of attention since garnering the highest score of any free security program on AV-Comparatives independent testing service for on-demand testing.

It fares a bit worse on the "Retrospective/ProActive" test, although still better than any of the other applications tested. However, it's hard to find anybody who finds the virus definition file update speed to be fast: it's notoriously slow. We put Antivir through the CNET Reviews Labs benchmarking process and came up with some unsurprising results.

When running alongside other high-drain processes, such … Read more

I started e-mailing files to myself as a form of ad-hoc backup soon after I signed up for a Gmail account. I'm not affected by Gmail's 20MB limit on the size of individual attachments, and I'm nowhere near my storage cap of 6.6GB.

I decided to formalize the process a bit by using the Gspace extension for the Firefox browser. The add-on lets you send files from your local PC to a virtual Gmail folder and view them much like you would in Windows Explorer.

After you install the Gspace applet and restart Firefox, you find … Read more

Flock is the first major browser geared toward social-networking addicts. Built on Firefox code and available for both Windows and Mac users, it will do absolutely nothing for you if you're looking to get away from MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogging, and other Web 2.0 mainstays. If, on the other hand, this is one addiction you're looking to feed with a shovel, Flock has everything you need to stay one step ahead of the bleeding edge.

Nine buttons at the top of the collapsible sidebar make accessing any of your social-networking or frequently used Web sites easier … Read more

AVG Technologies, formerly Grisoft, has updated AVG Free to Version 8.0. The other antivirus programs the company publishes updated in March, following AVG's pattern of updating the free version about a month after the paid editions get their new coats of paint.

As before, AVG Free 8.0 features all the essential functions of AVG Internet Security, but none of the bells and whistles. So the new engine is intact, with combined antivirus, antispyware, and the formerly independent LinkScanner technologies rolled into one. However, there's no antirootkit protection, and other features included in AVG Anti-Virus such as … Read more

If I could remember any, I would begin this post with an anecdote about how wonderful a good memory can be.

Instead, I'll just tell you how to put all your keyboard shortcuts and Windows commands in a text file that you can open quickly via keystrokes, or keep minimized for even faster access. And you can do it all without grabbing your mouse.

Start by finding a list of keyboard shortcuts. The one Microsoft put together works for me. Select all the text on the page from "General keyboard shortcuts" to just above "Other information.&… Read more

FoxyTunes inserts a music player control panel into the Status Bar of Firefox and Internet Explorer, eliminating the scramble to switch windows so you can skip that Barry Manilow ditty you forgot to delete from your collection. The interface is easy to use and is highly customizable.

When opened, it shows a navigation array with buttons for Play, Pause, Mute, Next Track, Last Track, Volume, and the useful Show Player, which brings your music player to the front. There's also a Hide Player button, as well as a music Search tool, keyboard shortcuts, skins, and a mini player that … Read more

It's much easier to notice the similarities between the programs in the free OpenOffice.org suite and their Microsoft Office counterparts than to see their differences. Unfortunately, it's the differences that can slow you down as you make the switch from Word to Writer, Excel to Calc, and PowerPoint to Impress.

For example, you may find that you don't have the same selection of fonts available in Writer as you did in Word, nor will you have access to the templates you used in Office. This doesn't mean you have to do without, though. There are … Read more

When it comes to video files, nothing is ever as easy as it should be. Thankfully, VLC media player offers a one-stop solution to the file-format and codec problem for Windows, Mac, and thumbdrives with a portable version. The open-source program supports playback of OGG, MP2, MP3, MP4, DivX, DVD, and what seems like thousands of other file types. In addition, it also can function as a streaming media server.

Though the interface varies from platform to platform, the sparseness of the standard version leaves plenty to be desired. Some skins perks things up slightly, but the program seems to … Read more