Free PC utilities - Part 2

UTILITY SUITES

Whisper32
Manage those hard-to-remember passwords, or have one generated for you.
Free
0.4MB

Cleaner Kit
This suite of tools consists of six parts. Clone Hunter lets you scan a PC's hard disk and delete any duplicate files; Trail Remover allows you to get rid of your web-browsing details (file cache, history and cookies) and Temp File Remover gets rid of those pesky temporary files that clutter up your hard disk every time you install a new program.

To erase confidential data from your PC securely use Wipe Delete; Links Repairer will remove or repair any out-of-date shortcuts on your PC and Registry Analyst cleans your registry of old, unused data snippets from programs that have long since been uninstalled.

Tools that edit the registry and delete files should be used with caution, and you should make a backup first; but bearing that in mind, this is a powerful toolkit.
Shareware, $35 (about £19)
1.3MB

Magic Utilities
This set of utilities comes in three parts. Uninstaller Plus provides a list of everything installed on a PC and the option to safely remove items. It can also get rid of entries in the uninstall list for programs that have been partially uninstalled. Startup Organiser controls which programs run when you start Windows.

Many of these are shown in the Startup folder in the Start menu, but some aren't so it's useful if you want to stop a particularly annoying program from loading when you start the PC. The final part, the Process Killer, acts in the same way as the Windows Task Manager (accessed by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del), allowing you to close programs that are running.
Shareware, $30 (about £16)
0.4MB

FILE CONVERSION

PDF995
This small program gives you a quick and easy way to distribute or archive all kinds of documents as PDF files instead of sending typed documents as Word files. These can contain viruses and can be blocked by some peoples' email providers.

Normally you would need to buy the expensive Adobe Acrobat Professional software to create these files but a number of small and cheap converters are available, and PDF995 is one of the best. The free version displays an advert in your web browser whenever you make a PDF but if you can put up with that, it's well worth it.
Free
4.3MB

Konvertor
Konvertor helps you manage, sort and convert image and sound files and even compressed archived documents and folders. It can read, write and convert 544 types of file. The file browser lets you write descriptions for your pictures so you can tell what's what. There is even an image editor containing effects tools you might find in a graphics program, such as blurring and resizing.

The drag-and-drop interface makes it quite simple and quick to convert image formats. It also integrates into Windows, so that when you right-click a file in Explorer, the menu displays a small preview of it, and gives you submenus to select various Konverter features.
Shareware, €20 (about £13)
7.9MB

123 Graphic Converter XP
Convert image files between 40 different file formats.
Free trial, then $30 (about £20)
1.7MB

Cheetah Audio Converter
Convert music files between MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG Vorbis audio formats.
Free
9.1MB

TMPG Encoder
Convert AVI video files to the MPEG format.
30-day trial, then $37 (about £20)
8.4MB

INTERNET

Firefox
Although Internet Explorer works perfectly well, alternative browsers offer extra features. Firefox, like Internet Explorer itself, is free. At the moment it is in a 'preview' stage, as it has not yet been officially released, but it still has a number of handy extensions and add-ons, including a pop-up blocker and extra privacy and security features. It also supports tabbed browsing, so you can have several web pages open and view them as stacked, tabbed pages in one window.
Free
4.7MB

Star Downloader Free
Star Downloader will manage your downloads so you can pause and restart them, which is useful if you have a slow or temperamental internet connection. It will also search for alternative sites from which you can download the same content.

It's compatible with the majority of web browsers and once installed you can view your downloads by category and their progress, so you can easily see what has downloaded and what hasn't. It also comes with a built-in unzipping utility to reverse the compression process on compressed downloads.

Finally, it attempts to improve your download speed by splitting the files you are downloading into parts and transferring the parts simultaneously as separate downloads.
Free
1.4MB

Ashampoo Internet Accelerator
Increase your downloading speed by 10-20 per cent with this simple program.
Free
2.1MB

All in One Secretmaker
An anti-spam and pop-up blocker package, which also throws in email encryption.
Free
0.9MB

FileZilla
A free program for downloading large files.
Free
4.4MB

SpamFighter
Anti-spam software that works with Outlook or Outlook Express.
Free
7.1MB

Download Accelerator Plus
This utility program automatically searches for and selects the fastest place on the internet to download a file from, speeding up your connection in the process.
Free
1.7MB

Go!Zilla Free
Find the best website to download from and speed up your internet connection - but the free version contains adverts.
Free
3.9MB

CD/DVD RECORDING

iTunes
iTunes is a very good media player and audio CD-recording application. It will organise the music files on your hard disk, reading MP3 and WMA format files as well as Apple's own AAC files. It will also import new files from your computer's hard disk, as well as copying audio from other CDs.

And when it comes to burning a CD of your favourite music, just create it as a playlist and then click on the circular Burn Disc icon at the top-right of the screen. iTunes is free and you don't need an iPod or any other portable audio player to use it. Now that Apple has opened its legal downloading service, you can use iTunes to buy music too.
Free
19.5MB

DeepBurner
With DeepBurner you can create almost any kind of CD and DVD depending, of course, on you having a recordable CD or DVD drive. It will burn audio discs (using MP3, Ogg Vorbis and WAV files), normal data CDs containing pretty much anything you like, and CDs with software you can use to start the computer.

You can also create ISO files - backups of CDs - that can be used for distributing the contents of a CD. DeepBurner can also be used to burn ISO files back to a CD and supports the burn-proof technology found on most new CD burners, which makes a failed burn much less likely.
Free
2.7MB

RealPlayer
A digital media player that will rip and burn music to and from CD.
Free (ad-supported)
9.7MB

Windows Media Player 9
The latest version of the media player lets you copy music tracks from a CD and burn CDs.
Free
13.3MB

Burn4Free
Burn audio CDs for your CD player with only two clicks. Free upgrades available.
Free
2.1MB

Zilla CD-DVD
Drag and drop files to this application to create audio and data CDs.
Free
4.9MB

Flaming CD Burner/Cover Designer
Record audio CDs and design your own covers with one easy-to-use package.
Free
7.2MB

BlindWrite
Make backups of your CDs to your computer's hard disk in a number of standard file formats.
Free trial, then $38 (about £20)
2.9MB

The price is right
When you're looking to kit your computer out with useful utility software, there's no need to turn to expensive big-brand software every time. There are plenty of handy programs available to download from the internet for free, or at a low cost.

Every computer connected to the internet should have some antivirus software and a firewall installed, while file-compression software, CD or DVD creation software and hard disk maintenance tools are useful for keeping things running smoothly.

With this in mind, downloading and installing the free ZoneAlarm firewall and AVG's antivirus software that we've looked at here, as well as WinZip, DeepBurner and Cleaner Kit instead of buying boxed software from a high street or online store, could mean a saving of around £200.

Make the decision to spend some time shopping around online for your programs and applications rather than simply buying the most well-known from the shelf, and watch the savings mount up.