Best Free Stuff for Your PC (and Mobile Devices) - PCWorld. It may turn out to be true after all that the best things in life are free. Certainly when it comes to software and services designed to make your PC faster, more fun, and easier to use, there's no shortage of amazing freebies. Whether you're looking to speed up boot times, block malware and viruses, manage your media, or work smarter from the road, we've got you covered.
PCWorld's editors have scoured the Web, hunted through app markets, and tracked down the best downloads, tools, services, and apps for your computer, your tablet, and your smartphone. Here is our list of the best free stuff of 2011. To read the related story about each category of free stuff, click the appropriate heading below, or use the contents box to the right. PC Utilities DisplayFusion Download | Review DropIt Download | Review Fences Download | Review FileZilla Download | Review ObjectDock Download | Review Prism Download | Review Revo Uninstaller Download | Review 7-Zip Download | Review Synergy Download | Review. Six Downloads to Improve Microsoft Office - PCWorld. Anyone who uses Microsoft Office will agree on two things: It's a powerful collection of applications, and it needs improvements.
Here are six programs that bring Office a lot closer to what it should be. The first three work across multiple Office applications, improving the much-loved--and much-hated--ribbon-based interface. The other three are application-specific, giving Outlook, Word, and Excel additional capabilities that Microsoft either didn't think of or didn't bother with. For links to these downloads all in one convenient place, see our "Six Downloads to Improve Microsoft Office" collection. User Interface Improvements Office Tab If you've ever had multiple Excel worksheets open at a time, you know the frustrations of switching among them and keeping track of which is which. Extendoffice.com's Office Tab adds tabbed document management to those three applications, making the chore much easier. Search Commands Download Search Commands | Price: Free | Supports Office 2007 Lookeen. Wikileaks dossier: The hacker will always get through, says WILLIAM REES-MOGG. UPDATED: 03:26 GMT, 12 December 2010 WikiLeaks' publication of 250,000 diplomatic cables and the impact it has had on governments was the subject of my column last week.
I took the view that governments would react with an attempt to regulate the internet. There has been an interesting debate on the MailOnline website, with some agreeing with my argument, while others took a liberal and pro-internet line. One view was well expressed by Stuart of Norwich, who thinks it is not possible for governments to regulate the internet: 'With a sophisticated network, clouds and 128-bit encryption and other techniques, closing down a website is impossible.' It was the sheer scale of the operation that shook governments; not its content. I incline to accept that opinion, due to my teenage memories of the Second World War, when the technological battle was never conclusively won by either side until the development of nuclear weapons in 1945.
However, Roy of Southend does not share Stuart's view. WikiLeaks Nearly Immune to Takedown, Says Researcher - PCWorld. News December 8, 2010 07:12 AM ET Computerworld - Massive network attacks and other punitive actions taken against WikiLeaks over the past few days only appear to have made the site and its contents far more resilient to takedown attempts, a security researcher said. In the 10 days since WikiLeaks began releasing classified cables from the U.S Department of State, wikileaks.org was hit with massive denial of service attacks, the termination of its its domain hosting service, the loss of Amazon.com as a host, and the loss of PayPal, MasterCard and Visa Europe services.
Yet, in what's becoming an interesting case study in Internet resilience, WikiLeaks not only continues to serve up its controversial content, it appears to have bolstered its ability to do so, said James Cowie, chief technology officer at Renesys, an Internet monitoring firm. Before WikiLeaks started releasing the classified State Department cables, its content was hosted by two Swedish ISPs and another based in France. Top 10 Registry Tweaks that Power Up Windows. Access All Your Google Accounts at the Same Time With Multiple Sign-in. Would you like to easily access all of your Google accounts without using multiple browsers or special addons? Here’s how you can use the new Google Multiple Sign-in feature to quickly access all your accounts.
Google services permeate most of our online lives, and many of us end up using multiple Google accounts for different projects. You may have a personal Gmail account, a specialized one for your website, and another for using on public forums and comments. Before, the only way to access all the accounts would be to use multiple browsers or to use special extensions to sign in to multiple accounts at the same time. Now Google has made it easy to link all of your Google accounts so you can access them directly in the same browser.
Add Multiple Sign-in to Your Google Account When you access any Google service, such as Docs or Gmail, you’ll see your Gmail address in the top right corner. Head over to Google.com/accounts (link below), and sign in with your main, standard Google account. BitTorrent for Beginners: Making the Most of Your Internet Connection. Just got started using BitTorrent and want it to download torrents faster? With some easy configuration, you can use your bandwidth to its utmost potential, even if you don’t have fat pipes at home. This is the fifth article in our series explaining BitTorrent—be sure and check out our beginner’s guide, how to create your own torrents, protecting your privacy, and how to privately share large files with your friends.
Image by The Planet Test Your Connection First In order for this to be most effective, you should get your connection speed tested, and you may also wish to see if your ISP is throttling (artificially slowing) BitTorrent transfers so you can adjust your settings to try to get around that. Both of these can be achieved using the Glasnost ISP Traffic-Shaping Test, which utilizes the Java Runtime Environment to test a variety of things. If you get a “missing plugin” error, you may not have JRE installed.
Optimizing Connections and Speed Limits Choosing a Good Client Transfer Capping. Desktop PC Buying Guide: The Specs Explained - PCWorld. Once you've determined the type of desktop system you want--a compact PC, a budget system, a mainstream all-purpose model, or a performance crackerjack--you need to know what components to look for. The processor and graphics card you choose will determine many of your machine's capabilities, as will the system's memory and hard drive. Understanding those components will help you get the performance you need, without paying for things you don't.
(Our holiday buying guide includes further shopping tips for purchasing a desktop PC.) You'll also want to consider details like the layout of the case, which can make the difference between a pleasant workstation and a nightmare PC. Processor The CPU is one of your PC's most important components. Compact PCs and some all-in-ones use relatively puny netbook or laptop processors. Intel's new Sandy Bridge line of desktop processors run the gamut from Budget PCs to Performance PCs. Desktop PCs use either Intel or AMD processors. Graphics Cards. Windows Newbie Q&A: Sharing Links, Maximizing Apps - PCWorld. Back in January I wrote a Hassle-Free PC aimed at novice users, "Raise Your Windows IQ: Advice for Newbies.
" Given the questions I've been seeing in my inbox, I think it's time to revisit that series, to help Windows novices master more of the basics many of us take for granted. For example, sharing: I have a family member who, bless her heart, reads a lot of what I post online and often wants to share my articles with friends (thanks, Mom!).
The problem is, she's confused by the icons for things like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. that usually accompany such online content. What if she just wants to e-mail my lovingly crafted words to someone? PCWorld, of course, has an e-mail icon at the bottom of each news item, review, blog post, and the like--but not all sites do. Mom's solution is often to copy and paste the text into the body of an e-mail, but (I love you, Mom!) So, how do you share a Web page with someone? Your Web browser makes this even easier. How to Share a Link, Part 2. Work Smarter In Windows: 55 Great Productivity Tricks - PCWorld Business Center. With an ever-growing number of distractions that are fighting for your attention throughout the day, it’s more important than ever to be as productive as possible when you’re actually on the job.
With that in mind, we’ve dug up the best Windows tricks in our arsenal and talked to some of the best minds in productivity to find 55 tips sure to help you get more work done with your PC in less time. (Please note: These tips apply primarily to Windows 7, though most also work in Vista and many apply to XP as well.) Let’s get down to it. Minimize all windows (except the one that you’re working on).
When your desktop becomes so cluttered that you can’t find anything, this step is a good way to regain focus. Grab the title bar of the window you want, and shake your mouse a little. Use folders in your e-mail client. Be judicious with e-mail folders. Use rules to route messages automatically. Remap the Windows key. Customize your browser’s default search engine. Improve Windows Search. 8 Great Free Security Tools - PCWorld. Your PC is under attack on all fronts.
These eight free downloads and services will help you beat back the bad guys with antivirus and antispyware programs, personal firewalls, and even a program that can detect whether your Web site is under attack. BEST BET Avast Home Edition: The big names in security software charge you big bucks for big suites full of big, bloated software. It scans your system for malware and kills what it finds, and gives you seven different types of "shields" to keep you safe from harm, such as one for protecting you from dangers that might be lurking on Web sites (such as drive-by downloads), one for guarding against peer-to-peer attacks, another that stops instant messaging threats, and so on.
And it does all that, amazingly enough, without taking up much RAM or system resources. a-Squared HiJackFree: Spyware is notorious for evading even the most rigorous cleaners, which is why you need more than one antispyware utility on your PC. More Free Stuff. Windows 32-Bit vs. 64-Bit, Personalize Your OS - PCWorld. In response to a recent Hassle-Free PC that described quickly determining which version of Windows you have, a reader asked the following question about his system: "Microsoft Windows XP, Media Center Edition, Version 2002, Service Pack 3: Is this the 32-bit or 64-bit variety?
" Fair enough question: my Hassle-Free PC covered only Windows Vista and Windows 7, not XP. Know why? Because Microsoft didn't make 64-bit versions of XP--not for consumers, anyway. So if you're running XP on your system, I'd say it's 99.9 percent certain that it's the 32-bit variety. Ah, but what does it matter? Short answer: for most home users, 32-bit Windows is fine and dandy. I know, I know: this stuff can be confusing. Make Your Screen Easier to Read I admit it: My eyes are getting old.
As regular Hassle-Free PC readers know, it's a simple matter to increase the font size in, say, your browser: You just hold down the Ctrl key and tap + (or spin your mouse wheel). Presto! That's all there is to it! 15 Things Every PC User Should Know - PCWorld. Think you know tech? If you don't have a handle on every single one of these 15 tech facts, habits, and efficiency tricks, you're not living up to your potential. 1. Don't double-click everything. Windows 101: Double-clicking is how you open items in Windows. It's not how you open links in your Web browser, click buttons in dialog boxes, or do pretty much anything else--and if you reflexively double-click, you might accidentally zip right past something important or submit a form twice. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
How to Do Everything Faster - PCWorld. Fighting Today's Malware - PCWorld. If malware were biological, the world would be in the grip of the worst pandemic in history. In 2009, more than 25 million different unique malware programs were identified, more than all the malware programs ever created in all previous years (see the annual report from Panda Labs). That's a pretty incredible statistic. Malicious programs now outnumber legitimate ones by many orders of magnitude. The world's largest cloud computing user? Not Microsoft, not Google, not Amazon.com. The ringleaders of the Conficker botnet, with more than 4.6 million infected computers under their control, win by a mile. Some antimalware vendors report that 48 percent of the computers they scan are infected (see page 10 of the APWG Phishing Activity Trends Report) with some sort of malware.
. [ Get the full scoop on successfully defending against modern malware in the InfoWorld "Malware Deep Dive" PDF special report. | Better manage your company's information security with our Security Central newsletter. ] Save Money With These Penny-Pinching Printers - PCWorld. Editor's note: The following corrections have been made to this article: We should have said that the HP OfficeJet Pro 8000 Wireless inkjet printer has just one standard input tray and that the cost of the OKI C610dtn color printer is $799. Also, one product mentioned, the Lexmark Prestige Pro805, has been discontinued. PCWorld regrets the errors. Printers are money pits: You pay for the machine, and then you keep on paying more for the ink or toner it needs to produce your documents.
With some lower-end models, your first set of replacement consumables may cost almost as much as the printer itself. But you don’t have to crack into your 401(k) just to run your printer. You can reduce your printing costs by buying the right printer in the first place—and keeping close watch on your printing habits afterward. I’ve done some of the hard work for you, though. Even if you buy a printer that’s relatively cheap to run, really saving money may require changing your own behavior. Inkjet Printers. 4-ways-to-make-cash-online: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance. If today's economy has left you in need of more cash, consider this emerging trend: Millions are using the Internet -- and a minimal amount of time -- to bring home extra bacon.
Whether delving into e-commerce or selling ad space on a blog, Internet sellers often benefit from a rock-bottom initial investment, the convenience of working wherever and whenever they please, and the freedom of being their own boss. However, before you quit your day job, it's important to consider the potential pitfalls of selling on the Internet. These include startup time, extenuating costs and stiff competition. "There are a lot of people trying to do the same thing," says Robert Spector, author of the book "Amazon.com: Get Big Fast," a book covering the history and development of the Web giant.
"What's going to differentiate the book I get from you versus the book I get from your competitor? " 1. Blogging Web logs -- now almost universally know as "blogs" -- were once the sardonic voice of dissent on the Web. SEO Success: Get Found on the Web in 3 Steps | oDesk.com. Why Afghanistan's Lithium Is a Big Deal, Even If It Never Leaves.