CharlesK

Software Reviews by CharlesK

The reviews and opinions below are posted by SnapFiles visitors. They do not necessarily reflect our opinion, and they are solely based upon the experience of individual users.

Driver Magician Lite

Fabulous! best utility in last 12 months!

I've used a couple of other "driver backup" utilities, including one that I paid to use. "Driver Magician Lite" is quite simply: better! It displays a list of drivers faster and the interface is easier to use. If you have computer failure or restore, this backup of your drivers is very valuable, convenient, and fast. I wouldn't throw out the original install CDs, but saving your drivers with Driver Magician Lite make s them 90% irrelevant. Plus, since your backup only contains the drivers you need, reinstalling the drivers you want is much faster. Highly recommended. As useful as a "disk image" backup solution, but focused strictly on hardware driver support. A great idea is to put the data on a CD, and you'll have one CD for ALL drivers; plus it won't contain drivers for junk you don't have, meaning reinstallation will be fast and reliable. Price: Free

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Comodo Internet Security

Really impressive product

This is a REALLY impressive piece of work. I saw it got top honors in on the the best PC Magazines, but even so I wasn't thinking it would be this good. Particularly impressive is the fact you can switch Comodo Firewall to start up as part of the boot process, thereby preventing any other program beating it to the internet. Before using Comodo, I was using a very popular commercial firewall, but I know that it didn't work fully until a user logged in. Comodo's feature to do this was icing on the cake. Well done! Price: Free

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OverDisk

Truly exceptional, gives easy enormous power

This is the best program of its kind, although I still like the similar program, JDiskReport. However, it is superior largely because the interface and display of information is brilliant. It provides a wealth of information yet someone with nearly zero computer knowledge can understand it immediately. I use this to consistently identify portions or subdirectories on my hard drives (and client hard drives) that are hogging space but can't be understood or analyzed any other way. This is an indispensable tool and saves hours on each use; plus it's very fast and doesn't require a background service or other resource hog. This should be rated 5 stars in my view. Price: Free

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TrueCrypt

Outstanding!

TrueCrypt is without a doubt the best file encryption software available, beating everything, even software well over $500. I can keep sensitive data and passwords on my computer and even take it with me and have no fear of theft or loss because of the essentially unbreakable encryption design. Plus it's very easy to use and well thought out. It offers features such as dual and triple scheme encryption. In other words, (as an example) your file can use a combination of AES-Twofish-Serpent for extreme protection. Over the years I have probably tried at least 30 different packages for personal and business security. I'll never need to test another one again. Be sure to look over the documentation to see the superior power and flexibility available here. This is something I use every day at both work and home. Price: Free

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Silver Key Free

Easy, champion encrypted files

This program stands out as the best encryption program when you need portable/emailed encrypted data. The primary function creates password-protected self extracting files. The recipient does not need to have IronKey installed to unpack the encrypted file. RE: e-mailing encrypted files, most e-mail services will block files with ".exe" or ".bat" extensions, among other malicious attachments. IronKey encrypts to self extracting files which automatically have the "exe" extension. The simple solution for email is to rename the file from from "myfile.exe" to "myfile.exe.xyz" or some other extension that won't ID the attachment as a problem. The user simply renames the temp name to the original "exe" and they can extract information with the correct password. Price: Free

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Audacity

Can't be beat !

I'm usually verbose about my reviews. Not here: Audacity is one of the truly great freeware, open-source products. It supports 16, 24, 32-bit audio, multiple tracks, and every conceivable function. It's free, and thankfully free of adware, extra unwanted features or services that run in the background. It is better than other competing software, including those costing $1000-2000; and includes many offbeat functions like Karaoke extraction. It's my first choice for any audio editing or augmentation. Unbeatable. Price: Free

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Ashampoo Magical Defrag

Poor results

I bought several licences of Magical Defrag for myself and family members. This was based on Snapfile rating and other good experiences with other Ashampoo programs. However, I was a dismayed when I looked at the fragmentation levels after a few months. Even with lots of no-load time on the CPU, all machines had fragmentation well beyond anything accepatble. I uninstalled this as it was better to use another defrag program. Too bad, but this does not do the auto-defrag as stated. Maybe a new version will be better, but use a demo/trial before buying this. Price: Free Trial ($14.99)

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Exact Audio Copy

Best, error correcting ripper available

I used a dozen other rippers but often found later there was an tick, jump, or other error in the audio. I needed to find a program that sampled the audio multiple times to ensure 100% accurate extraction. I was desperate (crazy) enough I considered writing my own when I found Exact Audio Copy. It does exactly what I want, produces extremely accurate rips, and also uses the "accurate rip database" to make doubly sure the extract is correct (via checksums). If anything seems suspicious it gives excellent reports and a direct way to play the possible problem section. If you're going to spend time transferring your CDs to the computer, do it right the first time with this program. It can write out MP3, Ogg and normal wav files; plus it has a very good, flexible system to automatically save your songs any way you want them. It may be slower, but that's because it's eliminating reading errors. Very impressive. Price: Free

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Win32Pad

Absolutely terrific. now my main text editor

Far more than a 'Notepad' or ' WordPad' replacement. I use it for nearly all of my word processing needs. Win32Pad' is also useful for for programming and batch file editing. I use a voice dictation program and it works very well with that application, which is unusual. When you install, be sure to select the options 'open with' in the context menu and also ' make this my Notepad replacement'. Because this program supports so many different formats, I end up using 'open with Win32Pad' many times each day. I can't recommend this program enough. After installation, check out the options menu. There are nice controls which may not be obvious. For heavy-duty programming and scripting, some other programs with multiple open, tabbed files has advantages. But for daily use, Win32Pad is the best and easiest to work with. Price: Free

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Software Reviews by CharlesK

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