Let your guardian Autorun Angel find bad startup progams
When you think your PC has been infected by malware or spyware, then checking your Windows startup programs may seem like a good place to start looking for the source. But there’s a problem. Many of these will be cryptically-named executables which you won’t recognize at all, so how are you supposed to decide which ones are safe, and which require further research?
You could spend an age checking out each program manually, but life will probably be easier if you get a little help from Autorun Angel, which quickly compares your startup list against “known safe” applications and highlights whatever might be left.
Organize photos from the command line -- yeah, really
Keeping your digital photo collection in order usually requires a great deal of self-discipline and effort. Or, failing that, a heavy-duty image organiser.
If you’re distinctly lacking in all these areas, though, you could just turn to PhotosTree, a tiny (17KB) command-line tool which quickly arranges your JPEGs according to the date they were taken.
Got malware? Try Ultra Virus Killer
When you think your PC has been infected by malware, but your antivirus package hasn’t raised an alert, then it’s often possible to locate and remove the threat manually. But generally you’ll need a whole library of tools to get the job done: one to view your startup programs, another to check running processes, a file unlocker maybe, and the list goes on.
If you prefer the simple life, though, you could just download a copy of Ultra Virus Killer (UVK), which provides all the malware detection, removal and cleanup tools you need, in a single, free package.
Save webpages with Weeny Free HTML to PDF Converter
If you’d like to create PDF files on your own PC then the standard route is to install something like Bullzip PDF Printer. This adds a virtual printer driver to your system, and so whenever you want to convert a document to PDF, all you have to do is choose the Print option in a program, select that driver, then wait for the file to appear.
The strength of this approach is that it works with just about any application. But the weakness is that the finished results can be poor, especially with web pages, where you’ll often lose formatting and links will no longer be clickable. So if you need the best quality HTML conversion, you may prefer a specialist tool, such as Weeny Free HTML to PDF Converter.
Get the right screen resolution with Window Size
Normally, when you resize a PC application window, you don’t particularly care about its final resolution. You’re just looking to make sure that it has room to display something (a website, say), or you might be reducing a window to make room for something else.
There may be occasional exceptions, though: you might need to take a screen grab of a window at a specific resolution, for instance, or a certain aspect ratio. Changing your display resolution may help, or of course you could resize your window, check the results and resize again until you get it right -- but Window Size could offer a more convenient solution.
Sandcat 3.0 browser is supremely useful for developers
If you’d like more information on the low-level details of how a particular web page works -- for security or web development reasons, say -- then the usual route is find and install a few extensions. Firefox alone has more than 1,000 addons in its Web Development section which could prove very useful.
But if researching all of those seems too much like hard work, you might prefer to simply download the free Sandcat 3.0, a penetration-oriented browser with plenty of advanced functionality already built it.
Bitdefender Windows 8 Security has your back
Bitdefender has announced the availability of Windows 8 Security (priced from $59.95), a new suite which the company has called “the first Windows 8 antivirus”.
And while of course there are plenty of other antivirus tools which run under Windows 8, what Bitdefender are claiming is that this one is specifically designed for the new operating system.
WinMaximumize expands desktop windows to fill available space
When you’ve several applications open on your PC desktop, organizing their windows efficiently can take a moment. You might move one window over here, drag a border over there, and so it goes on.
If you’d rather just automate the process, though, you might preferWinMaximumize, which can instantly expand your selected window to fill whatever desktop space is available.
Sysinternals Contig lets you choose which files or folders to defrag
If you’d like to optimize the performance of a game (or any other disk-intensive application) then defragmenting its key files before you start can sometimes help -- but of course that’s not usually a very practical idea. Most defrag tools will want to process your entire partition, which could take a while, and may not touch the files you’re really interested in anyway (defraggers often leave a few fragmented files behind when they’re done).
Fortunately there’s a simple alternative in the shape of Sysinternals Contig, a tiny command-line tool that defrags only the files you specify, and doesn’t “forget” any of them. Give the program a file, and it will be defragmented.
Less is more: PDF Compressor
Saving a document as a PDF generally produces a very small file, which is one reason the format is such a popular way to share information.
There may still be room for improvement, though. So if it’s important your PDF’s are as lightweight as they can possibly be, it might be a good idea to check your current compression rates by passing them through the free PDF Compressor.
Need better desktop search? Try DocFetcher
Windows Search has improved a lot in recent years: it’s faster, uses less resources, has more query options. If the technology still doesn’t deliver the searching power you need, though, it might be worth considering the open source, Java-based DocFetcher as an alternative.
The program’s advantages start with its indexing controls. Rather than crawling an entire drive without asking, DocFetcher allows you to choose what you’d like to search: a folder, an archive, even an Outlook PST file. And limiting scope this way helps to cut indexing time and improve the relevance of search results.
True Image Lite 2013 beta offers no-frill backups
Acronis International has released a beta version of True Image Lite 2013, a stripped-down version of its True Image backup tool.
The new release ditches disk, partition, email and file backup types, for instance (there’s non-stop backup and online backup only). There are no full or differential backups (just incremental). No scheduling, no backups to CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray, no option to create a bootable recovery disc, and of course none of the extensive settings you’ll find in the full True Image package.
Quickly fix application file associations
Install a new application and it’ll often want to associate itself with particular file types (images, for instance). And that’s fine if it asks for permission, but some programs don’t, which means double-clicking those files later may not deliver the results you want.
The standard Window solution is to manually reassociate those file types with your preferred application. But Unassoc takes a simpler approach, allowing you to simply delete the new association, so that your system uses the global settings automatically.
Geekbench 2.4.0 supports Windows 8, new Macs
Primate Labs has updated its cross-platform, flagship benchmark tool with the release of Geekbench 2.4.0 for desktop, Android and iOS. The latest build promises something new for all platforms, from bug fixes to added support for the latest models.
Notable improvements include Windows 8 support, plus the addition of all recently released Apple mobiles and the 2012 Mac mini. The results view has also been tweaked. The build is released as a free update for all Geekbench 2 users.
FSS Video Downloader grabs content from Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube and more
Finding videos online is generally very easy. Downloading local copies can be more of a challenge, but there are some great tools around that can help -- and FSS Video Downloader is one of the best.
The program doesn’t just support YouTube, for instance. It can also download clips from Facebook. Vimeo. Myspace. Metacafe, Vimeo, LiveLeak, Dailymotion, and assorted other popular sites.
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