Windows users are always on the lookout for new and useful software, and there is no shortage of great free tools out there. Here is my list of 10 new and latest software that you must try on your Windows PC. Most of them are completely free, so download them, give them a spin and do leave your comments below!
1. Avant Browser 2014 Build 5
Avant Browser is an extremely efficient and feature-rich browser, which can easily import your Internet Explorer settings and is very easy to use. Its user-friendly interface brings a new level of clarity and efficiency to your browsing experience, and frequent upgrades have steadily improved its reliability. Avant Browser allows users to browse multiple websites simultaneously and block all unwanted pop-up pages and Flash ads automatically.
The integrated cleaner helps you clear all traces and protect your privacy. The built-in Google search engine enables you to search for web pages, images, groups, directories, lyrics, software and news on the internet. Avant Browser also provides options to block the download of Flash elements, pictures, videos, sounds and ActiveX components. With these options, users can efficiently use their bandwidth and speed up page loading. All opened pages can be easily stopped, refreshed, closed or arranged with one click.
As you can see, Avant Browser is one of the rare internet browsers that packs almost everything you need directly into its basic installation. This is perfect for novices in the world of internet and computing who are not used to manually installing browser plugins and extensions. By packing in all these features and many more, Avant Browser manages to satisfy both novices and seasoned professionals, never compromising on stability, security or the ability to customize your browsing experience the way you want it. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is its support for Online Bookmarks — with this feature, losing your data when you change your PC or reinstall Windows will become a thing of the past.
Avant Browser Features:
- Tri-core rendering engine – three rendering engines built in: Trident, Gecko and WebKit, the engines behind Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome respectively.
- Multi-Processing / Anti-Freezing – a crash-free browsing experience with high reliability; when one tab fails, it won't freeze the browser or pull other pages down.
- Split View – an easy way to view multiple different websites at the same time, adding another dimension to Avant Browser's customizable interface layout.
- Video Sniffer – detects the videos on the web page you are browsing and lets you download them with just one click.
- AD/Popup Blocker – efficiently cleans up web pages by blocking popup pages and filtering ad content; you can block any annoying content with the "Add to AD Blacklist" command in the right-click menu.
- Download Accelerator – a built-in multi-threaded downloader makes it much faster to download files from webpages or your email box, and much easier to manage downloaded files.
- Online Bookmarks – access your bookmarks with the Avant Online Bookmarks service from anywhere — office, home or an internet cafe — and don't worry about losing that data when reinstalling Windows. The encrypted stand-alone bookmarks file format protects your privacy on a shared computer.
2. Comodo Dragon Internet Browser 33.1
Comodo Dragon is a fast and functional internet browser based on Chromium, infused with Comodo's unparalleled level of security! It is a versatile browser that offers you all the possible features plus security and privacy. With faster start-up times, rapid graphics rendering and improved page load speed, the latest version of Dragon is full of major performance improvements you'll notice instantly. Dragon provides uninterrupted browsing when there is a crash in the plugins — just refresh the page. Dragon's window is streamlined, clean and simple, and its combined search and address bar makes it easy to search and navigate the web, all from one box.
The reason why the Comodo Group created their own customized browser, built on top of the Chromium engine, is because they saw how important a safe approach to internet browsing can be — it is the first and most meaningful line of defense against the countless threats present on the web. In addition to protecting your privacy by turning off many of the basic Google tracking services (automatic address bar search suggestions, the safe updater, the bug-tracking system and others), your security is further reinforced by increased monitoring and by clearly communicating to you the current strength of the SSL certificate on the site you are visiting.
No matter if you are a novice or a seasoned user, the additional layer of security that Comodo Dragon Internet Browser provides will definitely give you peace of mind while browsing the web.
Comodo Dragon Features:
- Improved Privacy over Chromium
- Easy SSL Certificate Identification
- Fast Website Access
- Greater Stability and Less Memory Bloat
- Incognito Mode Stops Cookies, Improves Privacy
- Very easy to switch from your Browser to the Dragon
3. Flock 2.6.1
Flock is a freeware browser that was actively developed between April 2005 and April 2011. During those six years of active development, Flock managed to establish itself as one of the first browsers actively focused on providing users with fully integrated social networking and Web 2.0 features and services in its interface. Instead of forcing users to manually customize their browser via plugins and extensions, Flock directly integrated numerous services into its client. This enabled both novices and professionals to effortlessly experience all the best things the internet has to offer without wasting time on manual browser configuration.
The integrated plugins included easier access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo Mail, Blogger, MySpace, Flickr and many more, with the sharing of pages, images and videos built directly into your core browsing experience. But the additions did not stop there. Flock has full support for downloading, managing and reading news feeds (all three popular varieties – RSS, Media RSS and Atom), a powerful "Media Bar" section for previewing online multimedia content, an integrated blog management dashboard for controlling your blog, a webmail client that supports dragging and dropping images or videos into your emails, third-party plugin support and more.
During its history, Flock went through several distinctive phases. Its early versions were based on the Gecko HTML rendering engine (the engine behind Mozilla Firefox), and in the final year of its life it was moved to the WebKit-based Chromium engine.
Features in Flock Social Web Browser:
- Facebook Chat has been integrated
- Twitter Live Results
- Twitter features in the People Sidebar
- Twitter Search widget
- FlockCast has been integrated
- Bebo has been integrated
4. SeaMonkey 2.26
SeaMonkey is a free internet tool which supports all the protocols you need to ensure smooth web browsing, email and newsgroup reading, and HTML editing. Originally made as a continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, this open-source internet suite of browsing tools now gives anyone full control over their online experience. The central piece of the SeaMonkey package is the Mozilla-based internet browser SeaMonkey Navigator, which is specially crafted to support basic skinning and the integration of numerous plugins that will make your browsing as easy and streamlined as possible. First of those many plugins is SeaMonkey Mail, a fully featured email client that supports multiple accounts, message filters, a dictionary, an address book, customizable labels, add-ons and HTML message support. Other components are the HTML Editor (SeaMonkey Composer, with full support for WYSIWYG editing), an IRC Client (the popular ChatZilla, which can also be downloaded separately) and a Newsgroup aggregator.
SeaMonkey's tabbed browsing gives you a better way to surf the net — you no longer have to open one page at a time. With tabbed browsing, you can open several pages at once with one click, and your homepage can even be multiple pages in tabs. And if you mistakenly close a tab or window, the Undo Closed Tab or Window functionality helps you bring it back and continue working with it. The only part of the package that can be considered beginner-unfriendly is the IRC client ChatZilla. Its interface is heavily geared toward seasoned internet users and professionals, with a scalable UI and services that can be configured to fit their every need.
Features of the SeaMonkey Suite:
- Sync – keep your browsing history, passwords, bookmarks, preferences and tabs in sync across different computers in a secure way.
- Tabbed browsing – open several pages at once with one click; your homepage can even be multiple pages in tabs.
- Session restore – brings back all your open windows and tabs after the rare occasion that SeaMonkey crashes — and, if you wish, even when you close and reopen the browser or restart your computer.
- Add-ons Management – almost infinite possibilities to extend your internet experience, both by installing additional functionality created by others and by freely developing your own extensions and providing them to the rest of the SeaMonkey community.
- Feed detection – notifies you when web pages offer RSS or Atom feeds, and feed preview lets you view their contents and choose a reader to subscribe with — including the internal reader in the Mail & Newsgroups component of SeaMonkey.
- Tabbed Mail – manage your mail and folders in parallel, without losing track of where you are when reading, replying to and working with messages in more complex patterns.
- Junk mail controls – take back control of your email from spammers; SeaMonkey's adaptive junk mail control gets smarter with use and is personalized to the email you receive.
- Chat on IRC networks – multiple networks and channels are easy to keep track of in a familiar tabbed interface.
- DOM Inspector – dig into the document structure of web pages, add-ons or even the SeaMonkey "chrome" itself and inspect a huge number of properties of any element, including JavaScript objects and CSS styles.
- JavaScript Debugger ("Venkman") – debug JavaScript code on your websites, add-ons and even in SeaMonkey itself with a suite of powerful debugging tools.
5. Silverlight
Microsoft Silverlight is a rich and powerful utility for creating and delivering various types of internet applications and media experiences. Silverlight is a free plug-in, powered by the .NET framework and compatible with multiple browsers, devices and operating systems, bringing a new level of interactivity wherever the web works.
Built on an application framework completely focused on writing and reproducing rich internet applications, Silverlight tries to use the power of its streamlined tool chain and services to outperform everything that Adobe Flash has managed to achieve over the last decade. On its launch in late 2007, Silverlight was completely focused on multimedia streaming, but over the years its capabilities have expanded to the point where it can manage anything you throw at it — graphics rendering, multimedia, animation and more. What is more notable, Silverlight can be used to create native applications that run on the Windows Phone platform.
6. Spark Browser
Spark Browser from Baidu Inc. represents one of the core programs that this popular developer is offering to the worldwide public. By easily mixing traditional browsing tools with fully integrated plugins and extensions — things that are accessible in other browsers only if you manually search for and install them — Spark Browser manages to provide a seamless internet browsing experience that can be appreciated by both internet novices and seasoned professionals.
The latest version of Spark Browser features many tools that make internet browsing easy and fun. This includes an integrated tool for downloading media from internet video and audio hosting sites (including a video-to-MP3 converter that works automatically), an integrated torrent client that enables full control of your internet transfers from one simple-to-use dashboard, a video pop-up tool that lets you continue watching streaming videos in their own window while you browse other pages, a pre-built set of mouse gestures that can control many functions of the browser, full integration into the Google account system for syncing between devices, a desktop screenshot capture tool and more.
Like all browsers based on the popular WebKit rendering engine, Spark Browser manages to deliver an incredibly speedy experience no matter if you are only browsing a few sites, managing dozens of tabs, downloading files from HTTP/FTP/BitTorrent, or even building your local multimedia catalogue with the integrated tool for downloading videos from popular online hosting websites. With incredible speed and stability, Spark Browser mixes the best capabilities of the most popular browser in the world, Google Chrome, with dozens of useful tools that are directly integrated into its user interface. If you want to optimize your internet browsing experience to the highest degree, start that journey with Spark Browser!
Spark Browser Features:
- Media Download – download online video and MP3 sources to your computer.
- Torrent – download torrents directly from your browser; there is no need for any other torrent download tools anymore!
- Video Pop-up Player – watch online videos while surfing the internet.
- Mouse Gesture – use a number of functions right away simply by moving the mouse while holding the right-click button.
- Data sync – log into Spark with your Google account to sync data; this saves your personalized browser features on the web so you can access them on any computer.
7. SlimBrowser 7.00
SlimBrowser is a perfect browser for both computer novices and professionals who want an internet experience with a browser that has preinstalled all their favourite plugins, add-ons and features — things they could otherwise find only after a long period of testing countless add-ons. SlimBrowser simplifies that process by offering everyone a package that already features some of the most popular and most wanted features not present in the basic packages of other well-known browsers such as Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox.
With features such as a fully skinnable user interface built on the Microsoft Trident layout engine, compatibility with IE toolbars, site groups, a fully customizable HTML/Script editor with highlighted syntax, an FTP uploader (with support for batch processing), a built-in spell checker, a YouTube video downloader, one-click Facebook integration, a weather forecast tracker, an instant photo upload tool, support for skins, web page and text translation and much more, SlimBrowser represents the best possible way to instantly take full control over your internet browsing. Another very important feature of SlimBrowser is that it has moved away from single-process web content rendering, enabling users to eliminate almost all performance restrictions that can sometimes be found in other older browsers. By separating its processing with this type of architecture, SlimBrowser proved that it can serve as your primary browser. SlimBrowser is 100% free and available for use on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
SlimBrowser Features:
- Lightning Fast – faster startup, faster web browsing, 10x faster file & video download, 10x faster photo upload.
- Convenient and Efficient – save wasted time, keystrokes & mouse clicks with artificial intelligence and automation.
- Powerful and Versatile – critical and nice-to-have features alike, SlimBrowser does it all for you without plugins.
- Secure and Protective – integration with online virus scanners, securely manage passwords, safely erase all traces.
8. SlimBoat
SlimBoat is a lightweight, freeware and cross-platform internet browser (available on Windows, Mac and Linux) that enables everyone to take instant advantage of many plugins and features that other browsers will have access to only by installing specific plugins and add-ons. By giving you those features instantly after you install SlimBoat, you save yourself from wasting time discovering those add-ons and can instantly start browsing the internet in a safe, productive and fast way.
With the open-source QTWebKit as its base, every user of SlimBoat will be welcomed with rock-solid compatibility and speed, but with an expansion of the core functionality with features and capabilities such as a form filler, YouTube downloader, social network integration (Facebook, Twitter and many others), pop-up blockers, an advanced download manager, weather forecast, translation tools and more. The UI is also enhanced, with the ability to drag and drop toolbars and import data from other browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE). These are only some of the features we have mentioned, with many more present in SlimBoat as part of the basic installation package — perfect for users who want a rock-solid and feature-full experience without being forced to customize the browser themselves.
With such value packed inside a fast, easy-to-use and secure web browser, everyone can instantly start experiencing the internet in the best possible way. If you install SlimBoat now, you will see not only that it is free and fast, but that it also works very well on older PCs with slower hardware.
SlimBoat Features:
- Super Fast – shorter startup time, faster web page browsing powered by a high-speed WebKit engine.
- Efficient and Easy-to-use – reduce time waste and keyboard & mouse entries by doing everything automatically.
- Powerful and Versatile – SlimBoat integrates more features and functions than any other internet browser.
- Secure and Safe – securely store logins & passwords, easily erase all traces, block obtrusive ads & popups.
9. Mumble
Mumble is a free and open-source audio chat software that has a goal to offer everyone the ability to chat in a group environment. This includes setting up an audio call with a large number of people for a school project, a business meeting or (most often) organized video gaming. This and many other online communication sessions can be greatly enriched with the help of Mumble, which can take control over the management of user permissions and other features that will be attractive to moderators who want to tightly control who can talk with whom (especially important for use in business, or in gaming with separate rooms for each gaming session, group or game). Mumble is there to help you do just that with ease. Users can host their own servers, invite users to manage their own channels, record their audio sessions and manually control when they want to mute their own microphone or mute incoming audio communication.
The main interface of Mumble is very well designed. The main dashboard is focused on listing the chat rooms from the server you are connected to. Detailed customizations of your chat experience can be found in the tools located above in the main menu line.
Mumble is perfect for anyone who is interested in having complete control over the audio chat between a large number of people at the same time. It is distributed in two basic modules — the Mumble client and the Mumble server. This configuration ensures the maximum security, audio quality and reliability of the audio chat between users.
Mumble Features:
- Low latency and low bandwidth usage
- Brilliant voice quality (speech preprocessing and noise cancellation)
- Echo removal
- Positional audio (determine players' locations in supported games with your ears)
- Overlay
- ACL for users
- Text-to-speech (hear program's and server's status updates)
10. Daum PotPlayer
Daum PotPlayer (also known simply as PotPlayer) is an advanced audio and video player that is brimming with features for detailed control of multimedia reproduction. With detailed customization of the player itself using countless skins, this multimedia app enables everyone to enter the world of movies and music no matter how old or new your PC is. It comes with a built-in suite of all the most popular codecs, so you don't even have to install cumbersome third-party codec packs. Everything can be reproduced directly from the app, which is especially attractive to novices who just want to enjoy their multimedia without any delays. Additionally, Daum PotPlayer can work with a wide variety of video devices (such as cameras, DVD players, digital recorders, analogue and digital TV), and hosts an incredible amount of customization of its tools and features (video color, subtitle, playback settings, audio and much more).
The main interface of PotPlayer is very simple to use, with very few on-screen buttons present, which is perfect for novices. Deeper customization is hidden in a drop-down properties menu, which allows incredibly quick navigation to all the tools of this great app, including some that are recommended to be used only by seasoned users who know what they are doing.
All of these features would be pointless if they were placed behind a subscription or initial purchase, but fear not — PotPlayer and all of its features are available for everyone to use absolutely free, with no restrictions on any aspect of its work.
Daum PotPlayer Features:
- Ability to play and stream most video and audio formats
- Ability to play incomplete or damaged AVI files (by skipping the damaged frames)
- Very fast and lightweight
- Can remember where the user left off in a video
- Keyboard shortcuts for most tasks, including seeking, volume, zoom, brightness, contrast, and even subtitle resyncing
- Subtitle support, including SSA and ASS support as well as embedded subtitles in MKV, OGM, MP4, MOV, and 3GP files
- Fully skinnable – users can choose different skins for different types of files, make the window transparent, hide the window border when playing, and more
- Video filters, like deinterlacing, postprocessing, de-noise, and more for customized playback
- Audio equalizer and video equalizer that let users adjust the brightness, contrast, hue and more of the video
- Many more advanced settings in the Options menu
So these were the 10 new and latest software you must try on your Windows PC. Do leave your comments below and tell us which one is your favourite!
