Freeware Gems To Make Your PC Work Better

1. PC Decrapifier automatically and quickly expunges resource-hogging trialware and all sorts of accumulated trash from your system.

2. Sandra 2011 Lite performs a number of tests to pinpoint exactly how well each component in your system is running. It even tests power efficiency.

3. Advanced SystemCare Free provides a full suite of tools for automatically diagnosing Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 problems, speeding up startups, and cleaning the Registry.

4. FlashGet integrates with your Web browser to accelerate file downloads, manage them on your hard drive, run a virus scan, and use minimal system resources along the way.

5. CCleaner scans and clears your hard drive of clutter, while preserving the files and settings you want.

1. Lookout Mobile Security locks down your Android, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile phone to keep malware and other threats from invading.

2. Kongregate Arcade gives you more than 300 Android games complete with a gaming community to share them with.

3. This mobile version of Google Book Search lets you read every book in the Google Books library without downloading anything or creating a special account.

4. DoubleTwist Player makes loading music and videos onto your Android phone easy. It manages the media on your device and even lets you sync your playlists via USB cable.

5. OurGroceries is a good companion for your Android, BlackBerry, iOS, or Windows Mobile. It syncs lists between multiple devices, works across platforms, and lets you update your list from any browser.

6. TechDygest is a iPhone app best known for its streamlined presentation of hot tech stories from all over the Web .

7. Bump uses geolocation and your phone's accelerometer to let you high-five two phones together to transfer data between them.

8. OpenSignalMaps tells you which mobile carrier works best in your hometown. It uses crowd-sourced reports to compare local coverage from major carriers.

1. DropIt is a tiny, flexible, dedicated tool to automate sorting and filing data-files and folders. This open-source utility lets you set up folder associations for specific file types. Just drop files on the big target icon on your desktop, and DropIt will automatically whisk them away to their appropriate (and easy-to-find) destinations.

2. Stardock's Fences lets you create separate areas on your desktop to organize desktop icons into a manageable system. Keep programs in one fence and Word documents in another, or group them any way you like.

3. Revo Uninstaller completely removed every bit and pieces of programs that you want to purge form yoru hard drive.

4. Stardock's ObjectDock replicates the slick Mac OS X dock interface, complete with snazzy magnification animations, for Windows users.

5. Oracle's VirtualBox lets you run multiple virtual machines on your PC, so you can have multiple instances of Windows, Linux, or any other OS installed. It keeps a working image of a machine as a backup, and of things go wrong, you can delete the damaged image in favor of the backup.

6. 7-Zip supports all of the essential file compression formats-and more than a few obscure ones, too - so it can unpack anything you download. The utility adds file management tools to Windows' context menus, too, enabling you to zip files, unzip files, and convert file formats on the fly, making it a much better choice than WinRAR.

7. FileZilla remains a very helpful utility for those who transfer lots of files and rely on File Transfer Protocol to move their wares around. It's still free, too.

8. DisplayFusion gives you multiple-monitor management powers that Windows doesn't, such as the ability to display different background images on each screen or to span an image across two monitors.

9. Mozilla's Prism turns your favorite Web apps into separate applications that launch from Windows' Start menu, the utility enables you to cut down on the number of mouse clicks required to get to the tools you need, while at the same time eliminating browser-tab clutter.

10. Synergy gives you control over three PCs, regardless of their OS, using a single keyboard. When your mouse pointer reaches the edge of a screen, Synergy uses the Wi-Fi network to take over the next machine.

11. Logitech's Touch Mouse taps into your Wi-Fi network to let you use your phone or tablet as a trackpad to control your Windows (or Mac) desktop.

1. Piriform's Recuva can recover files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free!

2. Fast Duplicate File Finder helps you conserve space by rounding up duplicate copies of files scattered across your drive so you can easily weed out redundancies and reclaim lost gigabytes.

3. Dropbox lets you keep up to 2GB of files accessible on all of your computers and smartphones simultaneously. It can also create shared folders that family and friends can access from anywhere. Dropbox does all of that, with support for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and more.

4. LaCie's Wuala is a complement to Dropbox. It gives you 1GB of free storage space in addition to - or in place of - the 2GB that Dropbox offers.

5. TeraCopy Home is designed to handle large file transfers quickly and efficiently. It reduces transfer times by optimizing file data operations and permitting asynchronous transfers. It also lets you pause and resume large file transfers so you can work while copying a massive batch of files.

6. CDBurnerXP is an excellent alternative to users of XP and Vista. Why? Because XP and Vista dont have Windows 7's ability to burn CD images from within Windows Explorer.

1. IrfanView is an excellent freeware that enables you to view TIFF pictures, MOV videos, or Flash animations. It has a wide array of photo-editing tools, too.

2. Fotobounce will round up and organize those cluttered photos on your hard drive. It also gives you a very easy way to share them with your friends.

3. Paint.net is a non-professional freeware alternative to the ridiculously expensive Adobe Photoshop.

4. PhotoWipe lets you mark any object in a picture and erase it without a trace.

1. Freemake Video Downloader. lets you save most online videos to your hard drive to watch later. This free ripper supports Facebook, Hulu, YouTube, and dozens of other sites.

2. Pandora Desktop. Your personal radio station awaits on nearly every device you own.

3. Last.fm download tracks what you listen to in iTunes, Windows Media Player, and even your mobile player.

4. Zumocast streams all of your tunes and videos over the Internet, so you no longer need to choose a sparse handful of favorite files to cram onto your mobile device.

5. VLC easily converts most media types-even DVDs and streaming videos-to various formats that will play on practically any device. VLC also comes in a mobile version for iOS, and an Android version is expected soon.

6. HandBrake rips movies from DVD and saves them in standard, mobile-friendly formats.

7. Hulu Desktop is a stand-alone application that gives users better control over their video viewing than the site's browser-based interface does.

8. Duplicate Music Files Finder automatically eliminates the dupes after matching their MP3 metadata.

9. Boxee will turn any old PC into a living-room media streamer.

1. Readability turns any web page into a comfortable reading view right in your web browser. It strips any page down to its main article. No ads. Minimal navigation menus. Almost no clutter.

2. WriteMonkey creates a distraction-free blank canvas on which to unleash your creative mind. While you write, this writing app hides all of the formatting menus and just about everything else by expanding to full-screen mode and filling your screen with the soothing background color of your choice.

3. Online Convert lets you convert a MOV video file to WMV format, or a Word document into an ePub book for your e-reader. It transforms a wide selection of formats, and it doesn't require you to download or install any new software.

4. Xmind gives you simple, powerful mind-mapping tools that rival those of the most expensive apps around.

5. NudgeMail will alert you when you get an e-mail message that you need to act on but don't have to deal with quite yet. It will enable to forward your message to say, sendlater@nudgemail.com or july3@nudgemail.com, and the e-mail will reappear in your inbox when it's time you want to act on it.

6. LogMe­In Free simplifies the process of sharing your screen with a remote user or of taking control of that person's screen in real time.

7. Ta-da List is the web's easiest to-do list tool. Make lists for yourself or share them with others.

8. Log on to SlideRocket via your Google account, and use its slick templates to embed images, Flash objects, videos, and audio. Then export your presentation as a PowerPoint slideshow or PDF.

9. Oracle's OpenOffice.org features a robust word processor, spreadsheets, databases, and presentations with support for Microsoft Office file formats.

10. Evernote is a PC, tablet or phone app that lets you capture Web clippings, text notes, audio notes, and pictures. It then syncs them across all your devices, and indexes them so they're easy to find later.

11. For quicker PDF viewing you may want to use Sumatra PDF as an alternative to Adobe's Acrobat Reader.

1. Microsoft Security Essentials 2's combined antivirus, antispyware, and firewall protection provides a solid layer of protection against the most common threats without hobbling your PC or nagging you with annoying update reminders.

2. Eraser is a free file-deletion utility that works with DoD-grade algorithms to overwrite deleted data repeatedly until it's practically unrecoverable.

3. Defensio keeps you safe while you are on Facebook. It intercepts those threats and alerts you before they can do any harm.

4. Secunia Personal Software Inspector scans the programs on your computer, determines which one are outdated, then searches the internet for the links to download the required updates. Pretty cool stuff.

5. Panda USB Vaccine neutralizes common USB flash-drive threats to keep malware from making the jump to your hard drive.

6. Password Safe allows you to safely and easily create a secured and encrypted user name/password list. All you have to do is create and remember a single "Master Password" of your choice in order to unlock and access your entire user name/password list.