Free Download Manager is a freeware and open source download manager.

It allows you to download files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. The latest versions also allow you to upload files, download flash object and can serve as a BitTorrent download manager.

Can be used as a portable application as well. The lite version lacks some functions (BitTorrent support, video conversion and upload manager) but can be downloaded as plugins later.

It has the best set of features and options among the freeware download managers i have tested before.

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Deluge is a great freeware BitTorrent client. It is open source and has plugin capabilities.

Its interface is simple but effective and is light on system resources. It has versions for Windows, Max OS X and Linux.

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InfraRecorder is an open source program to burn files to CD or DVD.

You can burn audio, data, video and disc images with it. Has options to make disc images, to copy directly from disc to disc and can erase discs.

It is available in many languages and you can download a portable version in ZIP format.

The only thing that i don’t like about it is that it can’t remember the view schemes of the file explorer, a basic thing that nowadays software developers are beginning to overlook more and more. It is very mportant for the usability of software.

InfraRecorder and BurnAware are excellent burning programs.

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Mozilla just released Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 1 today.

Version 3.0 is expected to have memory improvements, new features to handle bookmarks and more. I tested an earlier beta release but i give it up because many of my favorite plugins/extensions did’t work at that time with version 3.0.

Now, more and more extensions are being updated to support this new version.

Mozilla Developer Center:

If no new showstopper issues are found in RC1 it will become Firefox 3 final. If we find any critical issues we will continue to release new Release Candidates until we are ready for final ship.

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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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AbiWord is an open source text processor that can work with documents from Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org, among other formats. It has dictionary languages and plugins that can be downloaded from their website.

You can read all the features here.

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Deluge is a great freeware BitTorrent client. It is open source and has plugins capabilities.

Its interface is simple but effective and is light on system resources. It has versions for Windows, Max OS X and Linux.

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Mozilla Thunberbird is a full-featured email application that works great.

Here is a list of the features.

It supports, just like firefox does, the installation of plugins, dictionaries and themes which makes it even better.

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