• One of the most versatile IM chat clients available
• Interfaces with Yahoo messenger, AIM, MSN Messenger, GoogleTalk and many more
• Available as a portable app
• You can log into all chatting platforms at the same time
• Supports  file transfers, away messages, buddy icons, custom smilies, and typing notifications

Pidgin is an internet chatting client just like Yahoo messenger, AIM, MSN Messenger, GoogleTalk. Pidgin is compatible with the following chat networks out of the box: AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MXit, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr. It can support many more with additional plugins . So what this really means is that you can be chatting with your buddy on MSN Messenger as well as your friend on Google Chat at the same time. Pidgin is open source and free so it is constantly being developed and free. Pidgin supports over 20 major languages.

The Portable Version is brilliant, run it off your USB key and all your IM settings and buddy lists are self-contained, so it leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on. Pidgin also has built in encryption to ensure your chats are kept private.

Free PC Soft Rating – 5 out of 5 stars

Download Pidgin from HERE

These tools don’t install on your computer and leave no trace on any computer they are used on.

Stay tuned to this category as there is more to come.

*Support editing of images and adding of addtional text to image

*Very mature tool

*Plugins available for different functions

Very easy and light install, adds no entries to registry    

IrfanView is a super excellent graphic image viewer/editor that supports too many file formats to list but a few are jpg/jpeg, png, bmp, tiff, psd, gif, img…. It is a well developed software with novices in mind but also versatile enough for professionals. Install is very simple and adds no annoying addons to your computer or bother you with those popups asking you to register – it makes no entries in the computer registry making it easy to remove  (?why) It is available in over 10 languages and support is available (for a small donation)

Free PC Soft Rating – 5 out of 5 stars

DOWNLOAD from IrfanView

*Built email scanner

*Regular updates

*Available in major languages

*Interface easy to use and understand    

AVG AntiVirus is an oldie but goodie! It has been around for more than 7 years and is currently on its 9th version. It comes in 2 flavors Free and Paid versions. Paid version obviously has more feature, free version has enough features to be effective in todays computing.  Free version has AntiVirus and AntiSppyware (to protect from viruses, worms and trojans) and LinkScanner which checks webpages being visited for malicious content. If you have a computer or server with antivirus,  AVG will get the job done as a first line of defensive -  its free and better than nothing

Free PC Soft Rating – 4 out of 5 stars

DOWNLOAD from AVG

*Fast conversion using low PC resources

*Supports PDF encryption and protection

Can’t be any easier than this to use! Simply install the program, this will create a printer in your printers folder. Open the doc you want to print, send it to PrimoPDF as you would print any doc. PrimoPDF will then pop up and then ask you where to save the files and voila! – file is created as a PDF document. PrimoPDF supports printing from over 300 file types with options of optimizing the output for various purposes i.e. for printing, ebook creation, online viewing etc. You also have the ability to append to previously created files.

DOWNLOAD PrimoPDF FROM NITRO PDF SOFTWARE

*Scans PC, multiple network and USB drives *Detects and removes Malware/Spyware *Very fast scan engine *Low resource usage *Free updates

Malwarebytes is a quick effective anti-malware, anti-spyware that is totally free. It has one of the best heuristics / scanning engines in the industry capable of knowing what is dangerous to your PC and what is not. There are two versions of this app the free version and the paid version with major difference between that the paid has real-time protection and automatic updating. Works seamlessly well with other anti malware, anti spyware, antivirus, firewalls

DOWNLOAD from MALWAREBYTES.ORG

* Seamless Recordings

* Multi-Track Interface

* Adjust Levels

* Monitor Clipping

There is no better free audio/music editor, recorder, modifier, adjuster on the market than Audacity. This simple to use software lets you do many things easily like record live audio and voice, edit MP3’s, WAV’s, OGG’s and many other popular formats, fine tune the pitch and speed of the track, plus you can cut and splice, and mix sounds/clips together. A must-have tool for all things audio.

DOWNLOAD AUDACITY FROM SOURCEFORGE

* Color Graphing

* Free Up Space

* File Types Summary

* Speedy Analyzing

If you are wondering what happened to all your hard disc space, you need to run WinDirStat. This handy tool analyzes all the files on your hard disc or across multiple hard discs, if you have more than one installed. Quickly check which files and folders are consuming all those gigabytes. There are also cool options like view by directory list, treemap, tree list and extensions.

DOWNLOAD WINDIRSTAT FROM SOURCEFORGE

* One Click Printing

* Small File Size

* Super Fast Rendering

* Annotation Tool

Stay away from bloatware products like Adobe Acrobat because the Foxit Reader comes in a small package that breezes through PDF documents instantly. Quick printing option with a fabulous annotation tool that allows you to write and draw on the PDF document with ease. Many other features included in this PDF file reader like text converting and page layout resizing.

DOWNLOAD FOXIT READER FROM FOXIT CORPORATION

* Clips Or Full Tracks

* Balance Voice/Music

* 2 Level Sliders

* Cue Up Many Clips

With Skype Player you can send all recipients on the voice call audio and music clips with the touch of a mouse button. Cue up as many songs or clips as you wish. Two level sliders to control the local volume and the remote volume so it is not over bearing on each end. This is one handy tool for all Skype users, to send funny clips and audio to your friends and buddies on Skype heard in real-time.

DOWNLOAD SKYPE PLAYER FROM SOURCEFORGE

* 16 Joystick Support

* Multiple Profiles

* 32 Button Support

* Use Multiple Axis

This software is a must-have for gamers of MS-DOS classics. Simply assign specific keyboard keys to joystick or gamepad buttons or controls, so you can use your game with a joystick. Even if the game or program isn’t configured for joysticks, this software will make it available. JoyToKey has many other uses also for controlling your computers keyboard with a joystick.

DOWNLOAD JOYTOKEY FROM ELECTRACODE

* Rip The Audio Track

* Tons Of Filters

* Crop And Resize

* Change Quality

VirtualDub is a fantastic video editor which allows you to manipulate video extremely easy. Simply load up a video or movie then go to town cropping, resizing, changing color effects, watermarking and reducing the overall output size of the file. There are so many more features VirtualDub can accomplish with a wide range of audio and video filters built-in.

DOWNLOAD VIRTUALDUB FROM SOURCEFORGE

* Store Usernames

* Keep Account Notes

* Skinnable

* Import And Export

With the amount of Internet accounts the common user has these days, you need a password manager to handle the complete database you have accumulated. Password Keeper has a hassle-free UI that stores usernames, emails, passwords and notes in a list format for simple navigation. Extra features include several skins and the ability to encrypt the exported list.

DOWNLOAD PASSWORD KEEPER FROM AG SOFTWARE

* Automatic Updates

* Import From IE

* Customizable Search

* Plug-Ins Galore

Gaining popularity by the day is Mozilla’s premium web browser called Firefox. Browsing on the web with Firefox is not only faster but much more secure. Firefox also has the ability to be extensible with 1000’s of Plug-Ins to expand the feature set of Mozilla’s flagship product. Quickly navigate through tabs for a highly efficient experience. A must-have browser for all Internet dwellers.

DOWNLOAD FIREFOX FROM MOZILLA

* Tables Support

* Add Videos+Pictures

* Advanced Formatting

* Post Date Function

Bloggers will not find a better tool than Microsoft’s free Windows Live Writer. Easy posting to your blog with a quick and simple desktop interface. Have your articles go live immediately or post-date them for the future. There are so many features of this software including but not limited to hyperlinks, text formatting, paragraph formatting, insertion of videos easily plus tagging.

DOWNLOAD WINDOWS LIVE WRITER FROM MICROSOFT

* MP3 Normalizer

* Batch Processing

* Retains Tags

* Remove Clipping

* Progress Meter

MP3Gain is an awesome MP3 track/song tool to normalize all of your MP3 files to the same volume. It is an annoying fact that volume changes throughout albums are consistently recorded at different volume levels. This is where MP3Gain does its handy work. Simply select a bunch of audio tracks and click Track Gain and let the software normalize all songs selected.

DOWNLOAD MP3GAIN FROM SOURCEFORGE