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Stealth Surfing

SafeWeb

With so many Web sites tracking you online, it's nice to know you can reclaim your privacy at anonymous browsing sites like SafeWeb. Dozens of services offer stealth surfing, but many of them crowd their sites with ads.

SafeWeb's straightforward interface lets you call up Web pages through its proxy servers, preventing sites from identifying you. SafeWeb also encrypts your connection to its servers, filters potentially malicious scripts from Web pages, and lets you block cookies. The free service is supported by small banner ads.

Runner-Up: The ad-free Anonymizer.com offers similar features but will cost you $50 per year.

-- Seán Captain

Radio Stars

Echo

Though it was in a beta version when we tested it, Echo looked formidable. With a few mouse clicks you can create a personal "radio station" from Echo's extensive list of music styles, or you can tune in to other member's stations.

Anyone can listen to your collection, and you can invite people to rate songs, groups, and albums to refine your own playlist. Throw in a slick interface, and you're in music lovers' paradise.

Runner-Up: Spinner has plenty to love--150 music channels playing everything from rockabilly to reggae, a free Spinner Plus player, and minimal ads. If only it were more customizable.

-- Emru Townsend

Counting the Days

Netscape WebCalendar

Of the online calendars we reviewed, Netscape's WebCalendar offers the most flexibility and breadth of content. In addition to marking birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and appointments, you can add daily weather reports and--after supplying your birthday--daily horoscopes.

The calendar's Event Directory lets you track new movie releases and sports events, and also links to Netscape's city guides so you can add cultural events as well.

Runner-Up: ScheduleOnline is a calendar and project management site. It allows you to track almost every aspect of a project and includes an e-mail program, a file manager, and a bulletin board.

-- Lisa Cekan

Seek and Find

Google

With rapid, germane results to queries, Google wins again as our favorite search engine. Whether you search for "Nantucket salt grinder" to find a mate for your pepper mill or "Digital Relay" to find a hot new CD-RW, Google whips you there faster and delivers more-relevant results than its competitors.

And with its new translation function, Google will convert Italian, French, Spanish, German, or Portuguese pages into English for you--though the beta version we tested was clunky. A Lucent press release, for instance, was translated from the French as: "We are happy to accompany BLR services in its will to be an actor of foreground on this market with a future." Huh?

Runner-Up: Fast is the little-known search engine that could. The search site has a streamlined interface; it returns results from more than 1.5 billion Web pages; and as the company name implies, it's fast!

-- Anne B. McDonald

Space Stations

Xdrive Plus

Numerous sites offer online storage space, but Xdrive Plus downloaded and uploaded data the quickest in our informal testing. You can access Xdrive Plus from any PC, PDA, or Web-enabled cell phone, and it offers select instant downloads from partners such as Symantec and Microsoft.

For example, if you want an applet from Microsoft's site, you can post it to your Xdrive space instantly by clicking on the download, rather than grabbing it through your modem. The site gives you 25MB of space for $5 per month, with additional 25MB chunks available for $3 each per month.

Runner-Up: Myplay is a storage site with a specialty: MP3s and other music files. You get 3GB of free space for digital tunes, and the site has agreements with major music companies that ensure it won't someday find itself in Napster-like limbo.

-- Michael S. Lasky

In Synch

MyPalm

MyPalm succeeds for the same reason Palm is the most popular PDA device: divine simplicity. The site lets Palm owners sync calendars, contacts, and tasks to a free, personalized Web account so that you can access a virtual digital assistant from a PC anytime you're sans Palm.

You can add or edit data online, then sync it to your real Palm. The customizable Publish option lets designated users view portions of your calendar.

Runner-Up: MyPalm is limited to Palm OS users (including Handspring and Sony CLIE owners), but FusionOne works with PCs, some cell phones, and Palm devices. FusionOne Basic is free; the more comprehensive FusionOne Plus costs $10 a month.

-- Michael S. Lasky

Tech Tune-Ups

PC Pitstop

You check your car's oil regularly, don't you? So why not do maintenance on your PC? PC Pitstop is a free site that uses ActiveX controls and JavaScript to diagnose your hardware, hard disks, and Internet connection, and to sweep your system for viruses. (PCWorld.com and PC Pitstop recently partnered to offer the latter's free service through our site.)

You just click a link to start the tune-up, and then leave your computer alone for a few minutes. PC Pitstop provides a summary report of your system's condition, including explanations of problems it has found and tips for maximizing your PC's performance. You can use the TechExpress service to e-mail the results to a technician or to your brainy nephew.

Runner-Up: A good complementary site to PC Pitstop is CatchUp, which is a cool tool that scans your hard drive, then points you to updates, security patches, and tips for the specific apps on your PC.

-- Emru Townsend

Call Security!

Panda ActiveScan

In a perfect world, we'd all floss religiously, pay our parking tickets on time, and never use a PC that wasn't running antivirus software with the latest updates. But this is reality--and reality demands Panda Software's ActiveScan.

ActiveScan's free browser-based tool is a snap to use, and it can find and remove over 55,000 viruses and Trojan horses. And unlike some rivals, ActiveScan is updated daily. You can check your entire PC or a specific folder or file, or you can make sure the latest outbreak hasn't infected your Outlook or Outlook Express in-box.

Runner-Up: Trend Micro's Housecall offers a free online scanner that will not only find viruses on your system but also remove most of them.

-- Harry McCracken

Office Spree

Personable.com

No matter what your business, you'll probably have to share files with someone, so compatibility with Microsoft Office files is a must. Personable.com isn't just compatible with Office 2000, it is Office 2000.

Once you subscribe ($25 one-time activation fee, and monthly charges that range from $20 to $60), you can access Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook from any PC with a Net connection. The site plans to offer Office XP in the future, but no release date was available at press time.

Runner-Up: FreeDesk is less compatible, but it's fine for simple documents--and it's free. Apps are pretty speedy; but test the limits of document import and export before relying on the apps for your needs.

-- Emru Townsend

Going Postal

Yahoo Mail

Though Hotmail is still the most famous free e-mail service, Yahoo easily tops it by adding every possible mail feature to its system without sacrificing clarity or usability.

For example, Yahoo makes it a snap to set up forwarding addresses, POP3 mail, and filters. Factor in the easy sign-up procedure--which demands minimal private information--and you may want to become a Yahooligan, too.

Runner-Up: Hotmail, the pioneer of Web-based e-mail, remains a strong contender, but we found it sluggish. And its scant in-box capacity (2MB to Yahoo's 6MB) keeps it in second place.

-- Emru Townsend

Direct Delivery

Yahoo!

Looking for order on the Web? Yahoo's venerable directory organizes its multitude of sites into 14 neatly charted categories and intuitive subcategories, and has a separate section for shopping. You quickly reach actual links within one or two subcategory levels. It also offers one of the best selections of international sites, with 21 country-specific directories.

Runner-Up: The Open Directory Project offers a clean interface and good cross-categorization of sites. It also lets you easily work your way back from a specific site to its category so you can broaden your search.

-- Anush Yegyazarian

Home, Home on the Web

Homestead

These days you're no one if you don't have your own Web page. But designing a personal page can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Homestead provides the best templates and tools to get your site up quickly and to customize your site to give it your own stamp. It's free, too. A nice bonus for you and your visitors: no cookie clutter and no annoying pop-up ads.

Runner-Up: Yahoo's Geocities, also free, can help you post a customized site in less than 15 minutes. But the customization process is a bit clunkier than Homestead's, and you must deal with pop-up ads. Like Homestead, Geocities offers about 16MB of free space.

-- Anush Yegyazarian