The 15 Best Downloads of the Year

More Must-Haves

PC De-Crapifier

This utility removes "craplets" and other junk that commonly come pre-installed on new PCs. But it's useful for cleaning up older PCs, too, because they fill up with junk of their own.

TAmong the space-wasting dross that this program removes are AOL's installation program, McAfee and Norton programs, and MusicMatch. Run it, tell it what to dispatch, and it quickly goes about its work.

Download PC De-Crapifier | Price: Free

Download Accelerator Plus

If you live to download, this free program can solve just about every download problem you have. To accelerate downloads, the utility divides them into pieces and then downloads the pieces simultaneously from the fastest servers it can find. The program claims it can improve download speeds by up to 400 percent. Mmmmaybe. It certainly gets downloads onto your system faster, particularly when you're downloading multiple files.

The program automatically launches and begins work when you specify that you want to download a file while in your browser. You can add downloads to the program manually, too, if you like.

Download Accelerator Plus can complete broken downloads, lets you pause and resume downloads, and gives you tools for managing all of your downloads. A useful history manager shows you all of the files you've ever downloaded, including their size and date of download. Double-click any entry in the history list, and you'll launch the downloaded file.

Get Download Accelerator Plus | Price: Free

MediaMonkey

MediaMonkey does a great job of organizing your music files, playing them, ripping and burning CDs, converting files into different audio formats, creating playlists, synchronizing music between your PC and your iPod or other MP3 player, and more. And it's free.

Extras include the ability to automatically look up and add tags to your MP3s, and the ability to automatically find album art. MediaMonkey is perfect for people who have large music collections, because its organizing tools are so superb, but any music buff will find it useful.

Download MediaMonkey | Price: Free

FileZilla

Sometimes the best choice for transferring files is the old-fashioned FTP protocol--say, when you need to transfer files too large for your ISP to tolerate, or when you need to transfer multiple files. On such occasions, FileZilla is a wonderful tool to have.

Despite being easy to use, this free FTP client provides a multitude of features such as the ability to configure transfer speed limits, and to resume the transfer of files larger than 4 GB. It supports every FTP protocol you might need, including FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). And the site manager is superb and simple.

Download FileZilla | Price: Free

Vista Manager

If you'd like to customize your version of Windows Vista to make it look different or perform better, Vista Manager can help. This app allows you to change aspects of the operating system at a granular level, and it helps you optimize your system's performance by adjusting its its RAM, cache, and hard-disk settings. It also cleans your system, improves your security, customizes the way your network works, and lets you manage system startup and shutdown.

As an example of Vista Manager precision, it gives you control over ten different settings for the Taskbar alone, plus another six for the notification area on the Taskbar.

Download Vista Manager | Price: $40 (Shareware)