Free utilities are a dime a dozen (maybe my math's a little faulty), but the keepers--the ones you'll use forever--are worth a million bucks. The ten freebies from this year's Bass & Roebuck catalog speed your PC, protect your browser, and let you work smarter. Go to "Free Utilities: Improve Performance, Automatically Launch Programs" to download the lot.

Blast browser hijackers: Javacool's Browser Hijack Blaster protects Internet Explorer from stealthware that tries to change your home, default, or search page--or otherwise lead your browser astray--without your knowledge or permission. The tool runs in the background and alerts you to changes. It also lets you revert to your original settings and breathe easy again.

Predict a hard drive's demise: Some day your hard drive will fail, guaranteed. HDD Health 2 from PanteraSoft increases the odds that you'll know when it's about to happen so you can herd all your files to safety beforehand. The utility uses Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) to send data about your drive's performance to your PC's BIOS. It also alerts you via pop-ups and e-mail when your drive is about to become a doorstop.

Pedal to the CPU metal: If you use an Intel processor, run Intel's Application Accelerator 2.3 to quicken the delivery of data from your hard drive and other system-level components to your CPU. It also speeds booting and program launching. Use Intel's Chipset Identification Utility first to determine your PC's chip set, and then download the matching AA utility.

Cure IE toolbar chaos: You're merrily traipsing around the Internet when suddenly your Internet Explorer toolbar is jumbled. The address bar, links, and buttons have all changed places. Put your IE toolbar back in order, and then save those settings with Toolbar Chest. The next time the toolbar gets hosed, smile as one click prompts the utility to restore it.

Flash on, Flash off: Many of those blinding Macromedia Flash ads defeat my ad and pop-up blockers--but they can't beat TurnFlash, a no-nonsense tool created by Nir Sofer that toggles Flash on and off by changing a Registry setting. I keep Flash on until I hit an annoying site; then a quick click of TurnFlash's blue circle in my system tray disables Flash. Another click and Flash is back in a flash, er, jiffy. Just double-click the program's tflash.exe executable file and its blue icon appears in your system tray, ready to toggle. If you close IE with Flash off, you have to restart TurnFlash and toggle Flash back on to get animations to play in your browser again. You can avoid this little dance by loading the utility into your Start Group.

Purity in motion: Use Steve P. Miller's PureText to dispose of the formatting, HTML coding, and other baggage that tags along when you paste text from e-mail, Web sites, and readme files into other applications. Just copy material to the clipboard and click the PureText icon in your system tray to get spiffy text ready to paste. Or create a hot-key combination in Word (or some other program)--<Windows-V>, for example--to purify and paste the text in one step.

Word fields revealed: Bill Coan's Hidden File Detector is an add-on for Microsoft Word that tracks down linked files and hidden field codes in a Word document. The program adds an icon to the Word toolbar for fast access. I find it handy for ferreting out, say, embedded graphics. For more of Bill's cool Word tools, browse to Wordsite.com.

Move Outlook and OE to the system tray: Kick your open Outlook or Outlook Express windows out of the taskbar and into the system tray by using HideOutlook and HideOE from R2 Studios. These apps let you open a program to compose an e-mail message, write a note, or jot down an appointment with one click of the system-tray icon.

Faster Web browsing: I like to keep my hands on the keyboard when I browse. Chime Software's Hot Chime keyboard-macro utility lets me hit the <Pause> key and type in a preselected key or phrase to open a site. Hot Chime also lets me launch my favorite apps from the keyboard. A more powerful keyboard-macro utility is ActiveWord Systems' ActiveWords, which is available in $20 basic and $50 Plus versions. Go to "ActiveWords Turns Words Into Actions" to read about it.

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