[PCWorld]

Post your comments for The Web's Best Free Stuff here

[Flashorn]

Hey PCWorld!!

Well, you have a good list of freebies but, I think you missed quite a few good or better ones.

I'll give you a few names AND their addresses so you can check and evaluate them for yourselves.

File sharing & Storage:

FILE SHARING:

uTorrent: light and fast,

http://www.utorrent.com/

BitComet: New kid on the block,

http://www.bitcomet.com/

STORAGE:

WindowsLive SkyDrive: 5 GIG. of online storage

http://skydrive.live.com/

SECURITY:

F-Secure: Black Light , AntiRootkit

F-Secure: Online Scanner, You will find both on the same page of this site

http://www.f-secure.com/securitycenter/

Avast: AntiVirus with Shields

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast4home.html

AVG: AntiVirus, Very Popular with this Community

http://free.grisoft.com/

RunScanner: Start-Up Analyzer

http://www.runscanner.net/

Dial-A-Fix: Well worth a look. I believe you had an article about this, not to long ago.

http://wiki.djlizard...rors.2Fdownloadlocations.2Candarticles

System Backup and Utilities

Tweak-UI: customizing wizard for XP

http://www.microsoft...ppowertoys.mspx

WinBubble: customizing wizard for Vista, all new.

http://www.snapfiles.../winbubble.html

Windows Sysinternals: A collection of security utilities from MicrosoftTechNet.

http://technet.micro...a2a93a80d9.aspx

Music

Jango: Listen to any kind of music online anytime for free, You don't even have to register if you don't want to.

http://www.jango.com/users/6418129?l=0

MediaMonkey: A free music collection organizer. Everything from tags to converting to even IPods for free!

http://www.mediamonkey.com/.

So, PCW , this is what you missed and IMO are among the Best Freebies on the web. I hope you will check them out for your next freebie party.

FLASHORN.

[CJLee89]

umm, Open Office?

Some of these are not even free.

[vMATTLEEv]

i agree their are some things they missed as well as better apps out there than what they chose. im also talking by a lot not just by preference like antivir vs avast
1) regseeker or easycleaner over eusing
reason: both find more and clean more and both are safe though i find regseeker best.
2) halite over torrent swapper
reason: one torrent swapper isnt updated anymore and second is halite is smaller and does more like allow emule blocklist
3) digsby over pidgin
reason: just all around the best instant messenger around including over trillian pro, contains everything pidgin does and more such as skinning, being able to access facebook from the account, having guifications type toasties already available but you can actually reply in them and its developed a lot more.
4) updatestar over appsnap
reason: why settle for just freeware updates when update star tells you all current versions of products on your pc including freebies?
these are off the top of my head btw.l

[vMATTLEEv]

i'd rather have gnumeric over open office. openoffice.org blows. for starters it has the crappy install files seperate from the download, 2nd its a bitch to update, 3rd its as basic as it gets. abiword is better than openoffice word and gnumeric is a better spreadsheet. there are just better products out there. i used to love openoffice but once you find better freebies you no longer want it.

[chrislimbo61]

Hello, thanks for this list, good stuff here! I would like to offer up my service for everyone to use. Free TeleConferencing is a conferencing service offering crystal clear digital communications, free to the user, the only charges are your normal long distance charges, so if you use a phone with a good plan, its FREE! The website is www.freetelecon.com and we also have a blog at www.freetelecon.blogspot.com Check it out, Thanks for your time and your work putting together this list!
Chris McCormick
Free TeleCon

[bigredlips58]

So basically, Free Telecon is not free, long distance charges apply.

[cpgtechie]

How'd you guys miss Zimini? Its free, it software, it find coupons and special offers based on your interests. Isn't everyone looking for a good deal these days? (even better, it does NOT require your email, name, phone or address.) Another big miss that should be added to this list.

[Rolandas]

Hey guys!! I thought such articles are published by professionals. Apparently not. Shareaza version is the one which is distributed by hijackers of the open source project Shareaza.
Read more:
http://torrentfreak....utshell-080313/
And please REMOVE this fake Shareaza from the list.
Thanks.
---Shareaza developer---

[frederik55]

Hi Preston and Erik,
You have omitted a couple of freebies like Uniblue's ProcessScanner on the www.processlibrary.com website - some of the "freebies" here aren't really free.
Good list though.

[thinavila]

Since when was Window Blinds free?

[vMATTLEEv]

1st off half the ppl commenting here have either never tested a product and just go by what seems popular or they live in the past. uTorrent? utorrent was bought out by bittorrent thus is worthless now. avg anti-virus? avg antivirus has worst detection of all freeware out there. openoffice.org? why would they put both openoffice and staroffice in the same list? their the same product except star is better. a lot of their freebies are good i just think the ones ive recommended they havent tried out yet like halite and digsby. there is no reason to have doubles of the same type product. the ones they suggest that are well known are the best available but they need to look at others as well. we dont need a list with 3 antiviruses, 3 bittorrent client, etc. best of each catagory is how it needs to be, they picked the best of the populars but need to step outside the box and test ones that arent so well known too. also products like windowsblinds they never said was completely free, but the limited version is free, you have to pay to get more is all. ppl need to stop expecting to get paid product quality for free. also i believe pc world should test reactOS which is like an open source windows xp.

[KellieCM]

I've submitted an email to have this changed/removed. Thanks for letting us know.

[vMATTLEEv]

i retried ThreatFire (formerly cyberhawk) and i dont see why this made the list. sure it adds protection but its also very intrusive. firefox doesnt work well with it, expecially if youre trying to install add-ons. also the game second life and the internet connection dies easier, as well as a boat load of extra memory consumption happens when you use ThreatFire. you guys were better off keeping winpatrol as best HIPS program over ThreatFire. also miro isnt great yet at anything, it plays all video formats but so do a lot of others that do more as well. MPlayer plays DVDs too as well as all video formats. the torrent in miro is average at best and you can get better youtube grabbing from orbitdownloader's grab than from both miro and the youtube downloarder you suggested. miro isnt the firefox of video players, nor is songbird the firefox of audio players. their incomplete and I hate them getting labelled "the firefox of" solely cause their open source and mozilla's name's involved.

[vMATTLEEv]

atm the only person who works at pcworld who should make these list of products is steve bass the rest of you know nothing. you all pick products solely cause 1) their yours or other ppl's favorites 2) you get paid to make these suggestions 3) you go by what some computer suggests. its obvious most ppl who make the lists on here have either not tested half these products or havent tried anything else, because if they actually knew something, half these products wouldnt of made the list. take it from a guy who tests at minimum of 20 products a month on his OWN pc. i dont use benchmarking and i dont go by suggestions, i go by how they actually work not how they should or could.

threatfire is still garbage, pidgin was best a yr ago but not now. miro is a bunch of average parts thrown together. that youtube downloader there r a lot better ones. eusing cleaner isnt even as good as advanced windows personal let alone as good as regseeker or easycleaner. revo uninstaller shouldve been on this list since its 1 of the best uninstallers period not just freeware. burnaware free should be on here too as its one of the only freebies that can burn both cds and dvds. second life is better than the other games suggested cause it has better graphics than most others mentioned plus you can make real money off of it. it also is basically a free version of the simsonline. axcrypt shouldve been put over truecrypt since anyone can use it while truecrypt you actually have to know what youre doing. these are examples of why 99% of pcworld editors have no business making lists. PLEASE HAVE STEVE BASS MAKE THE REST OF THE LISTS INCLUDING THE NEXT BEST PRODUCTS OF 2008 LIST.

[strawberrylongcat]

There is no Sharaza V4. The current release of Shareaza is 2.3.1.0 and can be obtained from: http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/

[stimm]

Yes, Open Office is indeed free. Star Office, based on Open Office, is not.

[vMATTLEEv]

my pt in all this is all products need to be hand tested and all products on these lists need to have the consumers best interest in mind. also there should be no download with caution on a site like this, if someone gets a virus/adware/malware/ worm/trojan/etc, pcworld and the editor who suggested the products should be held accountable because either 1) they knew the product wasnt safe and suggested anyways cause they were paid by that company to suggest it or 2) they never actually tested the product. both cases means pcworld should be held accountable for their downloads. this isnt a huge download site like softpedia.com or download.com that has millions to test. those places its understandable to miss some products due to the number they have to test. this site has no excuse to have adware products.

also there shouldnt be ads anywhere on sites that have subscriptions available, if youre making money off the customer its wrong to load up the website with ads. the only places who should be allowed to do that are the ones who's only income is through donations and ads. your sister company saying adblock plus is wrong and that ppl who use it are stealing info is total bs, thats only true if ads and donations are the only way their making money. if people didnt come to these sites most wouldnt subscribe to the magazine. your sister company computerworld is lucky their mouthes didnt cost pcworld loyal subscribers. you guys should be thanking us not trying to force us to deal with ads too.i mean who's interest do you have in mind? yourselves or the consumers?

[bajadan]

...what about Dynamic Security Agent?? great personal firewall and anti-malware and totally free for the peoples!

[CombiVerde]

?What do you have against GoogleEarth & GoogleMaps???
Not a very good list, obviously biased!!!

DonYan