Defraggler is a freeware utility from the developers of CCleaner and Recuva.

Its a defragmentation tool for hard drives. It can defragment individual files as well as entire hard drives.

The engine is fast and you can take it with you because it is just an executable file.

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Maxthon is a free browser that works with the IE engine. It is highly customizable and fast.

You can make it portable just by grabbing all the files in the installation folder.

Read all the features here.

Maxthon is a powerful web browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer engine which means that what works in IE, works the same in Maxthon but with many additional efficient features like Tabbed Browsing Interface; Mouse Gestures; Super Drag&Drop; Privacy Protection; AD Hunter; Google Bar Support; External Utility Bar; and Skinning.

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SMPlayer is an open source, multi-platform video/audio player, focusing in video features.

It uses the well-known (at least in the open source field) command-line player MPlayer. This means SMPlayer doesn’t need external codecs in order to play the files. This is great because it saves you time and troubles when playing less-known formats.

It comes second in my list of favorite video players, just behind the venerable Media Player Classic. I will talk about more about codecs and players in a later guide i’m working on.

Note: If you are using Windows Vista, the default settings of SMPlayer will disable Aero temporarily while playing files.

For it to work well with Aero, go to Options - Preferences. In the General tab, select gl or gl2 in the Output Drivers: Video drop down list. Aero won’t be disabled anymore.

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Autoruns is a great utility for managing startup items in your computer.

It is a compehensive resource for viewing all kind of programs, drivers, services and dll’s that are loaded everytime Windows boots up.

Note:
It is recommended to learn about every item that you want to disable because it can be used for another program or process. So, use it carefully.

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IcoFX is a great icon editor for Windows. It is free and has many useful tools.

Official Description:

IcoFX is an award winning freeware icon editor. It is an all-in-one solution for icon creation, extraction and editing. It is designed to work with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Macintosh icons supporting transparency.

With a wealth of tools and more than 40 effects at your fingertips, there’s virtually no limit to the icons you can create. You can easily convert your favorite images into icons, or icons into images. IcoFX gives you the possibility to create icon libraries or change icons inside exe files. Create a favicon for your website or blog.

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I just read this article in TorrentFreak. It is interesting because many people using eMule get to download server lists from suspicious sites.

Connecting to a bad ed2k server can have some nasty consequences. They monitor your activities and report to anti-p2p outfits. They direct you to non-existent files, corrupted fakes and hide files which others genuinely want to share. Learn how to protect yourself.

Read the article to learn how to avoid this and to get some addresses that are reliable for updating the server lists in eMule client.

Read the full article Source: TorrentFreak

I stumble upon this promotion the other day. It is a 6-month license for Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Premium completely free.

AntiVir is a capable antivirus that has won several awards. I must say however, that my favorite security company is Kaspersky, with its Internet Security and Anti-Virus leading my personal preferences.

But you have to pay because they are not free. If you want to give AntiVir a try (and save some money, by the way), go to this page and enter you information to receive the free 6-month license.

Why is Microsoft (MSFT) so concerned about Google? (GOOG) Lots of reasons, one of which is this: By this time next year, Google’s search business will be larger and more profitable than the most profitable and legendary monopoly in history–Microsoft Windows. (Just Google’s search business–that doesn’t even include AdSense).

Before we go to the numbers, a few important observations.

• Both products are natural monopolies. Google’s share of the search market should continue to approach Microsoft’s share of the operating system market (90%+)
• Both products are wildly, fantastically profitable. Microsoft’s Windows business has operating margins of 75%-plus. So does Google’s search business (once you factor out the billions Google is spending on products that produce zero revenue).
• Google natural monopoly is growing a lot faster than Microsoft’s. Google’s search business should be bigger than Microsoft’s Windows business by early next year (at the latest). Google is also growing faster than Microsoft’s two monopolies combined–Windows and Office. Google has yet to develop a second huge, fantastically profitable monopoly–the Office equivalent–but AdSense is getting there.

Read the full article Source: Silicon Alley Insider