While arguments have surfaced on AccountingWEB in recent weeks about the value or otherwise of computer magazines, the US industry bible PC World has proved its worth by compiling a list of 101 fantastic internet freebies for its May edition.
The basic list includes 23 categories including email sites, search engines, blogging and wiki tools and many others drawn from the magazine's review programme. It also includes a set of People's Choice Awards based on user feedback for anti-virus tools, web email, media players, internet search, instant messaging and image editing tools.
If you have a bit of spare time on your hands and want to discover what's available, try checking out some of the following sites:
Desktop Search
Google Desktop (winner)
Desktop Search
Windows Desktop Search
Yahoo! Desktop Search
Windows XP Tweaks
Fresh UI (winner)
Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP
Tweak and Tune
Windows Vista Tweaks
TweakVI Basic (winner)
VistaBootPRO
Easy BCD
Instant Messaging, Voice, and Video
Meebo (winner)
Jajah
Skype
Gizmo
Yahoo! Messenger
Trillian
Windows GAIM
Google Talk
Security
Avast (winner)
ZoneAlarm
AVG Anti-Virus Free
SMAC
Spybot Search & Destroy
Entertainment
VLC Media Player (winner)
iTunes
Foobar2000
Image Editing
Google Picasa (winner)
Snapfire
Irfanview
StudioLine Photo Basic
Microsoft Photo Info
FastStone MaxView
Media Purveyor
GIMP-GNU Image Manipulation Program
Paint.Net
Email for Free
Gmail (winner)
Yahoo! Mail
Microsoft Windows Live Mail
Spamato
Thunderbird
Eudora
IncrediMail
File Sharing
AllPeers (winner)
Pando
uTorrent
Backup and File Synchronisation
Mozy (winner)
MediaMax
XDrive
Microsoft SyncToy
Everyday Auto Backup
Microsoft Foldershare
Office Productivity Software & Services
Zoho (winner)
Portable Apps
Google Docs and Spreadsheets
Num Sum (web spreadsheet)
Ajax 13
OpenOffice.org
Time Management
Backpack (winner)
Google Notebook
Sticky Notes
Easy To-Do
Registry Cleaner
TweakNow RegCleaner Standard (winner)
Clean My Registry
Hardware Utility
Belarc Advisor (winner)
SpeedFan
M2 Information
Personal Web
Pageflakes (winner)
Netvibes
Protopage
Google Personalised Home
Windows Live
Blogging
Google Blogger (winner)
WordPress
LiveJournal
Microsoft Windows Live Spaces
AOL People Connection
Yahoo! 360
RSS Reader-Online
Bloglines (winner)
NewsGator Online
Google Reader
RSS Reader-Software
Sage (winner)
Active Web Reader
Tristana RSS Reader
MCE RSS Reader
Web Video Site
YouTube (winner)
Blinkx
Yahoo! Video
Google Video
Notepad Replacement
NoteTab Light (winner)
Crimson Editor
EditPad Lite
Multimedia Tools and Toys
Audacity (winner)
Free iPod Video Converter
Video 9
DVD Shrink
Business Productivity
Google Apps for Your Domain (winner)
Microsoft Office Live
FreeCRM.com