ie8 fix

2.2.2

Review: Add beautiful effects to your photos with Filter Mania

Of the photo filtering apps on the Google Play store Filter Mania isn't bad by any means; it is just too filled with ads and doesn't do anything any differently from other similar apps.

This app slides ads all over your phone, including your status bar and browser. You can opt out of the ad agreement if you want, but you still have to watch out. The app requires that you log in through your Facebook account, which means you can add filters to any photo on your Facebook profile. If you want to take a picture inside … Read more

Add useful stuff to system menus with Right Click Enhancer Portable

Right Click Enhancer Portable combines two of our favorite things: context menu enhancements and portable freeware. This simple tool lets you customize the menus that appear when you right-click things in Windows. It adds a variety of menu items, including cascading menus with as many submenus as you need as well as custom items you create and configure. This version is completely portable, running from a USB drive or other portable media without having to be installed. You don't need to restart the application every time you reboot, though; the changes it makes persist until you change them back.… Read more

System cleanup

Over time, your PC fills up with leftovers, junk files, and digital debris, which makes your system run slower and can even increase its vulnerability to attacks. Software programs designed to clean up and tune up PCs can help you keep your PC in shape, if you use them wisely. Fortunately, even freeware system cleaners have gotten both safer to use and much more versatile. We recently ran PC Brother System Care Free, which offers not only to clean and optimize your files, registry, and disk drives but also to check your security status, manage programs, and provide easy access … Read more

Don't let the Web bugs bite

We hear a lot of about companies who track our Internet use and gather data about us as consumers, but who exactly are these companies, and what are they doing with this information? Ghostery (Chrome) can tell you exactly that. This Chrome extension will let you know who's monitoring your activity on every Web site you visit. It's a little creepy, but it's also a good thing to be aware of.

Like most Chrome extensions, Ghostery installs easily. We liked the fact that the extension immediately took us through a brief setup wizard, which allowed us to … Read more

Capture master

Windows comes with its own screen-capture feature, but there's not much to it, and anyone who uses screen captures more than occasionally will quickly realize that they need a more robust tool for this task. Fortunately, there's SmartCapture. This simple program lets users customize their screen-capture experience, both before and after the capture is taken.

SmartCapture isn't the most intuitive program at first glance, but it didn't take us long to figure it out. The program's interface is plain, with its major features arranged in menus and buttons. SmartCapture allows users to create different "… Read more

Graph maker

Engineers and math professionals will appreciate DPlot more than the layperson, but it has features that are useful for all users. Need to create a graph for your PowerPoint presentation or annual report? DPlot can handle this for you. It will create two- and three-dimensional graphs from data inputted into the program.

DPlot is not a program that is understandable without a visit to the Help file. Users who are familiar with engineering and calculation programs may not have the same difficulty using the program as we did, but we needed to read the instructions. The Help file is extensive … Read more

Hot-key commander

Hot Corners provides users who love navigating their screen with hot keys an opportunity to utilize their mouse movements as well. While easy to set up and use, some may grow frustrated with the program's sensitivity.

The program's only real screen interface comes when users must set up their keys. This step is surprisingly simple and should be welcoming to all skill levels with its clean screens and simple drop-down menus for designating actions. A Help file is available to users who may not be familiar with hot-key programs. Utilizing the hot keys was simple, but also frustrating. … Read more

Nothing new on offer

Promoted as a PC system cleaner, this utility provides a suite of system management tools in a nicely designed package.

PC Washer launches a colorful window displaying a 3D pie chart of your system's used and unused disk space. A vertical row of buttons provides access to the the usual suspects for this type of performance toolbox: Uninstaller, Startup Manager, Service Manager (for deactivating "needless Windows services"), File Shredder, Memory Booster, Process Manager, 0 Byte Folder Remover, and Disk Wiper.

The toolbox performed well in our tests. We liked the memory usage graph and CPU usage graph'… Read more