Harlan

Software Reviews by Harlan

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.

tinyMediaManager

Formerly good, free version now crippleware

"Free" version is now mainly a come-on for the paid version. It's too limited to be useful to anyone. Price: Free

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Defender Control

Terrific little tool

Does one very useful thing, does it very well, and does it very simply. Price: Free

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LibreOffice

Most comprehensive ms office clone available

It's huge, but so is MS Office. It has broad capabilities, and, for free, it's by far the best available. However, it has the same problems as any other large volunteer-based software project: features and updates are added based on volunteers' personal interests. As an American I admire their dedication to supporting every possible language and culture on the planet, but it doesn't benefit me and it adds to the package size. Meanwhile, features that I would like to see (features that have been in MSO for a long time) never make it on to the wish list. . This is nonetheless one of the shining examples of how great the internet and its many enthusiastic volunteer developers can be, and I thank them for their work. Price: Free

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PasswordFox

Easy way to print or save ff logins

Mozilla has eliminated the ability to print or create a file of saved logins. This program is a simple fast free foolproof way to do it. I use a master password, which it requests before accessing the data. Price: Free

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Bandizip

V7 is now freemium

This was my zip software for several years, and V6.26 (still available) is still very good. However, V7 is freemium, and although I understand the developer's desire to monetize his work, there are too many capable free competitors to make this a good choice for users. OTOH, I do sometimes voluntarily contribute to freeware developers, so maybe it works out about the same. Price: Free

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FenoPhoto

Powerful image editing yet easy to use

This prioritizes simplicity wile providing some control over the process. All of the options are on the screen all the time, making them easy to use without extensive training and experimentation (as with GIMP and Photoshop), but you still control the amount of each effect, unlike simple "one-touch" apps. All of the work is done by the program, and it does a good job. What you don't get is detailed control: no regions or layers, limited flexibility in applying edits, no cloning. I see this being useful also for people trying to learn the more professional programs like GIMP, since FenoPhoto makes it simple to understand what each effect does to a photo; learning that directly in GIMP is harder, although GIMP is vastly more powerful. Price: Free

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Alt-Tab Terminator

V4 is shareware (usd20 lifetime license)

I liked version 3.x, but I did not use it often since it is easy enough to switch windows from te taskbar. For USD20, it doesn't do enough for me to buy it. Price: Free Trial ($19.95)

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Exportizer

Free version is too limited to be useful

The free version is limited to text-based formats. It shows its age by listing many obsolete formats (Sylk? Paradox? dBase?). I see no reason for anyone to use the free version, and even the "Pro" version has important limitations which are removed only in the "Enterprise" version. Price: Free

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Gimp

Powerful but hard to learn; win users beware

This has been a great free program for many years. It is powerful enough to compete with expensive paid products. It is difficult to learn, but no more so than similar programs. Unfortunately, each product has different interfaces and nomenclature, making it difficult to move from one to another, even with many YouTube videos for each product. Users should understand, however, that GIMP is primarily a Linux project, and all development is done for a Linux environment and then ported to Windows without being tested. The result is a growing pile of reported bugs under Windows which the developers admit are not getting much attention. If you are running this under Windows, you may run into these bugs and you can't expect any support. I'm considering moving to paid software. Price: Free

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WizTree

Does not work for me

I used to love this program, but I've found that it does not properly report on my external HD, skipping some (normal) directories and reporting some folders with ridiculously large sizes. It shows the correct totals at the top, but the detailed listing is badly incomplete. It also has problems with other removable drives. I've emailed tech support, and their responses were friendly and logical, but their suggestions didn't help. When I tried to dump the MFT to send them, I got an enormous file of garbage. As a result, I'm now using TreeSize, which does not have any problems. I'm running Windows 7 Pro x64 and my drives are all NTFS. Price: Free

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DS Clock

Excellent

I rely on having the time and date always displayed on top of whichever window is active, and this handles that very well. I formerly used Titlebar Date-Time for this function and I was satisfied with it, but DS Clock gives more control over the appearance and includes a time syncing capability that solves a problem I have with my network. I wish there were more choices of background color, and that changes were visible within the change dialog box itself, but this is a great program. I use this in a one-screen display system; I have had problems in the past with other similar programs in multi-screen displays. Price: Free

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Hibernate Enable or Disable

Quick and simple

It can be hard to find the hibernation on-off setting. This small portable program does it easily and without problems. Dialogue box should be larger for better legibility. Price: Free

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Find.Same.Images.OK

Simple to use, fairly fast, very effective

Effectively locates duplicates and near-duplicates, even if two files are somewhat different. User can adjust degree of similarity, although only coarsely. Many dark pictures will look alike at less than 100 similarity selection, and "better" image may require human supervision. I found this more accurate, faster, and easier to use than a couple of other free ones I've tried. Selecting specific files and folders to compare could be easier. This is from a great developer. Price: Free

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Stretchly

Limited functionality and flexibility, huge

Reminders pop up as expected and are effective in forcing breaks, but there are few options and little flexibility as to timing, repeating, and appearance. Changing messages requires editing a .json file. Programming methodology results in a fully portable but enormous application. This one needs more work. Price: Free

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Complete Internet Repair

Excellent and simple to use

Very simple interface. I can't comment on how comprehensive it is or how broadly it is helpful, but it solved some connection problems I had under Win10 x64 that my other tools (tweaking.com AIO and the Windows troubleshooter) did not. The explanation for each possible "repair" is brief and probably not helpful to average users, but perhaps no amount of explanation of such technical items would be enough. Price: Free

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ZHPCleaner

Strange and not worth the time

Installation routine is weird, in that it creates a desktop shortcut and runs an executable file, but then apparently deletes them upon first use. Runs slowly and is not easily cancelled. Automatically shuts down any open browser before it starts to run, but they can be re-opened once the run gets going. It scans all browsers and related areas in the registry, and appears to be pretty thorough in finding potential problems. It gives no context in the online display (which was distorted and displayed improperly on my 1920x1080 Win7 display). The results shown on the screen provide no context (what the problem is with each identified item, or which browser is affected). There is a text log file created (in mixed FrenchEnglish) which includes hints as to both the problem and the browser, but only hints. The online information is extensive and readily available for each item one-at-a-time, but you need to read French. I don't see any reason to use this in preference to the many other available programs with the same function. Price: Free

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GetFolderSize

Works well, cluttered and confusing UI

This is the one I use. It has many capabilities, only a few of which I use. It works fairly quickly, but it lacks the panache of those competitors which produce attractive and interactive graphical displays. However, I prefer the information provided in neatly formatted tables, and its drill-down capability is excellent and very fast. Its command line execution mode makes it especially useful for system admins and techs, which is allowed by its license. The primary disadvantage is its unusual screen display: two panes, each of which has multiple toolbars plus a menu. I would prefer a simpler presentation even at the cost of fewer features or more difficulty accessing the rarely-changed setup options. Price: Free

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FastCopy

Very fast, bypasses problem files

This is a great program. It is very fast on Win 7 Pro and Win 10 Pro. My favorite feature is its ability to automatically skip files with problems (locked, corrupted or moved during the copy process) and continue with the operation without requiring operator intervention. Log files are nice to have to verify that the operation occurred as expected. One complaint is that the detailed help file is disorganized and sometimes cryptic, requiring a bit of Talmudic study to decide what parameters to use. A second complaint is that the interface is not well-thought out. TeraCopy, a program which is inferior to this one in most ways, has a better interface both for creating the task and watching its progress. Price: Free

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VeraCrypt

Very good truecrypt replacement

If you trust it (I do), this is an excellent package. Very similar to TrueCrypt in most ways, including how easy it is to use in basic mode and how much more complicated it is to use in "paranoid" mode. The delay in mounting volumes is very long, even on a fast machine. This release (1.17) has reduced that delay noticeably, but you still have time to make coffee while it works. Opened volumes process with no apparent delays, and there is also no delay when closing them. The primary disadvantages are the slow volume mounting and the inability to use a keyfile during the boot process. The ability to encrypt the whole disk or partition is an enormous advantage, since it eliminates any concern with sensitive information being left in the page or hibernation files, or in disk free space, or in file slack areas or alternate streams. Be sure to create a "rescue disk." Price: Free

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RegScanner

Great tool, part of great package

This is an excellent tool. It improves on the built-in Registry Editor in just about every way possible (nothing can make the registry easy to work with or understand). It still works perfectly in Windows 10. Instead of downloading this, however, you should get the entire Nirsoft Utilities package, which has dozens of other handy, reliable, lightweight tools for viewing and managing all sorts of system data and activities, combined into a portable, easy-to-install and -use package which receives small improvements nearly every week. Price: Free

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.NET Version Detector

Handy and lightweight

Performs a simple task well. Not only reports installed versions, but indicates which non-installed versions are available and assists in getting them. Price: Free

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Titlebar Date-Time

Handy and lightweight

Should be built into Windows. Very useful when the date and time are not otherwise displayed. I had stopped using it because it had problems with extra buttons added to the title bar by other apps, and with windows of varying sizes and resolutions, but this version has settings that eliminate these problems. Updated often enough to maintain compatibility with new Windows versions. I run Win 7 Pro x64 with the taskbar hidden, and TBDT works great. Thanks to the developer! Price: Free

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Configuration Mania

Very handy, reasonably safe for all users

This is "just" a GUI to the FF settings, but included in that is a well-organized interface, a reminder of the many settings that are available, and appropriate safety warnings. I used it to allow SSL security, which FF disabled by default and thereby locked me out of most of my financial and merchant accounts. While I was in there, I tweaked several other settings. Each tweak was a minor improvement, but together they made FF more pleasant for me to use, and I wouldn't have even thought of most of them had they not been presented so conveniently. Price: Free

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BandiView

Handy, works well, no license restrictions

Nice package, has a few unusual features, interfaces with Bandizip from the same developer to provide smooth access to zipped files. Fewer features than Irfanview and XnView, but free for all to use. Price: Free

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Pale Moon

Formerly excellent, now frustrating to use

Pale Moon was an optimized version of Firefox, eliminating some features most people did not use in return for better performance and stability. As Mozilla lurched from one misguided design decision to another, breaking extensions and frustrating users, Pale Moon kept its traditional, highly functional interface. Any web site and extension that worked with Firefox could be counted on to work with Pale Moon. Over the past two years, though, more and more web sites and extensions have refused to work with Pale Moon. With version 25, Pale Moon has deliberately made itself incompatible with many more sites and extensions (and with Windows XP), and it demands that all of the developers and users in the world make themselves compatible with Pale Moon. Well, it is not going to happen. Firefox itself is steadily losing market share, and Pale Moon is a tiny part of the Firefox user base. With version 25's quantum leap in incompatibility, Pale Moon has gone from "niche" to "cult" status. If you are looking for a new browser, look elsewhere. There are several well-reviewed FF and Chrome clones out there that provide the advantages that Pale Moon formerly did. Price: Free

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Right Click Enhancer

Free version mostly a come-on for paid vers

When this was at version 3, the free version had a full set of capabilities. Too full, apparently, because with version 4 they made most of the features active only in the paid version. 10 isn't much money, but this is a pretty minor utility, and I don't like that they misrepresent crippleware as freeware. Price: Free

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ORPALIS PDF Reducer

Astonishingly effective

I tested it on a few documents with embedded images and tables, and the compression was 75-90. For comparison, using "7z" compression on the original files yielded about 10 compression. Excellent performance and a clean interface. The nag screens are a negligible annoyance in return for something that is so useful. Price: Free

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Attribute Changer

Excellent for power users

Reliable little package with handy context-menu integration. Most users won't need this tool, but I imagine most Snapfiles users will. One criticism: interface for editing dates should be revised to automate resetting dates (for example, Create Date should not be after Modified Date). I formerly used it to reset unwanted attributes. Now I occasionally use it to easily manipulate file dates, either to manage how files are synchronized or to avoid resetting dates when I edit a file, or just to keep files in a certain order when they are sorted chronologically. Price: Free

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CSVed

Handy and works well

Provides all sorts of processing and editing options for dealing with delimited files. I find it useful for files that are inconsistently structured or that contain embedded data coding. I generally find that a text editor is adequate for quick searches and simple edits, and Excel handles more complicated editing and data conversion needs since the data usually ends up in Excel format anyway. If I want to create or modify a delimited file to send to someone else, however, CSVed provides flexibility and power that I can't get elsewhere. I think that CSVed is the most powerful (free) delimited-file tool available and I'm pleased to have it in my toolbox. Price: Free

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SyncFolders

Very good light-weight file backupsync

Very reliable, reasonably fast, reasonably simple for most tasks. I have used this for a year for on-demand backups to cloud storage and never had a problem. One needed improvement: says it will "attempt" to copy open files, but it never has succeeded for me (Win 7 Pro x64). Price: Free

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BowPad

Ribbon interface, not enough features

Portable, so it installs and is ready for use immediately. The ribbon interface will be familiar to anyone who uses MS Office 2007+. It provides simple but sometimes clunky access to all features, but there just are not enough of them. Even basic text editors like AkelPad and Notepad++ do far more, and their menu-and-toolbar user interfaces are fine for text editing. BowPad is better than the Notepad that comes with Windows, but it is not good enough to replace any of the popular free third-party text editors. Price: Free

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Tweaks for Skype

Key feature to disable ads doesn't work

I don't have any reason to self-impose most of the limitations this program offers. What interested me was being able to eliminate most of the ads. I've tried it and it has no apparent effect. Therefore, I see no reason to use this application. FWIW, the interface is simple and it is easy to use. Price: Free

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PeaZip

Good zipper, but this is a crowded field

PeaZip has been much improved over the past few years. It still has an unusual interface (which can be changed now to a more typical one), but it provides support for nearly all formats, works reliably, offers separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and installed and portable versions, and it is regularly updated and improved. I think of zippers as applications that do their jobs in the background, surfacing only when needed. PeaZip has always struck me as wanting more of your attention than I think a zipper deserves. So, although I have no complaints abut PeaZip, I prefer others. My current favorite is Bandizip. Price: Free

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Ghostery for Firefox

Works well for me

I use it with Pale Moon, an optimized Firefox derivative. I block all beacons, but not much else. I have never run into a problem accessing a website because of Ghostery. If you block everything, you can expect to run into problems. If you try to be very detailed in what you block, it will take a lot of time to go through the extensive lists of candidates, and you will have to keep updating what is blocked. Price: Free

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7+ Taskbar Tweaker

Does what it says, but not very useful

Installed easily and then worked fine for me on Win7 Pro 64 bit. Options settings are a bit confusing, and help is not very helpful. I used it for a few days and then deleted it. I didn't find it did much that standard Windows 7 didn't do already, and the features it added to the toolbar weren't of much interest to me. Price: Free

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NetWorx

Excellent, and not just for techs

This is a great program I've used for years. It tells me if my network connection is OK, or if nothing much is happening. The activity light in the system tray is too crude to be useful. The previous version (5.2.5) ruined the "Deskband" for me. The new version (5.2.6) has restored it! Highly configurable, with many capabilities. The publisher offers several other well-written freeware applications; the RAM Disk is especially good. Price: Free Trial ($49.00)

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Rapid Environment Editor

Handy and well written

Not needed often. Handy for changing environment variables, of course, but even handier for seeing what variables have been set by applications. I was able to correct a couple of problems in this way (where applications complained that they could not find a file because of an invalid or missing environment variable). Price: Free

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Q-Dir

Excellent: small, fast, portable

It does what you would expect from a multi-pane file manager. It's not as comprehensive as MultiCommander, or as pretty as NexusFile, but it has a ton of features in a small package that is constantly updated. Its only deficiency is the complex command structure, which is an inherent problem for all of the highly-capable file managers. Being able to work with up to 4 panes at once is usually more than I need, but occasionally it has been very handy. The portable version is identical to the installed version, and is the one I use. I highly recommend it. Price: Free

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PDFsam

Does its job but very clunky interface

Does what it is supposed to: splits, merges, and rearranges pages of PDF files. Interface is confusing and will be frustrating for occasional users; visual reordering is particularly labor-intensive with large files. It was designed to rely on plugins to extend its functionality, but it hasn't attracted any interest from other developers. There are several other free PDF split-and-merge utilities available, and this one, which has been largely unchanged for a long time, is showing its age. Since there are also several free PDF applications with a much broader range of functions, users should look elsewhere. Price: Free

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Desktops

Works fine, but too basic

Like all Sysinternals programs, it does what it says in a tiny, reliable package. But as the review implies, this is so basic and lacking in features that I don't know why anyone would use it except to see what a multi-desktop setup looks like. Dexpot is a top-rated freeware alternative. Price: Free

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Desktop Media

Works very well, surprisingly handy

This is similar to DeskDrive, and is similarly surprisingly handy. It is better than DeskDrive in that it offers hardlinks as a more efficient way to access temporary drives, and it seems to be free of the intermittent crashes that even the newest version of DeskDrive suffers from. DeskDrive conveniently highlights the icons it creates, and the icons it creates for USB drives include information on capacity and free space; Desktop Media does not do either of these. DeskDrive uses less memory but more pagefile space than Desktop Media. Neither program has much documentation. Both programs are very good. Price: Free

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PointerStick

Distracting and annoying to use

This developer provides lots of well-written small, portable, free tools. Pointer Stick shows that no one is perfect. The mouse pointer remains distractingly visible along with the stick. What makes this unusable for me is the way the stick abruptly changes orientation as I move around the screen. It makes me seasick. Wait for the next version. Price: Free

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Desk Drive

Handy if you use usb or cd-dvd drives a lot

At first glance this seems like a small convenience, but if you frequently plug in and remove USB drives as I do, this easy access via a desktop icon is addictive. It is also handy when using a multicard reader with memory cards from cameras, cell phones, and media players. I have installed it on both machines I use. The current version includes a third-party add-on, which earns a few cents for the developer. I usually decline, but I like this enough to accept it, if only for a few days. Price: Free

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SageThumbs

Works well, handy, generous license

Does what it says. IrfanView and XnView have similar capabilities through addons, but neither is free for commercial use. Some users will prefer to view images through a viewer/editor program, but I like to browse directories through the context menu. Price: Free

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NexusFile

Lots of functionality and colorful, too

This is my favorite portable file manager. It has every function I use, and I like the colorful interface. Cramming lots of options in a small space makes the UI very busy, though. I would suggest hiding some of the functions in menus, instead of putting so much on the screen at one time. Price: Free

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Sumatra PDF

Ok, but most users should look elsewhere

I've tried Sumatra several times. I like the idea of a lightweight PDF viewer that starts up and renders quickly, and I am willing to give up a lot of extra features in exchange for speed. But Sumatra is not much faster than others that DO come with extensive features, AND provide more flexible printing and file-handling, AND include conveniences such as remembering previous file save locations. I have gone back to PDF-XViewer (available on Snapfiles). Price: Free

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CleanMem

Works well and causes no problems

Like a lot of users, I consider memory "cleaners" to be pointless. Any freed memory is immediately grabbed back by whatever applications took it to begin with. CleanMem is a unique exception. It frees memory invisibly and without creating any problems, and the memory STAYS freed at least for a while. Adding more physical memory provides a lot more benefit than even CleanMem, of course, but CleanMem is a great tool to running in the background. Price: Free

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Dont Sleep

Excellent little program

This author writes highly functional little programs. I use aggressive power management to stretch my laptop battery's life, and Don't Sleep is great for keeping everything active when I'm viewing a webcast, for example. It has several other capabilities in a tiny package. Highly recommended. DesktopOK is another gem from the same site. Price: Free

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Quick Zip

Sent me back to using 7-zip

This is a nice concept, but it is too hard to use. First, it didn't associate itself with any file types. Second, it crashed when I tried to create a 7z archive. Third, the Windows Explorer- style interface seems like a good idea, but it requires too much work to get to where you need to go. The minimalist interface is attractive, but it gave me no clue as to what settings were available or how to access them. In particular, I wanted to specify a default file access path and the 7z compression parameters. Price: Free

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DriveGLEAM

Handy little program

Very handy for laptops without visible activity lights, such as when they are in docking stations and an external monitor is being used. Price: Free

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