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Malware Bytes

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a surprisingly effective freeware antimalware tool. It's a relatively speedy malware remover, with the quick scan taking about 8 minutes even with other high-resource programs running. The heuristics engine proved on multiple computers during empirical testing that it was capable of determining the difference between false positives and dangerous apps.

The app has some nice features rolled in, too. It supports multiple drive scanning including networked drives, context menu options including a scan-on-demand for individual files, and the FileAssassin option under the More Tools section for removing locked files. The interface is simple, but pleasant-looking and well-organized. Tabs live just below the oversized logo, with few options per tab to keep down the clutter. The installation process was fast enough, but interestingly offered up the well-kept changelog and an instant definition file update.

Do note that the real-time protection is restricted to the paid version, as is the scheduler for updates and scans. Overall, though, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a responsive malware remover that does what it should with a minimum of fuss.

CCleaner

Although it lacks a few of the bells and whistles found in other PC-cleaning applications, this free program offers more than enough features to make it a worthy download. CCleaner's interface is logically designed and makes it easy to wipe away your tracks from Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Google Chrome from various Windows system areas, and from some third-party applications.

CCleaner doesn't support the large number of extraneous programs that some competitors do, but it can erase traces from such popular programs as Spybot - Search & Destroy and WinZip. CCleaner now offers secure file erasing along with a Registry-cleaning utility that quickly scans for invalid entries before removing them. CCleaner can even back up your Registry before removal, in case it accidentally removes a crucial component, and the download includes a rudimentary feature for uninstalling any program on your machine.

Since this free application handles the majority of PC-cleaning chores and offers a nice extra, we strongly recommend CCleaner to all users, except those who need robust tools to remove supersensitive data.

Adobe Flash Player

Adobe's latest version of the Flash Player browser plug-in is just as trouble-free as previous versions, existing unobtrusively in your system until Web-based animations, games, or ubiquitous Flash ads require its services.

The latest version downloads and installs quickly, and will probably always require a browser restart. Our tests turned up nothing to make us scratch our heads, and upgrading from version 9 to the current one has fixed for many people a bug that caused embedded video to freeze.

You need a Flash Player to experience the Web at its fullest, so users at any level of expertise should have no qualms about installing or upgrading to Flash 10..

PDF Reader

To put it gently, Adobe Reader is a real pain in the hindquarters. It's monstrously large, slow to load, and includes many features most users will hardly ever need.  PDF Reader 3.0 kills the bloat and throws in some useful features, such as multimedia support and content-sharing options, while still allowing you to quickly access your PDFs.

The interface mimics Adobe's, so you won't have to change your reading habits. In our test, the text readability was similar. The small program starts surprisingly fast compared with Adobe. You might need to fiddle a bit to get it to work with your Internet browser, but you can find help on its support forums. It's a nice touch that it opens PDFs from the Internet in their own window, instead of sucking resources from within the browser.

This programs biggest flaw in the old version was hogging memory and that has been corrected. Recent updates include fixing the hyperlink problem, multimedia support, printing highlighted-only sections, and tabbed PDF browsing, so you can read multiple PDFs simultaneously and with ease. Overall, unless you're tied to Adobe we strongly recommend this freeware competitor.

File Transfer Protocol

FTP is a top-notch freeware FTP client, with a wide, uncluttered layout to keep things organized. Easy to use and lacking only the most advanced of features, like multisite connections, FTP is a must-have.

Major functions such as Site Manager for maintaining connection information, Quick Reconnect, and mode switching are given big buttons on the toolbar. When you're connected to a site, though, the file-management pane also replicates buttons for most of these functions so you don't have to mouse very far to use the tool you need. The client supports all essential FTP functions, including multiple transfers, secure protocols, configurable ASCII uploading for specified file types, browser integration, and more.

There are few downsides to using this app. There's no scheduler. Some users have noted past stability issues, both in general and when conducting large transfers, but it seems that many older bugs have been worked out. We noticed no problems during our tests and strongly recommend FTP.

Super AntiSpyware

Adobe Shockwave

Adobe Air Installer

A single platform to download individual applications across multiple operating systems. What's not to love? Adobe Air (which stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime) is a sleek runtime platform that installs and runs an application on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. You'll need it to download applications built using Air. Since developers need only make one version of the app for all three computing platforms, they can spend more quality time creating their product.

Or so the theory goes. As a runtime and delivery mechanism, Air won't determine how well the app fulfills its purpose, but programs built on Air do tend to look sleek and polished, like Web apps pulled down to the desktop. They also install quickly and seamlessly, as long as you've got the most recent version of Air running. If you don't, each app installation will prompt you.

Air has allowed developers to make hybrid applications, or desktop tools that can integrate with various Web services, while still allowing some offline functionality that Web browsers don't yet have. This includes things like taskbar and dock notifications. It continues to develop alongside advances to Adobe's other Web plug-ins. If you're looking at desktop applications based on Air, you should definitely give it a try.

Winrar

There are plenty of solid compression utilities to choose from, but this shareware powerhouse offers the features and ease of use that place it at the top of the compression category. WinRAR is easy to use, lightweight, and flexible.

An intuitive interface lets you mouse over icons to see their functions, and if you don't like their candy-coated appearance, you can always choose from several themes at the developer's site. The Folder Tree Panel makes sifting through your directories to find files easier than ever. But once you see the size savings of a RAR archive, with a compression ratio of 8 percent to 15 percent better than the ZIP format, you'll understand why so many users and developers are making the switch from other apps. With virus scans now integrated and minor interface tweaks for Vista, only the slightly slower decompression speed holds the app back.

Beyond its good looks and right-click readiness for basic compression and unzipping, WinRAR offers unpacking support for a large number of archive formats, including TAR, ACE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, and ZIP. WinRAR's advanced features are icing on the cake, with Unicode support for international formatting, embedded file comments, damaged archive repair, archive locking, self-extracting archives, and easy encryption. There's also the option to automatically delete temporary files and just-archived files. Anyone seeking an all-in-one archiving solution would be remiss to not check out WinRAR.

MSO Conversion Tool

Open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the Open XML file formats which were introduced to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint beginning with Office 2007.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

Ninite Easy PC Setup

Ninite is a Web service that consolidates applications into a single installer for you to download. Simply pick the apps you want, then Start your customized installer. Ninite works in the background 100 percent hands-free.

Ninite currently includes 58 freeware and shareware applications in 12 categories: Developer Tools, Compression, Utilities, Web Browsers, Messaging, Media, Imaging, Documents, Anti-Virus, Runtimes, File Sharing, and Other.

When it was in private beta, Ninite was called Volery.

K9 Web Protection

The Internet has made your job as a parent a whole lot tougher. As soon as your child is old enough to get online, you have to safely guide him through a whole new world: the virtual one. How can you encourage your child to explore wonderful new places that stimulate creativity and learning while ensuring he or she doesn’t wander into dangerous territory?

If that’s not enough, the rules change as your child matures. With younger children, parents have far more control over Internet use. But as children enter the teen years, you have to loosen the controls on Internet activity while still setting appropriate limits. Where and with whom can they visit? What kind of information can they safely reveal about themselves online? What times of the day are they allowed Internet access?

The reality is, you can’t be with your child at every click, so you have to teach them how to make good decisions. Most importantly, you have to have to encourage them to share their experiences with you — the good and the bad. You also have to be careful about falling into one of two traps:

Over-blocking: Some security solutions might be too restrictive, and block many sites you or your children need or want to see. An overly restrictive solution can be frustrating for you and your family if you have to unblock sites on a regular basis.

Under-blocking: On the other hand, if your security software does not have sophisticated Web filtering capabilities, it may not block enough inappropriate or dangerous content. As a result, your children may wander into (or intentionally find) the sites you don’t want them to see.

K9 helps you avoid the pitfalls

K9 Web Protection offers superior coverage (to minimize under-blocking) and accuracy (to limit over-blocking). We have one of the best coverage rates in the market, because our Web filtering technology can recognize and categorize Web content — even if it does not yet exist in our database. And our technology is also highly accurate, because we apply a detailed set of criteria to characterize every site that is requested.

Duplicate Cleaner

Duplicate Cleaner is a useful program to help you organize the contents of your home hard drive or corporate network.

You'd be surprised just how many redundant or duplicate files you could find forgotten in an obscure documents folder. Duplicate Cleaner will deep scan for all types of files - photos, music, films/video, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, text files - you name it, if it appears twice on your computer then Duplicate Cleaner will find it. Once these files are found you are provided with helper tools to enable you to select which copies to delete or move.These files can be deleted to the recycle bin, moved into an archive elsewhere, or replaced with hardlinks.

Jackson Proficient Services continues to search for tools that will help you in your experience with technology that will save you time and money! Donations are a helpful means of ensuring more effective tools in the future. All donations go towards new software to help you. Thanks!