been changed, your default search setting altered, unwanted ads pop up on your screen and worse. SpywareBlaster is not a scanner like SpyBot but rather a stand- alone inoculation program that prevents the initial infection. It provides active protection against more than 1500 products that use ActiveX based exploits and offers defenses against unwanted cookies as well. A companion program to SpywareBlaster is SpywareGuard. Again, this is not a scanner like SpyBot. It is a protective program that works like an anti-virus suite by checking programs before they are executed. Both products are well executed, regularly updated and work well with each other and SpyBot. http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html (2.2MB) http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html (1.96MB) Best Free Search and Replace Utility Updated I've been a long time user of Funduc Software's excellent Search and Replace utility, now in version 4. However, I have to admit that after using HandyFile's free Find and Replace program, my loyalties are torn. Granted, it does pretty much the same thing, but it's faster as changes are made in memory rather than by writing to disk. This feature also provides a degree of safety. If you need to do text file replacements over multiple files, I suggest you give this tiny free utility a spin.(361KB) http://www.silveragesoftware.com/handytools.html Best Free Outliner I'm not a great fan of outliners - my brain doesn't work that way. Some folks however, swear by them and if that includes you, then you should check out Keynote, an Open Source freeware program that has a dedicated band of followers. Its major design attribute is its ease of use. Words like "natural" and "seamless" come close to the mark but really don't capture the essence of what is really a great design. What do you do with it? Well to quote the web site “KeyNote is used by screenwriters to draft screenplays, by medical doctors to keep patient databases, by developers to store source snippets - and to everyone it serves as a place to put all the random pieces of information that have no particular structure of relationship to other data, and do not fit easily in task-specific applications such as word- processors, databases or spreadsheets.” (1.7MB) http://www.tranglos.com/free/index.html Best Free Rename Utility Updated Lupas Rename 2000 is a small Windows utility that globally renames all the files in a directory and its subdirectories. It can convert names to upper/lower case, change the case of the first letter, add text, left crop, right crop and just about anything else you can think of. And unlike DOS based utilities, it will work on hidden files as well. Add in a nice GUI interface, an undo feature, full preview of changes and the fact that it's free and you have a utility that should be in every toolkit. http://www.azheavymetal.com/~lupasrename/download.php Best Free Windows Driver Backup New I used to recommend WinDriversBackup for this task but it has now, unfortunately, morphed into shareware. However, I can suggest you try WinRet as a replacement. It will not only back up your drivers but also your system registry, program settings and preferences, shortcuts, Favorites, Outlook Express folders, accounts and message filters as well. As a bonus, it allows you to tweak some of your system settings. I didn't try the latter but can report that the driver backup and restore worked well. It's not quite as simple to use as WindriversBackup but, then again, it has much more functionality. (227KB) http://winret.sourceforge.net/ Best Free Digital Image Utility Irfanview is a free multimedia viewer and editor that supports a huge range of file formats. Each new version seems to add more capabilities but to me, its most powerful features are its speed and its batch processing capability. If you want to resize sets of digital images for the web or for transmission by email, Irfanview is the best free solution available. It's also a mighty fine image viewer as well. I just can't believe something this good is free. http://www.irfanview.com/ Best Free File Comparison Utility WinMerge is a free Windows utility that compares two files and identifies the differences. The differences can then be merged from one file into the other. This is the sort of product that is ideal when you have several different versions of a file and are not sure of how they differ. The product is geared to text files so it won't be much use to you with Word Processing or other complex formatted documents But for text reports or computer programs, WinMerge is ideal. (514KB) http://winmerge.sourceforge.net/ Best Free Email Accessory As well as my normal POP email account, I have multiple Yahoo webmail accounts. Managing the latter used to be easy until Yahoo started charging to forward webmail to my POP account. To overcome the problem, I now use a nifty free product called YahooPOPS! that allows you to collect your Yahoo webmail from within your POP email client such as Outlook or Eudora. I use Outlook and must say YahooPOPS! works seamlessly from within the program. I just press "Send/Receive" and collect all my email at the one time. One of those rare programs where you offer a silent "thanks" to the developer every time you use it. ( 3.7MB) http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/ Best Free Outlook Accessory I hate opening HTML email. Despite multiple layers of protection I just know that one day some cunning new exploit is going to get me. That's why I'm so enthusiastic about PocketKnife Peek, a small free Outlook add-in that allows you to preview your HTML email as text. http://www.xintercept.com/pkpeek.htm The Best Free Encryption Utility New This is what the web site says: "dsCrypt is AES/Rijndael file encryption software with simple, multi-file, drag-and-drop operations. It features optimal implementation, performance and safety measures. dsCrypt uses an advanced encryption algorithm and offers unique options for enhanced security." To that I'll add the fact that it's tiny, easy to use, has open , employs proven techniques that are essentially unbreakable and comes from a highly reputable source. In summary, dsCrypt offers the average user everything they want in a secure encryption program and it's free. That's why I use it myself. (25KB) http://freezip.cjb.net/freeware ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Phần 4: Best Free Time Correction Utility New A lot of folks have difficulty getting time correction software to work on their PC. If that's you then you should try Dimension 4, a free utility that gives you the choice of connecting to a time server either by standard TCP protocol or by the more common (and more problem-prone) SNTP protocol. If you haven't yet got a time correction utility, this is the one. It's free, it’s easy to use, and it has every function that you could conceivably want. Because it works from both the command line and Windows, it's ideal for batch files, too. (292KB) http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/ Best Free Startup Manager New Everyone needs a startup program utility so they can exercise control over what third party programs start automatically with Windows. My long time choice has been PC Magazine's Startup Cop but alas, this is no longer freeware - it's now only available if you subscribe to the magazine's software service. My new choice is Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel. It’s small, capable and has powerful features not found in Startup Cop including the ability to edit or add entries. Unfortunately these same features make it potentially dangerous in the hands of newbies. That caveat aside, it's a great product. Thanks Mike. (59KB) http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml Best Free File Backup Program New Karen's Replicator v1.8.10 is a straight-forward backup utility that copies individual files, folders and even entire drives to another location. The backup can be on another partition, local drive or network drive. Its key feature is the ability to schedule automatic backups. No, it doesn't support removable media - that kind of feature is for a different class of backup product. The intended use of this product is to make regular automatic backups of critical files. I use it to make hourly backups of the file containing my notes for future issues of my newsletter. Simple, effective and free. (1.4MB) http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp Best Free Data Recovery Utility New PC Inspector File Recovery 3 is a free utility that does an impressive job recovering accidentally deleted files or files lost through corruption of the file system. It has some nice features, like the ability to recover files with lost headers, and to recover partitions even when the boot sector has been lost or damaged. It works with the FAT16/FAT32 and NTFS file systems. This is no home written utility - it is a serious product from a reputable German company with a long history in commercial data recovery. PCI is the ideal product for those who want the security of a data recovery program but are not prepared to fork our big bucks for the extra features of high end products. (2.8MB) http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm Best Free Remote Control Software New Ultr@VNC is a client/server package that allows remote control of another PC using a TCP/IP connection. It works with Windows W9x/NT/2K/XP and offers all the features you need including auto-configuration, easy user interface, extensive hotkeys and embedded file transfer. Apart from the fact that it's free, its strong suite is its speed. Ultr@VNC must be the fastest remote control package I've ever used. Just the thing for accessing your home PC while traveling, off-site troubleshooting or general network administration. http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/ BEST OF THE REST These specialist free utilities don't fit into any particular product category but are great products that fill a real need: Restore Missing Toolbars Inexperienced PC users just always seem to be losing their Windows and Internet Explorer toolbars. I've never quite worked out exactly how they do it but they sure . Karen's Replicator v1 .8. 10 is a straight-forward backup utility that copies individual files, folders and even entire drives to another location. The backup can be on another partition, local drive. Manager New Everyone needs a startup program utility so they can exercise control over what third party programs start automatically with Windows. My long time choice has been PC Magazine's. and to everyone it serves as a place to put all the random pieces of information that have no particular structure of relationship to other data, and do not fit easily in task-specific applications