Desktop Earth 2.1.1

Desktop Earth is a wallpaper program that will appeal to users who are curious about what Earth looks like from space. By updating constantly and operating on a simple premise, this is a fun and interesting way to spice up your desktop.

This free program embeds its icon in your desktop tray and provides a basic set of options to alter the wallpaper. The wallpaper itself is an enormous photograph of Earth from space and takes up all of your desktop space with no area uncovered. The continents appear clearly and most views provide a glimpse of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and slightly less than half of the entire globe from east to west. Desktop Earth impresses not only on its clear view, but the options users can tinker with. Users can cycle through all the time zones in the world to zero in on the corner they want to view from space. There is also a drop-down menu allowing for the picture to be updated every 5 minutes, 15 minutes, and hour. In addition, a slider allows for cloud cover to be erased for a clearer picture of land and sea. Finally, users can adjust the daytime image to get a better topographical view and the nighttime image to show natural moonlight, city lights, and more.

Desktop Earth is a simple tool that gives desktops a lot of character. Thanks to its clean picture and intriguing options, we highly recommend this download.

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Desktop Brazileiras Bikini Calendar 2010

Free 12 month Bikini calendar of Brazilian girls for your computer desktop. A different beautiful Brazileira for your viewing pleasure every month of the year. The calendar is updated monthly so it is always current.

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StarCraft: Terran Theme 1.0

This Windows theme has StarCraft cursors, icons, wallpaper, and sound. The cursors are mostly original, and the icons are taken from the game.

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Animated Wallpaper: Watery Desktop 3D 3.39

Add life to your desktop wallpaper! Watery Desktop 3D will animate your wallpaper with water effects, such as waves and rain. It will also work as a screen saver which floods your screen, you'll see how everything on your desktop will sink into water.

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Google Earth

The latest version of Google Earth continues to set the mapping paradigm. Accessible enough for casual users, Google has added features that make it a necessity for those whose topographic desires are more serious. Although Google Ocean is the big newsmaker in version 5, you can also check out the surface of our nearest neighbor, Mars, as well as incorporating historical Earth maps.

If you'll forgive the pun, the oceanic maps are pretty cool. They provide the capability to plunge to the floor of the sea, view exclusive content from the BBC and National Geographic, and explore shipwrecks like the Titanic in 3D. Exploring the Martian surface is limited to data provided from NASA, but that's not much of a limitation considering that it's unlikely that most of us will ever get to visit the Red Planet. Switching between Google Earth, Sky, and Mars can be done from the menubar or from the planet icon on the toolbar.

Most of the interface's real estate displays a rendering of the globe, which can zoom in on a satellite image of your destination once you've keyed it in. Controls live on a top toolbar and a left-side navigation window that lets you quickly jump between different views and locations. Google's Street View, real-time illumination of the Earth, roads, restaurants, and even crime statistics can be displayed. Smooth integration with Google's 3D rendering program SketchUp means that you can design buildings and see how they'd interact with their surroundings on the fly.

The only downside to the program is that it can consume a large amount of RAM, so older machines might experience performance issues, but even that can now be configured through the Options menu. Everyone else is bound to love Google Earth, both as an entertaining novelty and an informational tool.

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Google Talk

Google Talk offers you a choice to get in touch over email, IM, or a call; a quality talk through your computer but hear your friends as if they were in the same room; and convenience of your Gmail contacts which are pre-loaded into Google Talk so inviting or talking to your friends is just a click away.
Version 1.0.0.104 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

What's new in this version:

Version 1.0.0.104 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes

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Pidgin 2.7.3

Your mother uses AOL Instant Messenger. Your spouse prefers MSN. Your office insists on Yahoo. What are you going to do? You could run all those chat clients at once, or you could use Gaim, now renamed Pidgin. Like Trillian, Fire, and other third-party IM clients, this open-source messaging application lets you access multiple IM networks from one window, including Google Talk and MySpaceIM as well as lesser-known protocols such as Jabber and Gadu-Gadu.

Pidgin's biggest change is the redesigned interface. The Buddy List can be viewed in Basic or Advanced mode, and the most important features, including the Plug-in List, have been graduated from the Preferences window into their own panes. Twenty-two plug-ins come prepackaged as Pidgin repositions itself as a highly extensible chat client.

The IM features are unimpeachable: smileys (you can find tons of emoticons on the developer's site), file transfers, and multiperson chats. The Buddy Pounce feature lets you automatically perform certain actions (play a sound, execute a command, open an IM window) when a contact signs on or off. Pidgin also gets lots of intangibles right: logging and time-stamping, for instance, are well-executed and easy to access. However, it lacks IP telephony and video conferencing, and there are still some bugs--most notably in the Help menu. Still, Pidgin remains a highly recommended text-only messaging app. 

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Yahoo Messenger 10

Get social over the long-established, well-rounded chat and VoIP client Yahoo Messenger and you'll find drag-and-drop capabilities and contact importing from friends other IM, e-mail, and social-networking accounts who are also on Yahoo chat. Another favorite trick is the ability to see images and videos displayed inside the chat window when you or a pal drops in a public URL.

Yahoo Messenger 10 adds some visual enhancements that call out VoIP and video chats on the conversation window. Tweaks in the buddy list showcase an updates tab that operates as a newsfeed for friends' status messages. Other visual refreshes to version 10 spruce up select icons.

Users should note that the download stub will finish installing the program online, and that the download bundles the Yahoo Toolbar. In the preinstallation window, click over to Custom Install to deselect add-ons you don't want. We could also live without the heavy-handed Yahoo branding, and it would be nice to see a link to hidden smileys in the emoticon drop-down, but these are minor niggles when weighed against the benefits of an easy-to-use, feature-rich chat client that only continues to improve.

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Pixia 4.70

It is a great drawing and image editing software but totally free. It supports unlimited layers, 10240*10240 pixels layout, effect plug-ins(also accept Photoshop's plug-ins), undo 100 times. Also can working with your TWAIN devices(eg. Scanner or Digital Camera and Digitizer

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TuneUp Utilities 2010

To call TuneUp Utilities 2009 useful would drastically understate the situation. The app provides users with a powerful, well-designed utility that accesses the entire Windows maintenance tool set and more in a fast, organized, and easy-to-use series of connected modules.

Temp file management, registry cleaners and start-up program controls are the bread-and-butter of these utilities, and these basics work in TuneUp more quickly and easily than most. However, the app also sports great add-on tools you don't usually see in a utility program. It offers a variety of Internet and program-acceleration tweaks as well as Windows performance enhancers. The crash-preventing MemOptimizer, a file shredder, deleted file recovery, and a respectable uninstall utility round out the suite. You even can automate maintenance tasks with the scheduler or tweak Windows' appearance with the styler tool. The built-in RescueCenter can restore all changes completely or one by one.

The system-analyzing wizard, with its thorough reporting and upgrade suggestions, is worth the program price alone. Between the guts of steel and the stylish, logically arranged interface, TuneUp Utilities suits all users--from complete beginners who will appreciate the one-click optimization to more daring users who will experiment with all the settings. 

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iMesh 10.01

iMesh is a peer-to-peer file-sharing program that lets you find, download, share, and publish audio and video files. An ever-growing community of millions of registered users ensures quick location and download of virtually any type of file available on the P2P network. With the power of the iMesh network you can listen to and download songs that are 100% legal. Our service is endorsed by the key players in the Music Industry.

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Azureus 2.0

Free Azureus Installer is a free software that allows you launch the setup of the famous software azureus which allows to: Multiple torrent downloads,Upload and download speed limiting, both globally and per torrent, Advanced seeding rules,Adjustable disk cache, Only uses one port for all the torrents, UPnP sets the forward on your router, Can use a proxy, for both tracker and peer communications, Fast resume, Can set a default download dir and move completed files, Can import torrents automatically from a set dir, Highly customizable interface, IRC plugin included for quick help,Embedded tracker, host your own torrents, automate your shares (periodic scanning of a dir)..., Distributed Hash Table: host on it a completely decentralised torrent and/or benefit from it when the tracker is offline. This software is not in some way connected to the software azureus but it is a tool that semplifies the findig and the installation of this one.

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Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop CS5 greatly expands the toolset that Adobe offers in its flagship product, charting new ways to make image manipulation easier while making older tools work better than before. Don't worry about the lack of a new interface; the new ways to get your project done make this version a must.

Photoshop has been in the English lexicon as a term to edit images for a long time, but the latest version of Adobe's flagship program stretches the canvas of manipulation much further than ever before. The look of the program has changed so little from Photoshop CS4 that users of that version should be instantly comfortable with this major update, but Photoshop Creative Suite 5 Extended gives photographers, artists, designers, and LOLcats obsessives a stunning array of new tools. Among the new features in Adobe's flagship image-editing software are automatic lens corrections, High Dynamic Range toning, automated editing tools, and significant improvements to creating 3D images. 

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iTunes 10

As one of the most popular programs for managing music and video content on a personal computer, Apple's iTunes software has become an indispensable part of our digital life. Version 10 of iTunes brings a handful of enhancements to Apple's ubiquitous media software, though notably absent is a much-anticipated cloud music service follow-up to LaLa. By far the biggest change to the jukebox is the addition of a social functionality called Ping.

Interface

The look and layout of iTunes 10 is essentially identical to that of iTunes 9, with just a couple of noticeable differences. The first is that Apple has updated its logo for iTunes. Rather than the old-school music note-over-CD icon, you'll see a much more applike image. Still, the company hasn't figured out how to more broadly represent the jukebox's multimedia functionality: there's still just a music note.

There's also been a slight change to the source menu that runs as a column down the left side. The bright blue icons representing the various submenus have been changed to gray--an odd change in our eyes as it makes them stand out even less, which doesn't make a ton of sense for menu options. That said, they still offer quick access to your media library, the iTunes Store, Genius features, and playlists. Once a selection is chosen in the source menu, all the relevant content spills out into the large main window, where it can be organized and sorted using an arsenal of sophisticated, spreadsheet-like options or switched into a cover-flow view that hearkens back to the days of flipping through record crates.

Once you're in the iTunes store, navigation links now run horizontally across the top of the window and include drop-down menus to quickly drill down into specific sections, such as Jazz. Front page content is attractively arranged and allows you to launch music and video previews directly, without jumping in and out of specific album and video listings. There's also an option menu next to every purchase button, allowing you to copy the item's URL, add to your Wish List, gift the purchase, or share the link on Facebook or Twitter. We're happy to see that Apple kept all these great enhancements from version 9.

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DJ Mix Pro 3.0

DJ Mix Pro is designed to let you choose the songs while it performs by itself quality cross fading, beat matching mixes between songs. DJ Mix Pro has built in Beatlock Technology, that makes it beat-aware. This technology does not alter your sound files, it just analyses them to find the BPM. Knowing the beats, it is able to perform high quality DJ mixes. You just have to fill your play list and it's done. You can optionally edit the mix position and length, listen to it in your headphones to check you like it.

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BitTorrent

BitTorrent hadn't seen a major update in about two years, but that was before it bought out uTorrent. Now, adopting its new sibling's interface has completely reinvigorated the original BitTorrent client.

Previously, BT had lacked features that other torrent innovators had spent time testing and investing in. Now, in one fell swoop, BT has access to everything it lacked. You can pick which files in a torrent you want to download, throttle your Internet connection to suit your whims, muck about with the Web UI and, basically, do everything that uTorrent can do.

There's an RSS tracker and search bar, just like in uTorrent, but there's where we encounter one key difference. Where uTorrent's search takes you to the MiniNova torrent site, BitTorrent's goes to BitTorrent.com, a pay-for-most-content site. There's also a menu bar item in the BitTorrent client called Get Stuff, with links to Movies, TV, Music, and Games at the BitTorrent content site.

Without a doubt, BitTorrent has taken drastic steps to reverse course and unsink its sinking ship. Although BT still eats more memory than its new sibling, it's hogging significantly less than before. The install file reflects the new code, shrinking from nearly 6MB for version 5 to less than 1MB for version 6.

BT also comes with a small piece of software called DNA. The BT site calls it protocol for "Delivery Network Acceleration," but beyond a nebulous description, it's hard to tell what exactly it does. 

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SHAREAZA

Although the bigger names in the P2P world still maintain the lion's share of users, several smaller entities have popped up. These programs appeal to those fed up with the fluff and third-party software often found in the more popular applications.

Shareaza is focused and lean, with a gorgeous interface and connections to the Gnutella2, Gnutella, eDonkey, and BitTorrent networks. It's also handsome and easy to use; we had no trouble quickly figuring out how to search, check our network status, and customize the interface through a healthy choice of skins. Search results were extremely fast, although we wish each new search automatically spawned a new tab. Shareaza also has a decent built-in media player for common audio and video formats. Other features include a chat client and the ability to schedule transfers.

The file-management system, with a slew of folders divided and subdivided into all sorts of categories, may overwhelm novices, though seasoned file-sharers probably won't have that much trouble. Overall, though, Shareaza's design, performance, and trim size provide make it a nice choice for peer-to-peer users.

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ooVoo 2.8.0.39

ooVoo is an iChat-like video conferencing and chat tool for Windows, loaded with useful, powerful tools that make it a viable alternative for small work groups using conference calls and screen-sharing applications.

A recording feature lets users tape video chats with other participants. Since the video and audio are being recorded to the hard drive, the only time limit is how much free space the computer's hard drive has. In testing, a nearly 15-minute, four-way video conversation only took up 95MB, which ooVoo can convert into a workable FLV file.

A conference calling tool gives host and participants a phone number to call. Other ooVoo users who call this conference line get plugged right into the audio that's a part of the video chat, and just like the video recordings, this audio gets archived too. Call-in lines support up to six people, meaning users can have up to a dozen participants--including those on the video side. Note that this service isn't free. An optional companion for ooVoo's video player can be used for screen sharing or file sharing, and fun facial overlay tool that applies digital masks either to users faces or to backgrounds. High-quality video streams are also supported.

Two qualms with the service are the audio quality, which sounded a little too compressed, and delays in the datastream of about a second or more. Besides being annoying, it can really force a heated debate to grind to a halt. Overall, ooVoo makes for a strong alternative to other VoIP and conferencing software.

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Norton AntiVirus 17.0

n the 2010 version of its well-known antivirus program, Symantec continues to build on the unexpected progress it made last year. In addition to maintaining the quick load and scan times, and significantly smaller system footprint, Norton 2010 includes a behavioral detection engine based on both behavior and reputation.

Called Quorum, this new engine doesn't adversely affect Norton's performance--a major concern after years of system-crippling sluggishness. It works in concert with Norton Insight, introduced last year as a whitelist-style guard for ''trusted'' files. By examining your files and how they behave--both locally and when trying to access the Internet--and comparing them with other Norton users, Symantec claims that it offers better protection than its competitors. Like its competitors who also have behavioral detection systems, however, Norton allows you to opt out of anonymously submitting your data without sacrificing the protection that Quorum provides. Third-party detection and removal ratings are not available for this new version, but last year's results placed Norton in the upper echelon for efficacy.

Norton AntiVirus lacks the premium services offered in Norton Internet Security. These include a firewall, parental controls, Wi-Fi protection for unsecured hot spots, and identity protection including antiphishing tools and browser search result authentication for Internet Explorer and Firefox. Norton AntiVirus also offers only one license, instead of the three that come with its bigger brother. It does offer the same support network, lacking a searchable knowledge base but including e-mail, IM, phone support and the Symantec forums. The trial has been doubled from 15 days to 30. Norton's recent approach to performance and its continued efficacy make Norton AntiVirus 2010 a must-consider program for its class. 

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Nero Multimedia Suite 10 10.0.132

For those looking to rip, burn, back up, convert, and organize digital media, Nero 10 has a tool for that. The refurbished multimedia suite is about as comprehensive as they come, and your hard drive will feel it: the installation file is massive (300MB) and once Nero is on your machine, it consumes a hefty serving of memory (1.5GB). However, considering all it can do, we're hard pressed to complain.

In fact, if there's one thing we bemoan it's the fact that Nero 10 contains so many different tools that compiling them into one interface would make the suite a complete bear to use. To this end, Nero is actually made up of several different programs: StartSmart, Burning ROM, BackItUp, DiscCopy Gadget, CoverDesigner, SoundTrax, WaveEditor, Recode, Toolkit, and Vision Xtra (which contains MediaHub and Vision). It's a bit overwhelming to have so many shortcuts on the desktop, but luckily, StartSmart provides an easy way into any task and will launch the necessary application based on your requested activity. Plus, Nero provides descriptive statements for each task, letting you see what each one does at a glance.

As for what Nero 10 can do, the short answer is pretty much everything you'd expect from a multimedia suite. It's an audio, video, photo, data, and home entertainment workhorse that lets you edit MP3s, capture and edit video, record and playback TV, create slideshows, back up data, recover data from damaged disks, convert audio files, check your hardware specs, and design disc covers with ease. Further, Nero performs with impressive speed, starting up quickly and performing tasks at a rate that won't leave you banging your head against the desk in impatient frustration.

Given the plethora of functionality, user-friendly interface, and impressive performance, it's no surprise that Nero 10 doesn't come free. You can try out the software for 15 days at no cost, but you'll have to pony up $79.99 (online) or $99.99 (in store) if you want to continue using it past that time.

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GOM Media Player 2.1.26.5021

As various media players jockey for position to become your default setting for music and video streams, GOM Media Player's support for a wide range of file formats has helped it stand out as a firm favorite.

Supported formats include DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, ASF, AVI, and MOV, as are common codecs like FLV1, AC3, OGG, MP4, and H263. A pop-out playlist can save and organize your various media files, though the limited sort modes--two--hardly makes it a champ.

More impressive are the customizable settings on the control panel. Here you can adjust a video's image brightness, hue, and saturation. There's no preview window, and changes occur as the video runs, so unless you care for a rousing session of trial and error, be sure to tweak the settings after clicking "play." There's also a built-in screen-capture feature that includes zooming and panning, customizable themes, hot keys, and a host of preset and adjustable audio controls.

GOM is weakest when you're looking for help documentation and trying to tweak Save settings, but overall it's a very strong player worth at least a supporting role in your video-watching habits, if not the lead. 

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Winamp 5.581

WinAmp 5.3 took some long-needed steps to improve the old-school media player, with support for AAC encoding, CD burning, and a robust file-management system. WinAmp 5.56 ups the ante with strong support for portable devices, including iPods, the ability to sync non-DRMed files to your PC from your device, an optional new interface layout and a built-in browser for media discovery.

We liked that clicking on an artist's name will get you related headlines and Web sites in a separate pane. There's also Podcast support, device synchronization that lets you tweak the sync list while in progress, and continued support for AOL's excellent Shoutcast. The new Bento layout is worth mentioning, too, because it gets the venerable llama away from the old modular format. The joined panes for the browser, media player, artist list, album list and more make WinAmp instantly more visually appealing. There's also an Auto-Tag feature, which will download metatags from the Gracenote database, and Winamp's proprietary music scrobler called Orgler, with links back to AOL Music.

If you want MP3 encoding and full-speed CD burning, you have to shell out $19.95 for the Pro version. However, there are other problems. Automatic album art download support is spotty at best. More importantly, there are some stability issues when playing videos, and occasional program crashes were far more common than they should be.

WinAmp 5.56 is no iTunes killer--not yet. It has become, however, a strong alternative and should be of interest to those looking for something with more meat on its bones. Llama meat, that is. 

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Apple Safari 5.0.1

The previous version of Safari for Windows dramatically changed the nature of the browser from something of an unfinished curiosity to an alternative with seriously quick chops. It lacked many of the customization features that define most other browsers, but certain unique default features, such as the visually impressive, Cover Flow-inspired Top Sites and history viewing, made it worth checking out for more users besides just browser enthusiasts and jaded reviewers.

Though Safari 5 continues the push for speed, able to surpass (by some tests) bleeding-edge JavaScript engines from Google and Opera, Apple continues to place feature development farther down the totem pole of importance. That doesn't mean that new features have been ignored. There's the new Reader option that streamlines how you read articles, broader support for HTML5, default support for searches on Bing, and performance improvements. However, the biggest new feature of them all--Extensions--won't be available until later this summer according to Apple, and depending on what you're looking for in a browser, Safari can be seen as lacking many helpful options. 

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Google Chrome 6.0.472.53

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the Web faster, safer, and easier. Use one box for everything--type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and Web pages. Thumbnails of your top sites let you access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab. Desktop shortcuts allow you to launch your favorite Web apps straight from your desktop.

What's new in this version:

Google Chrome 6.0.472.53 has been released to the stable and beta channels for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Updates from the previous stable release include:
• Updated UI
• Form Autofill
• Syncing of extensions and Autofill data
• Increased speed and stability
• Security fixes and rewards: (Please see the Chromium security page for more detail. Note that the referenced bugs may be kept private until a majority of our users are up to date with the fix.) ...

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Opera 10.61

Opera 10 maintains the program's tradition of striving to be the fastest, smallest, and most full-featured browser available. In this latest iteration, Opera replaced its JavaScript engine, remade the interface for Windows 7, and developed features that have solidified the company's position as an innovator.

Opera 10.60 is a minor update to Opera 10.50, which introduced multiple new features. The biggest is one most users won't see: Opera's in-house anti-malware has been bolstered by AVG's real-time threat detection network. The browser uses it to force users to see a warning page when they try to load sites that the network determines are in some way malicious. Version 10.60 adds more HTML5 support, including the next-generation video and audio codec WebM, geolocation compatibility, Web Workers, and App Cache. More importantly, Opera 10.60 claims benchmark times that are 50 percent faster than Opera 10.50. Internal CNET testing revealed that this number was closer to 33 percent, but that's still a major improvement.

The big news in Opera 10.50 was the new JavaScript engine, Carakan, that made Opera arguably the fastest browser around. It also debuted full compatibility with Windows 7, which includes Aero Peek, jump lists, and a design redo that emphasizes Aero's translucent window frames. Longtime Opera fans will notice that its menu bar has been hidden and replaced by a drop-down menu that compresses the options into a tree format. It has also highlighted the Closed Tabs box with a prominent tab bar icon styled on the Windows Recycle Bin, and its widgets have gained the capability to live on the desktop, separate from the browser. Opera has also introduced HTML5 video support in v10.50.

Opera is known for coming with an incredible number of features out of the box. It's the basics such as tabbed browsing and tab previews, a customizable search bar, advanced bookmarking tools, and native e-mail and chat client options. But it also has mouse-gesture support, keyboard shortcuts, password management, anti-malware protection from Haute Secure, and drag-and-drop functionality. Its more-exciting options include Opera Link for synchronizing bookmarks, your personal bar, Speed Dial, and Notes via My Opera. Opera Unite expands My Opera by letting you create an Opera-hosted Web server to share files and stream media. For users on slower connections, the toggleable Opera Turbo compression engine feeds sites through Opera's own servers for faster load times.

Opera undoubtedly has what it takes to unseat even the biggest-name browsers. You just need to hear it sing.

Download Now 10.31MB