63 Freeware Utilities and Plugins for Skype Users

Skype is accepted leader in the free IP telephone services in the world, allowing cutting significantly the phone bills to the domestic and international communication. While not all the features are free, there is a solid basic set that makes it a valuable addition to all the computer users. The following features are free:
1. Skype-to-Skype phone calls (through PC and smartphones).
2. Transfer calls to people on Skype.
3. Video calls.
4. Instant messaging and group IMs.
5. Conference calls.
6. Forward calls to people on Skype.

While there are already quite a lot of similar services on the Web, the Skype usefulness is based on its popularity and huge membership base, making it easy to find there your friends and relatives.

I have prepared a new Rating List at RateItAll, offering listing and reviews of the third-party free software utilities, allowing enhancing the features provided by basic Skype services. As of today, there are 63 freeware utilities and plugins are represented with website links, ratings, and brief reviews.

Review the Rating List at: http://www.rateitall.com/t-2868750-free-software-for-skype-users.aspx

Freeware Unknown Device Identifier

There are multiple situations for the computer user, where the hardware installed on your computer cannot be properly identified by the system. That might cause improper operation, poor performance, hardware conflicts, and computer frequent crashes.

Unknown Device Identifier enables you to identify the yellow question mark labeled Unknown Devices in Device Manager and reports a detailed summary for the manufacturer name, OEM name, device type, device model and even the exact name of the unknown devices.

With the collected information, you might contact your hardware manufacturer for support or search the Internet for the corresponding driver with a simple click. With this utility, you might immediately convert your unidentified unknown devices into identified known devices and find proper driver on the Internet and contact the hardware device manufacturer or vender. Known devices recognized by Microsoft Windows will also be analyzed independent of the operating system.

Supported OS: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

You might run this small portable freeware utility from USB, CD or floppy.

Features

- Identify USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 Device
- Identify IEEE 1394 Device
- Identify ISA Plug&Play Device
- Identify AGP Bus Device
- Identify PCI, PCI-E, eSATA Device
- Multilingual interface: English, French
- Find Drivers for Hardware Devices
- Contact Hardware Vender directly
- Save or Print Hardware information

Get more information and downloading links on the developer’s website: http://www.zhangduo.com/udi.html
Screenshot:

Free Personal MP3 Streaming Server

You have tons of the audio files on your home computer. Would not be nice to you being able to access your files from anywhere: from your office, friend’s laptop, or Smartphone? The free utility Vibe Streamer will provide you all the necessary tools and means not only listening your collection personally, but also sharing it with those you allow.

Note that Vibe Streamer is not in any way part of a file sharing community or any internet radio broadcasting network. Your files are always kept private by keeping access to the source restricted by a username and a password, so you are always in power to share the collection on different access levels, as needed.

So, Vibe Streamer is an MP3 streaming server that allows you to listen to your music anywhere in the world using a standard web browser. The server supports users/groups and different access rights, access restriction based on client IP address, sharing of any number of files and folders etc.

Vibe Streamer features the following and much more:

1. Free music streaming server.
2. Easy installation and configuration.
3. Share unlimited files and directories.
4. Full support for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7.
5. Full support for Linux through Wine
6. Protect your directories with user accounts and groups.
7. Easily manage your users, groups and their access rights.
8. High performance and well designed web client that supports large collections.
9. SSL support for secure traffic
10. Last.fm audio scrobbling integration
11. UPnP support for simple router configuration
12. Unlimited skin possibilities, create your own or download new skins as they appear on our website.
13. The included standard skin support most commonly used browsers.
14. A script language that is fully integrated with the server.
15. Guaranteed free from backdoors, spyware, adware and other non-requested software.

The standard skin that comes with Vibe Streamer currently supports the most commonly used browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Chrome.

The utility includes no Adware or Spyware, and can be freely downloaded from the developers’ website: http://www.vibestreamer.com/

If you are portability fan, you can convert the utility to the portable applications using the PortableFreeware instructions.

Screenshot:

Stock Screener Lite Freeware for Active Traders

Stock Screener Lite is a freeware software that can Screen, Scan Filter Stocks. Stock Screener Lite covers over 30 stock exchange worldwide including NASDAQ, AMEX, NYSE, LSE (London Stock Exchange), TSE, TSX, OTC BB, Pink Sheet, HKSE, SGX, ASX, NSE and many more. Stock Screener Lite can screen and display famous Technical Analysis formulas, which include MACD, RSI, Moving Average, CCI, Williams %R, MFI, Average True Range, On Balance Volume, Fast Stochastic, Slow Stochastic, Wilder's ADX DMI, Chaikin Money Flow, Accumulation/Distribution, Rate Of Change. Stock Screener Lite contains 4 build in filters and provides FREE EOD Data for 38 stock exchange worldwide. You may download FREE Historical Stock Quotes (also known as Historical Stock Prices or Historical Stock Data) from our website to be used as sample data to test out the Stock Screener Lite.

The build in filters in Stock Screener Lite include:

1. Moving Average 1 Crossover Moving Average 2
2. MACD Buy Signal generated in last few days, weeks, months
3. RSI value cross Above or Below certain value in last days,weeks, months.
4. Average Volume Filter higher than certain value

Stock Screener Lite supports multiple stock exchange in a single database. This means that you may have NASDAQ, AMEX and NYSE (or more if you like) all in a single database and run the screen against all stocks in the database. To try this feature, you have to download the Historical Stock Quotes (EOD Data) from the authors website and begin to try out the features. They provide more than 6 months of EOD Data (Historical Stock Quotes Prices) for free to enable users to try out Stock Screener Lite.
The main features of the Stock Screener Lite software:

* View and print graph
* Supports multiple Stock Exchange in a single database
* Comes with 4 built-in filters
* MACD Buy signal filter
* RSI filter
* Moving Average crossover filter
* Volume filter
* 16 different Technical Indicator can be plot on the graph
* Up to 3 Moving Averages can be plot on the graph
* Plots Bollinger Bands
* View Daily, Weekly and Monthly charts
* Line, Bar, Candlestick charting (High, Low, Open, Close)
* Plots William %R, Commodity Channel Index (CCI), Relative Strength Index (RSI), Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) and Money Flow Index (MFI).
* Plots Wilder’s DMI ADX, Wilder’s +DI/-DI, Fast Stochastic, Slow Stochastic, Chaikin Money Flow, Accumulation/Distribution, Rate Of Change, On Balance Volume and Average True Range.

What is the difference between Stock Screener Lite and Pro?

The single, biggest difference is the number of filters Stock Screener Professional has. Stock Screener Professional has 61 build-in filters while Stock Screener Lite only has 4 build-in filters. Stock Screener Pro can change the default value for each indicator, example Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) comes with default values (12, 26,9). In Professional version, you can change this value to other values, example (7,15,9). The other difference is that Lite can’t perform stock splits/dividend adjustment while Professional can.

Developers Website: http://www.zeebob.com/Stock_Screener_Lite.html

OpenOCR Freeware Utility from Cognitive Technologies

In our modern world, simple retyping documents into a computer is absolutely inefficient process, as it takes your valuable time, you can spend for more important tasks. Besides, when the paper document includes images and other elements of decoration, you will not be able to copy them easily into the computer file without scanning. OpenOCR (CuneiForm) is offering you an advanced and automatic way to convert a paper copy of the original document, including images, tables, columns, paragraphs, indentions, font styles and sizes, into identical soft copy.


OpenOCR has been developed by Cognitive Technologies, famous Russian software development company, offering a serious competition to the Abbyy Fine Reader – commercial product. It combines broad experience acquired by Russian scientists with the most advanced achievements in the field of optical recognition as cognitive analysis algorithm, adaptive recognition of characters, meridian segmentation of tables, neuron nets, etc. The software was released to the users as freeware in December, 2007. In September 2008, part of Cuneiform was released as open source software.

CuneiForm is the OmniFont system. Algorithms used in CuneiForm come from the rules of writing of letters, from their topology, and do not require definition of patterns or teaching. CuneiForm recognizes any printing fonts (scanned books, newspapers, magazines, output from laser and dot-matrix printers, text from typewriters, etc.). It does not recognize handwritten or pseudo-handwritten text nor does it recognize decorative fonts (e.g. Gothic). There are special settings in CuneiForm for recognition of text from dot-matrix printer and 200x100 DPI resolution faxes. CuneiForm can save text formatting and recognizes complicated tables of any structure.

Other Features

1. Support of 20 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Mixed Russian-English, Ukrainian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Serbian, Croatian, Polish and others. Every language is supplied with a dictionary which lets do a context check of recognized characters and improve the recognition results.

2. Using built-in text editor, you can easily work with images, tables, columns, various fonts, headers and footers, if manual interaction is needed. Built-in wizards guide you through all stages of scanning and recognition and help to reach the final recognition goal quickly and with high quality and accuracy.

3. Recognition of tables of different structure even with cells not separated by lines.

4. Improved automatic and semiautomatic searching of text, tables and images, which makes the work with documents of complex structure highly flexible, it has also powerful means of manual fragmentation.

5. Ensures scanning from remote scanner in a local network. There can be only one scanner in office, but it can be used by any user in the organization.

Website: http://en.openocr.org/

Download: http://www.cuneiform.ru/downloads/setup_openocr_cuneiform_eng.exe

Optimize System Performance with FAST RAM Defragmenter

The main reason to use FAST Defrag Freeware is ability to free and optimize RAM (Random Access Memory) and the swap-file usage. The software can be set apart from most of the competitive utilities since it can be characterized by exclusive cleaning only the memory segments, which were occupied by previous loaded applications, while keeping the Windows (or active programs) components intact. That is why FAST Defag Freeware may clean lower amounts of memory than some of its competitors do, thus performing the overall task faster and more efficient. If Windows or any other active program components are removed during memory optimization process, user has to wait until they will be reloaded, so saving them at the memory will save significant time for the operator.

The utility will use less than 1% of your system resources. It is very easy to install and uninstall. Even thou this single application is offering numerous features, it is still easy to learn and use with no extensive learning curve required.

Main Features:

• Memory Manager 
• Memory Guardian 
• Task Manager 
• System Config Utility 
• CPU details 
• System tray support 
• Command line support 
• Online and offline documentation 
• Language Support 
• Modern Interface 
• Low resource consumption 

• OS:                  Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP
• File size:           730KB
• Version:           2.3

The software interface has been translated on about 20 languages.

More information and links for download on the authors’ website:

http://www.amsn.ro/index.php?action=2

Screenshot:

Autorun.inf Malware Threat: Protect and Remove it from your Computer and USB Drives

Autorun.inf flash drives malwares spread these days through various portable USB portable devices like iPod, external drives, pen drives.

While autorun.inf malwares are not specifically destructive to your computers, there are nasty and annoying. They cause various types of computer malfunctions, like your hard drive fails to open on double click, or double clicking on drive opens search or even your computer restarts when you try to open USB drive, infected by autorun.inf malware.

The autorun.inf virus is a common kind of virus that infects most computer systems. Tips on how to detect and remove the virus are of essence. Computer users should note that most of the times, this type of virus is spread through the mostly used removable storage devices like Memory Sticks, External HDD’s and USB drives. The spreading of this virus can be clearly illustrated in the steps it usually takes. Firstly, the virus infects the removable drive and as a following step places an autorun.inf file that contains a number of DLL files. In addition, in a few instances the autorun.inf makes a copy onto each and every partition that is on the hard disk of the user. Then, any time that the drive is plugged on a particular system, the autorun file goes on to execute itself and then copy the dlls. In actuality, it makes changes on the registry and then edits a number of startup entries. The next time a user goes to their computer; the activities of the virus will be shown when they restart their PC.

The files usually stay on the PC of the user as hidden files and the user is not in a position to enable the option of the Show Hidden File if the virus has infected the system. At the same, the virus goes on to disable other computer components as well. Such components that are likely to be disabled as well are the Registry Editor and Task Manager.

How to Protect Computer from Autorun.inf malware?

One popular way of protecting removable drives is by creating a folder or file and renaming it as AUTORUN.INF. It could enable the malware to automatically run on the system even without the users executing it. By creating this file beforehand, ideally, worms would not be able to run in this way.

However, this method is not perfect. Worms can delete the existing AUTORUN.INF file or folder, and then replace it with a malicious version. This would negate any protection placed by the user on the said file. However, by using file permissions to restrict changes, the AUTORUN.INF file can be protected more effectively.

Note: Make sure that your external drive is formatted using NTFS, as this procedure uses a specific feature of NTFS. If your removable drive is formatted using either FAT or FAT32, back up any data on the said drive first and reformat using NTFS. This may require Windows Vista or Windows 7.

1. Create a new folder in the root directory of the removable disk and rename it as “AUTORUN.INF.”
2. Create four more folders in the same location and named it as “recycle,” “recycler,” “recycled,” and “setup” respectively.

Note: The folders recycle, recycler, recycled and setup are optional but it is recommended for users to create these as malware often use these names/titles.

3. Open a command prompt (cmd.exe) and go to the root directory of your removable drive.
4. Set the folder attributes using the following DOS command:
   attrib autorun.inf /s /d –a +s +r
5. Set the privilege level of the folder using the following DOS command:
   cacls autorun.inf /c /d administrators
6. Select ‘Y’ and press enter when the message, “Are you sure (Y/N)?” is prompted.
7. To test it, try to delete, modify, rename, copy, or open the created folder. If you cannot perform any of these functions, then the procedure is successful.

In addition to the above procedure, users may also choose to use hardware means of protection. Certain removable drives have an external switch that prevents the device from being written to. This would prevent malware from making any modifications to the drive, including the AUTORUN.INF file. However, as this may prove to be somewhat inconvenient, it is still a good idea to use the procedure shown above.

How to Remove Autorun.INF malware with Autorun Eater?

Autorun Eater is a tool to scan and remove suspicious ‘autorun.inf’ files found in the root directory of all drives, A-Z, in real-time. Autorun Eater will remove any suspicious ‘autorun.inf’ files even before the user attempts to open the drive.

Note: It will remove all the suspicious ‘autorun.inf‘ files from the virusinfected pen drives but will not remove any other virus files so you would have to remove them manually or with some anti-virus tools.

It also fixes the three common problems caused by the viruses (as shown in the image below).

1. Task Manager disabled.
2. Registry editing disabled.
3. Hidden Folder Options.

If you have removed all the suspicious ‘autorun.inf’ files from all your drives, you will be able to open all your drives easily including your pen drive with double click.

Note: Some antivirus and antispyware programs flag Autorun Eater as being infected / malware, although the application is perfectly safe and does not pose a threat to your system. This is called a 'false positive'. The term false positive is used when antivirus software wrongly classifies an innocuous (inoffensive) file as a virus. The incorrect detection may be due to heuristics or to an incorrect virus signature in a database. Similar problems can occur with antitrojan or antispyware software.

Download Autorun Eater: http://download.softpedia.com/dl/fffb57bedbb3f5b9482304b8235e4106/4ae5ce1a/100085585/software/security/aesetup2.4.exe

How to Remove Autorun.INF malware with Flash Disinfector?

Flash Disinfector is free autorun.inf trojans and USB/Flash disks trojans remover. The program has been designed by sUBs (author of famous utility combofix) to clean autorun.inf trojans that are running on the system.

Flash Disinfector will perform the following operations on your computer:

* Clean up the junk files spread by flash malwares.

* Delete the suspicious autorun.inf files from the root directory.

* Fix the damages done by the virus.

* Create an autorun.inf folder in root directory of your system drives.

Flash Disinfector will target the following Flash malwares (in general):

• W32/Perlovga (copy.exe | host.exe)
• VBS_RESULOWS.A (Hacked by Godzilla, Hacked by Moozilla)
• Bha.dll.vbs
• w32automa worm (Autorun.vbs)
• Trojan.Win32.VB.atg | Win32/Dzan | Worm_vb.bnr (tel.xls.exe | mmc.exe)
• W32/RJump.worm (RavMonE)
• Worm.Win32.Delf.bf | W32.Fujacks (spoclsv.exe)
• W32.Fujacks.BH (Fucker.vbs)
• WORM_AGENT.PGV (soundmix.exe)
• W32/Hakaglan.worm (RVHost.exe)
• Trojan.Win32.VB.ayo [AVP] (Macromedia_Setup.exe)
• Trojan.VBS.DeltreeY.b#1 (Destrukto!!! | destrukto.vbs)

How to use Flash Disinfector?

Download Flash Disinfector from the link below and save it to your Desktop. When Flash Disinfector has finished downloading you will now see a new icon on your desktop. Double-click Flash_Disinfector.exe icon to run it and insert your flash drive and/or other removable drives including your mobile phone and click OK button. Wait until it has finished scanning. Reboot your computer when done.

Note: Flash_Disinfector will create a hidden file named autorun.inf in each partition and every USB drive plugged in when you ran it. Don’t delete this folder. It will help protect your drives from future infection.

Download: http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/sUBs/Flash_Disinfector.exe

Prepare your Computer for Windows 7 Operating System Upgrade

Are you ready to upgrade you Operating System to the Windows 7? Microsoft has compiled a free scanner (Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor) to help you evaluate your current system status. It will your hardware, devices, and installed programs for known compatibility issues, gives you guidance on how to resolve potential issues found, and recommends what to do before you upgrade. The software is fast and within minutes will provide a compatibility report with recommendations for your review.

Before you begin: Be sure to plug in and turn on any USB devices or other devices, such as printers, external hard disks, and scanners, that you regularly use with the PC you’re checking.

Instructions

1. Download and run Windows7UpgradeAdvisorSetup.exe to install Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor
• If your PC is running Windows XP, setup will make sure .NET Framework 2.0 is installed. If it’s not found, setup will help you install it.
2. Plug in and turn on any USB devices or other devices, such as printers, external hard disks, and scanners, that you regularly use with the PC you’re checking
3. Run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor from your start menu or desktop

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 2

• .NET Framework 2.0 or higher if running Windows XP

You can download a setup file from the Microsoft Web Page.

Internet radio player with thousands of preinstalled radio stations

Internet Radio Player RadioSure gives you the smoothest radio listening experience. It is absolutely portable, simple, reliable, and provides set of the most valuable features for music fans.

I have already reviewed other freeware Internet Players before – Screamer and ParmaRadio, and the new utility RadioSure offers serious competition and satisfactory comparable results.

RadioSure provides access to more than 12000 radio stations (12,120 at the moment, and growing) via the Internet. It supports most internet radio formats, including MP3, WMA, OGG, AAC+ etc.

Among main features are:

• Quick and reliable search for your favorite radio stations.
• Smooth switching between stations including cross fade effect.
• Recording what you are listening to and packaging it into separate song files.
• Simultaneous recording of multiple stations. To record many stations simultaneously you can run many instances of RadioSure at the same time and record different stations.
• Automatic checking for software and radio stations updates.
• Command line parameters for automation.
• Runs on Windows XP and Vista 32 and 64 bit.
• UNICODE support – all domestic stations are perfectly visible and searchable.
• Portable version (no installation needed) is available.
• Multiple skins available for interface personification.
• Multiple languages interface.

Webpage: http://www.radiosure.com/

Burning your own MP3 Disk? Normalize the Volume First!

The MP3Gain software is actually one that I am personally using all the time, when I prepare MP3 audio collection, combined from different sources. As you understand, the volume for the combined files might not be the same. They even might not be close, so you are forced to adjust volume every time, when the new audio track starts. Too much hassle… and too much headache… which might actually ruin the whole impression of the music.

The small, simple to operate, and easy to learn freeware utility will analyze the files detecting the volume level for each of them, and adjusts mp3 files, so the entire sequence will have the same volume as an average level, or the level, specifically preset by the user.

MP3Gain does not just do peak normalization, as many normalizes do. Instead, it does some statistical analysis to determine how loud the file actually sounds to the human ear.

Also, the changes MP3Gain makes are completely lossless. There is no quality lost in the change because the program adjusts the mp3 file directly, without decoding and re-encoding.

The interface is simple, but contains everything needed for successful operation. The program is very fast and extremely reliable. It never failed to perform, what I was asking from it.

Program is translated in multiple languages. 20 Languages are already included in the MP3Gain installation package.

The only limitation, I could see, is the software support for the MP3 audio format only.

Website: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/index.php

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mp3gain/mp3gain-win-1_2_5.exe

Screenshot:

The utility is highly recommended for music fans, creating their own music mp3 disks, but not only. You may find it useful, when you prepare the audio track for the slide show as well, for example. 

TeraCopy: Copying your files fast and easy

TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed for Windows users. The first question comes to mind is why you need to have an additional utility, if Windows can copy files with no extra add-ons. If you ever tried to copy big files or directories from one drive to another, you probably have already an answer. Windows standard copy utility lacks any advanced functionality and if you have the piece of broken data, the process will be interrupted, and you might be unaware which information has been already copied, and which one has been left. If the copy process took some significant amount of time, this operation outcome will be disappointing and annoying. TeraCopy covers the gaps and allows being in absolute control of this seemingly simple operation.

The software is small and free for personal use. Portable version is available.

Main Features

* Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.

* Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.

* Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.

* Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.

* Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.

* Full Unicode support.

* Windows 7 x64 support.

OS: Windows XP / Vista / 7.

Website: http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

Free Twitter Add-In for Microsoft Outlook Users

In spite of the known limitations, Microsoft Outlook is the most popular email client for the Windows users. With lightweight free add-in TwInBox, you can easily link your Twitter account to Outlook, bringing Twitter online functionality with no need to open its web interface.

When you install TwInBox, it adds a small toolbar below the normal toolbar of Outlook. This Twitter toolbar has option to compose a new message, send a direct message, and even send a reply. To send a new tweet, just select the relevant option, type your tweet in the pop-up window, and send it. That’s it! You just sent a Tweet right from your Outlook.

Sending Tweets from Outlook with TwInBox

TwInBox provides some very interesting features for sending tweets. You can use integrated tinyurl functionality to shorten URLs. It also provides an interesting feature to add pictures as tweets. Just pick the attachment option of Outlook, and choose the attachment. TwInBox will upload it to some picture sharing site, and add the URL for that in your tweet from Outlook.

Receive Tweets in Outlook with TwInBox

For receiving Tweets, all the tweets come as emails. So, it is recommended that you set up a separate folder in your Outlook to get all those tweets (otherwise, your Inbox would be filled with tweets from your friends). You can also use the features of Outlook to see tweets only from particular Twitter users into your Inbox, and rest in some archive folder.

Apart from the above, TwInBox has following interesting features:

• Update your Twitter status directly from Outlook.
• Receive your friend updates in Outlook.
• Archive, manage, group and search your tweets the same way you manage your email.
• Search, track keywords. TwInbox will automatically download ALL tweets matching the keywords you specify, even if you are not following the tweet sender. This feature is perfect for keeping up to date with the Twitter buzz on your name, brand, interests, etc.
• Group tweets by sender, topic, etc using the Search feature.
• Upload and post picture files and Outlook email attachments.
• See new tweets at a glance.
• Assign custom folder and categories to new messages.
• Use Outlook's "Reply" and "ReplyAll" commands to send twitter direct messages and @replies.
• Automatically sort new tweets into per-sender folders.
• Shorten URLs with tinyurl.
• See graphs of your Twitter usage statistics.
• Tweets sent to you (@replies and direct) are marked with high importance, so you can see them at a glance.

System Requirement:

• Microsoft® Windows® 2000, XP, Windows Vista® or Windows 7 with the latest Service Pack. 
• Outlook 2003 SP3, 2007 SP2. 
• TwInbox does NOT work with Outlook Express.

Website: http://www.techhit.com/TwInbox/twitter_plugin_outlook.html

Trojan Hunting in Svchost.exe with Svchost Process Analyzer

"Svchost.exe" (Generic Host Process for Win32 Services) is an integral part of Windows OS. It cannot be stopped or restarted manually. This process manages 32-bit DLLs and other services. At startup, Svchost.exe checks the services portion of the registry and constructs a list of services that it needs to load.


Under normal conditions, multiple instances of Svchost.exe will be running simultaneously. Each Svchost.exe session can contain a grouping of services, so that many services can be run depending on how and where Svchost.exe is started. This allows for better control and debugging.

Svchost.exe groups are identified in the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Svchost


Each value under this key represents a separate Svchost group and appears as a separate instance when you are viewing active processes. Each value is a REG_MULTI_SZ value and contains the services that run under that Svchost group. Each Svchost group can contain one or more service names that are extracted from the following registry key, whose Parameters key contains a ServiceDLL value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Service


To view the list of services those are running in Svchost:

1. Click Start on the Windows taskbar, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type CMD, and then press ENTER.
3. Type Tasklist /SVC, and then press ENTER.

Tasklist displays a list of active processes. The /SVC switch shows the list of active services in each process. For more information about a process, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

Tasklist /FI "PID eq processID" (with the quotation marks)

The svchost.exe file is physically located in the folder C:\Windows\System32. However, one of the most important services organizers can also be used as a driving vehicle and a hiding mechanism for viruses, spyware, Trojans, or worms.

The possible symptoms of the infections are:

• Your system becomes sluggish and you find that something called svchost or dllhost is taking nearly 100% of your CPU.
• Your system reports that svchost has performed an illegal operation and will be terminated. After that, various things fail to work properly, if at all.
• After you log in, your system automatically reboots in one minute.

Note that you should not be confused from the small difference in the svchost.exe and scvhost.exe (which is called svchost virus). So, the svchost virus is actually a process named scvhost.exe (notice on the “c” and “v” are switched) which is designed to confuse people with the harmless svchost. Scvhost.exe will go into your system and completely shut it down. The virus is actually a Trojan Horse, named W30/Agobot-S virus. This virus will also allow hackers to access your computer and steal passwords and personal data.

The approach of hiding dangerous content in svchost is understandable, since you need to have pretty advanced computer skills for its troubleshooting. The free Svchost Process Analyzer free utility is letting anybody analyze and troubleshoot the system in terms of the presence of the dangerous files and processes. The software lists all svchost instances and checks the services they contain. This makes it easy to uncover Svchost worms like the infamous Conficker worm.

While Svchost Process Analyzer does not provide the details that popular process managers like Process Explorer provide, it does list the information in a comprehensible manner. The process analyzer will scan all svchost processes that are running on the Windows operating system upon startup. A click on details will open the main application window, that lists every svchost process in the top window and details about the selected process in the window at the bottom.

Each entry in the lower window is displayed by name, service name and file. Svchost Process Analyzer is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows 2003 and Windows 2008.

Main Features:

• 100% freeware.
• Doesn't require runtimes.
• Doesn't require installation (absolutely portable).
• Doesn't write to the registry.
• Doesn't modify files outside of its own directories.
• Does not contain adware / malware / spyware.
• Small, single executable file, does not require significant computer resources.

Developer: Neuber Software.

Website and Downloading Link: http://www.neuber.com/free/svchost-analyzer/index.html

Change MAC Address in Windows with Freeware Technetium Utility

Introduction

Do you know what the MAC Address is? If you don’t, and you never dealt with its concept, you probably can skip this article altogether. It will mostly be interesting for network administration and software programming specialists. I am neither one of this category. But I became interested in this utility, since I am responsible for registering and compiling the licenses for customers based on the computer generated IDs. Our software engineers coded the computer ID generation algorithm, based on several components, which should be unique for each computer, but should be stable enough not to cause the ID changes without serious hardware or software modifications. I started to receive the multiple notifications on the supposedly changed computer ID, so the software requests the license to be inputted again, even thou it was already unlocked earlier. When our software engineers reviewed the issue, they noticed that the problem is originated based on the MAC Address changes. That was quite unexpected since the MAC Address should be hard coded in the computer firmware. As response to the inquiry, I have sent the link to this software utility to them to prove, how easy it can be changed.

May be, you will find it useful and you’ll place this interesting utility in your software toolbox, as I did.

Concept

Many people believe MAC address, which is hard-coded in the NIC card cannot be changed. Yes, it’s hard coded and it can be changed only by removing the flash chip from the NIC card, re-programming it with new MAC address, and putting it back on the card. But this software does not change the hard coded MAC address. Technitium MAC Address Changer just instructs Windows to use a different MAC address that has been specified in the Windows registry. If no MAC address is specified to Windows, system uses the default hard-coded one in the NIC to construct Ethernet or IEEE network frames (or simply packets), which are used at OSI layer 2. Windows also changes MAC address of your NIC when Windows Network Bridge is enabled. The first number in the MAC address of the NIC added in the Network Bridge is set to 0x02. Changing MAC address of Network Bridge is not possible in Windows using this software, so this is a known software limitation.

How Does It Work?

This software just writes a value into the windows registry. When the Network Adapter Device is enabled, windows searches for the registry value 'NetworkAddress' in the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1- 08002bE10318}\[ID of NIC e.g. 0001]. If a value is present, windows will use it as MAC address, if not, windows will use the hard coded manufacturer provided MAC address. Note that some Network Adapter drivers have this facility as built-in. It can be found in the Advance settings tab in the Network Adapter's Device properties in Windows Device Manager.

Main Features

1. Support for Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / 7. 
2. Allows you to remove all registry entries corresponding to Network Adapter that is no longer physically installed on the system. 
3. Allows you to configure Internet Explorer HTTP proxy settings through configuration presets or command line. 
4. Identifies the preset applied to currently selected Network Interface Card (NIC) automatically making it easy to identify settings. 
5. Changes MAC address of Network Interface Card (NIC) including Wireless LAN Cards, irrespective of its manufacturer or its drivers. 
6. Has latest list of all known manufacturers (with corporate addresses) to choose from. You can also enter any MAC address and know which manufacturer it belongs to. 
7. Allows you to select random MAC address from the list of manufacturers by just clicking a button. 
8. Restarts your NIC automatically to apply MAC address changes instantaneously. 
9. Allows you to create Configuration Presets, which saves all your NIC settings and makes it very simple to switch between many settings in just a click and hence saves lot of time. 
10. Allows you to Import or Export Configuration Presets to or from another file, which saves lot of time spent in reconfiguration. 
11. Allows you to load any Configuration Presets when TMAC starts by just double clicking on any Configuration Preset File. (*.cpf file extension) 
12. Has command line interface which allows you to perform all the tasks from the command prompt or you can even create a DOS batch program to carry out regular tasks. 
13. Has command line interface for the Installer. 
14. Allows you to export a detailed text report for all the network connections. 
15. Displays all information you would ever need to know about your NIC in one view like Device Name, Configuration ID, Hardware ID, Connection Status, Link Speed, DHCP details, TCP/IP details etc. 
16. Displays total bytes sent and received through the NIC. 
17. Displays current data transfer speed per second. 
18. Allows you to configure IP Address, Gateway and DNS Server for your NIC quickly and instantaneously. 
19. Allows you to enable/disable DHCP instantaneously. 
20. Allows you to Release/Renew DHCP IP address instantaneously. 
21. Displays DHCP lease obtained and lease expires time. (DST time bug removed) 
22. Allows you to configure Interface Metric instantaneously. 
23. Quick keyboard shortcuts for most operations. 
24. One known issue in Windows Vista/Server 2008/7 remains that is TMAC cannot disable any NIC with Non Operational status. 
25. The software is an absolute FREEWARE.

How to Change MAC Address

1. Starting MAC address changer will list all available network adapters.

2. Select the adapter you want to change the MAC address. You will get the details of your selection below.

3. Click Change MAC button, enter new MAC address and click Change Now button and confirm changes you made when prompted.

4. To restore the original MAC address of the network adapter, select the adapter, click Change MAC button and then click Original MAC button and confirm changes you made when prompted.

NOTE: This tool cannot change MAC address of Microsoft Network Bridge. Network Bridge will automatically use the original MAC address of the first NIC added into bridge with the first octet of MAC address set to 0x02.

Programmer: Shreyas Zare

Website and Downloading Link: http://www.technitium.com/tmac/index.html

Descent Free Replacement for Acrobat Reader - Cool PDF Reader

Cool PDF Reader is a very compact PDF document viewer, actually one of the smallest on the market portable PDF viewer utilities. It is very fast and comes with everything you need to view and print PDF files, including the features, which are not regularly available in most other competitive products, like PDF file conversion to multiple text and image formats, like TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS.

Main program features:

1. Ability to view and print all versions of the PDF files.
   
2. Conversion option of the PDF files to the popular text and image formatsTXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS.
   
3. Supports file documents in 72 languages.
   
4. Zoom in, zoom out, and display rotation.
   
5. Slide show of the PDF documents on full monitor screen.
   
6. Does not require program installation on the Hard Drive and can be run from the external USB disk.
   
7. Size of the sole executable file is just 650 MB.
   
8. Supports all version of the Windows OS, including Windows 7.
   
9. Highly intuitive and easy to use.
   
10. Software is absolutely free.

Web page: http://www.pdf2exe.com/reader.html

Screenshot:

If you like to have a wide choice of the related programs to choose one which will perfectly fit your needs, you can review the list of 19 Freeware PDF Readers on the RateItAll Rating list: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24911-free-pdf-viewers.aspx

Unusual computer operations through mouse gestures freeware

How do you launch applications on your computer? Probably, through Start button and choosing your program from the list of utilities. Or, using the advanced application launcher could be easily found on the Web. But is that the only way to start applications? Thinking about the theoretical possibilities to run applications, the first comes to mind voice activated apps initialization. You just say “Word”, and the Microsoft Word utility pops-up on the screen. While the technology has already developed the necessary hardware and software for this approach, and it has been proven for the smart phone applications, using it for PC has not found wide recognition. But what can be used else? In this post, I want to present the programs offering to run the software on your computer through customized mouse gestures.

StrokeIt

What is StrokeIt?

StrokeIt is an advanced mouse gesture recognition engine and command processor. What is a mouse gesture? Mouse gestures are simple symbols that you "draw" on your screen using your mouse. When you perform a mouse gesture that StrokeIt can recognize, it will perform the "action" associated with that gesture. In short, it's a nifty little program that lets you easily control programs by drawing symbols with your mouse.

What can it do?

StrokeIt can currently recognize more than 80 unique mouse gestures and can be easily trained to recognize many more. For each gesture recognized, StrokeIt can execute a user-defined set of commands within the active application. StrokeIt commands are defined within plugin libraries that can be easily created by third parties to do nearly anything.

How do I perform a gesture?

Click and hold down the right mouse button and then draw the mouse gesture you want performed. You can temporarily disable StrokeIt by holding down the Control key, or right clicking on the StrokeIt icon in the system tray. If you want to cancel a mouse gesture while drawing it, simply left click.

Costs

StrokeIt is free for individual and not-for-profit charitable entity use.

Website: http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/

Video Presentation:

GMote

About gMote

gMote provides fast access to frequently-used actions via mouse gestures. By default, drawing a gesture is done by holding the right button down and dragging the mouse pointer across the screen. You may record a "W" shape to launch your favorite browser, a circle to enter your name, an "S" to invoke the Start Menu, a "P" to print etc.

gMote Installation

The significant advantage of gMote is a full portability of the problem, so it can be run from the external drives. To activate it, download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Delete uninstall.exe. Launch gmote.exe. To disable auto-update, click on the tray icon, select "Options" and uncheck "Check updates automatically".

gMole Startup

• Run the program, gMote.exe. Note that an icon appears next to your clock on the Task Bar at the bottom of the screen - a small white "g". You can right-click that icon to bring up a popup menu that lets you configure the program or instruct it to start when you log in to Windows.
• In the main gMote window, check that the button labelled "Active" is toggled on. You'll notice that it looks different from the other buttons in this state.
• In the bottom-left corner, click "Create gesture". Draw a shape where indicated. The shape must be one continuous stroke, which should look unique but not be too complicated.
• After you let go of the mouse button, the new shape will appear in the list on the left, next to a button. Click on that to choose what will happen when you draw this shape in the next step. Among the useful actions are media player controls (tested with Windows Media Player and iTunes), web browser functions (tested with Internet Explorer and Firefox) and commonly used features such as the clipboard. You can choose one "main action" for your gesture, and then make exceptions for other programs that you use. For example, a "B"-shaped gesture might format text as "Bold" in your word processor and go "Back" in your web browser. To set the default action, use the drop down list next to "Default action (all programs"). At the bottom of the list are options to choose a program or folder to launch, website to visit or a key combination of your choosing to simulate. This last option means you can access any computer function that can be executed with a keyboard shortcut with a gesture instead! For example, the Windows Search feature has the shortcut [Windows key] + F.
• If you want gMote to know about a few programs you have installed so that you can make special gesture behaviors for them, click "Configure programs" on the main window. You will be able to add programs that were recently used, or browse for others. When you add a program to the list, give it a friendly name. This list is saved inside the gesture set, which has various consequences. For one thing, it means that if you transfer your set to someone else it might not work properly if their installed programs are in different locations. Secondly, it means that when you create a new set you will have to specify a new set of programs. Fortunately gMote lets you export a list of programs as a simple text file. Use "Save list" to do that. When you create your new set, use "Open list" and choose the file you saved. The programs you used in the other set appear in the list.
• If you want one program to ignore all gestures, the fast way is to use the "Excluded programs" tab in the Options dialog (see below).
• Use the "Save set" button to store all the gestures you create in one file. The gesture set that's loaded when you quit the program (or turn off your computer) will be loaded again next time you run it.

Using gMole

• Close the main gMote window (you can show it again using the white "g" icon) by clicking on the standard Windows "x" button in the top-right; the larger "Exit" button quits gMote completely.
• Now hold the Ctrl and Shift keys together (this is the default setting, click "Options" to choose another method), draw a shape and release the keys. Keep an eye on the bottom-right corner of the screen - here gMote will let you know if it recognized your gesture.

Costs: Free.

Website: http://www.handform.net/apps/gmote

Video Presentation:

ClamWin - Free Open Source Portable Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Program

After a while, I have decided to compile a totally fresh and updated collection of the free portable utilities, which can be carried on my 32GB USB stick to repair computers as for my clients, as for my personal purposes. This time, I decided to be more selective, choosing the software, loaded on the stick, since I noticed that I have not used more than half of the utilities, I had on my previous USB toolkit. Definitely, one of the most important sections of the collection is Anti-virus programs, since virus infection is one of the most frequent problems, customers experience now. After some online investigation, I have found that the most popular free portable antivirus program is ClamWin. And I want to briefly present it in this post.

ClamWin is free, open source antivirus software for Microsoft Windows. It provides a graphical user interface to the ClamAV (Clam AntiVirus) engine. The virus/spyware database is constantly maintained by a group of volunteers, and you can always get the latest updates via the Internet. Note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner i.e. you need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware.

ClamWin Portable is a portable wrapper for ClamWin. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.

It features:

• Simple and easy understandable GUI.
• High detection rates for viruses and spyware.
• Regular virus database updates. ClamAV team regularly updates virus databases to include a new virus/variant immediately after it appears.
• Standalone Virus Scanner.

Developers Website: http://www.clamwin.com/

Screenshot:

Extracts video and audio from FLV without decompressing or recompressing

You downloaded the video clip from YouTube as not very popular, but widely used FLV format. But how can you easily extract components of this file, if you need just audio or video part of it?  FLV Extract can do that without decompressing or recompressing.

The video is saved as AVI (H.263/FLV1 and VP6/VP6F) or raw elementary stream (H.264/AVC). The audio is saved as MP3, AAC (with ADTS headers), Speex, or WAV (PCM).

In terms of the processing quality, the utility is one of the best FLV converters on the market. It does not have a fancy interface or tons of the features, you will ever hardly use. But it is incredibly precise, blazingly fast, doesn't decompress then re-compress again before producing the AVI, gives you the option for an additional separate mp3 file, and timecode file, which is essential for good editing. This program does exactly what it's supposed to (and more) without superfluous options. And... it's absolutely free.

NOTE: You cannot change the video/audio format that FLV Extract outputs. It depends on what is contained in the FLV file. If you need a different format, you'll have to use other software to convert it. Or, ffmpeg (command line) can extract from FLV and convert in one step.

NOTE: The AVIs will not play unless you have the right decoders. ffdshow-tryouts can decode FLV1 and VP6F; make sure they're enabled in its configuration dialog.

NOTE: H.264 elementary streams are not widely supported by players, but you can use DGAVCDec to load them with AviSynth for editing.

Developer Website: http://moitah.net/

Download: http://moitah.net/download/latest/FLV_Extract.zip

TinySpell Free Spell Checker Portable

TinySpell freeware utility points on the main feature in its name. This software is designed to check and correct any misspellings in the Windows text applications. While MS Word and some other applications (like email agent MS Outlook and Chrome browser) have the built-in spell checker, other simply do not have it, so user have to copy and paste the text to Word for spell proofing. The software is totally free - no adware/spyware/nagware/etc.

Main Features

* Checks spelling in any Windows application
* Checks spelling on-the-fly (alerts if the last typed word was misspelled)
* Checks spelling of text that is copied to the clipboard
* Allows you to specify applications for which tinySpell is disabled or enabled
* Optionally beeps on error (beep sound can be easily set to any wav file)
* Optionally displays a spelling tip
* new in v1.8: Provides easy access to on-line web services (Search, Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia) 
* Opens replacements list with a simple mouse click or a hot-key
* Optionally copies the selected replacement word to the clipboard
* Optionally inserts the selected replacement word into the document
* Allows you to add words to the dictionary
* Uses little system resources 

* Additional multi-language dictionaries are available: British, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian.

Authors Website: http://tinyspell.m6.net/

Download Link: http://www.tinyspell.m6.net/tisp18010.zip

OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista

Latest Version: 1.8

Screenshot:

Portability

There is one more feature, which I am looking in any freeware – it is portability. The authors do not offer the portable software version on their website; however, there are at least two opportunities to convert it to the portable application:

1. Install and Uninstall
• Download the utility on your Hard Drive.
• Install it regularly on your PC.
• Copy the C:\Program Files\tinySpell folder to your USB device.
• From the tinySpell folder, click tinyspell.exe to launch Tiny Spell.
• Uninstall tiny spell from your PC and continue to use it portably.
2. With JauntePE Launcher

JauntePE is a suite of tools that allows you to make non-portable applications portable by virtualizing access to the filesystem and registry. While not every program can be easily made portable this way, the portabilization of tinyspell has been successfully confirmed.

Download the JauntePE launcher from the following link: http://www.box.net/shared/4cx4i2k00r

Applications Launchers - The Best Free Software of 2009 (PC Magazine version)

The article featuring the best freeware 2009, has been posted at the beginning of the year, January 13, 2209. This seven-months old listing will be still interesting for those, who, as I am, decided to completely replace the paid software and services (whenever possible) with the free alternatives.

As the story says, why pay? You've already shelled out money for a computer, there's no reason that what's running on that pricey PC should cost a darn thing. Not in this day and age of amazing freebie software and Web apps. Last year listing covered 157 free utilities and services, while this year coverage has extended to 173 utilities and services.

For convenience, I will split the listing as per categories, adding my comments whenever I have something to say...

Part 1

Applications Launchers

Application launcher is a simple utility that suppose to improve the ability for computer user to access any programs or files on the computer by simply typing the first few letters of the name or clicking the dock icons of graphic interface. Using suitable application launcher can reduce user time for searching favorite program shortcut that they most frequent use, since they are able to can cut down the step of searching for the application executable file again and again. Some of the utilities offer extended functionalities, widening the spec of the software applicability.

There are four items presented in the PC Magazine list.

1. Circle Dock

Website: http://circledock.wikidot.com

OS: Windows

Presentation: Who says a dock has to actually... dock? To the side of the screen, that is. Circle Dock brings up a spiraling launcher interface with all the icons you want to click. Rotate it with the wheel on your mouse and change the skin to suit your desktop.

Overview (My Pick):

Windows application launcher arranges Windows application shortcuts, which you use most often, in circular fashion. The Circle Dock launcher icons arrangement can add or be arrange by dragging them from your desktop or quick launch bar and customize to your heart’s content. Beside that, you can either display your icons in concentric circles, or as a spiral.

What Circle Dock Allows You to Do:
* Launch your programs from a circular dock.
* Drag and drop your files, folders, and shortcuts onto a circular dock that you can resize.
* Rotate the dock with either your mouse wheel or the keyboard arrow keys.
* Change the image shown for the icons and change the skins (compatible with icons and skins for Rocket Dock, Object Dock, etc.)
* The dock appears where your mouse is by pressing a hotkey (default is F1) or your middle mouse button.
* Tested on computers with multiple monitors, Windows XP/Vista, 32-bit & 64-bit, and requires only .Net Framework 2.0.
* Automatically works on all Windows Vista computers and most Windows XP computers.
* A new settings panel that allows you to customize many options. It updates your dock as you make changes. See it change in real time! No need to press an OK button.
* Multi-language capable. Just translate the English.ini file to the language of your choice.
* Change the image used for the dock icons with the easiest method out there: Just set the program to "Icon Replacement Mode" in the right-click menu of the centre icon and you can change all the icon images by just dragging and dropping new PNG images onto them!

* Huge time saver when you are customizing your dock!
* You can now toggle the visibility of the dock by moving your mouse to any edge of your screen. By default, the left and right edges are used for toggling. No need to press a button!
* Reorder the dock items by dragging and dropping them over each other.
* Organize the dock items using dock folders.
* By default, clicking on the centre button does not open the start menu. You can enable this in the settings panel.

Video Presentation:

Circle Dock - Free Apps Launcher in Circle fashion

2. ObjectDock

Website: http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

OS: Windows

Presentation: Replace the Windows Taskbar and Quick Launch toolbar with this Mac-like animated toolbar of icons for all your programs. It comes with a few "docklets" for displaying info like the time, weather, and a Web search form.

Overview: ObjectDock enables you to have more control over how you organize your desktop. Rather than having a bunch of icons on the desktop, these icons can be put into docks. ObjectDock can also be used to replace the Start bar entirely freeing up valuable screen real-estate. With various interaction modes available, you can get the dock availability that's right for how you work.

Fully customizable, super smoothness in zooming, entertaining alternate mouseover effects, libraries full of high-quality images available for use with the program at WinCustomize.com.

Instead of having a cluttered start bar, you have a nice little picture of all your running applications. Shuffling between applications is much quicker, and you can launch the applications you need without wasting time on the start menu.

Screenshot:

3. Launchy


Website: http://www.launchy.net/
OS: Windows, Linux.


Presentation: "Keystroke launcher" is a fancy way of saying "command line," but if you like to type rather than click for control—a practice that goes well beyond app launching—Launchy is your best choice.

Overview:

Launchy is a free windows and Linux utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

Once Launchy has been started, it hides in the background. You bring it forward by holding the alt key and tapping the space key. You then type in a few keys of the program you are searching for and hit enter once it has been found. You can also make Launchy disappear again by hitting escape or alt+space.

Screenshot:

4. Quicksilver

Website: http://www.blacktree.com/
OS: Mac OS

Presentation: Quicksilver does more from the keyboard than just launch programs. It can act on any item you can find or drag on your Mac. Quicksilver plug-ins add even more functions.

Overview: A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. When opened, it will create a catalog of applications and some frequently used folders and documents. Activate it, and you can search for and open anything in its catalog instantly. The search is adaptive, so Quicksilver will recognize which items you are searching for based on previous experience. It also supports abbreviations, so you can type entire words, or just fragments of each. When not in use, Quicksilver vanishes, waiting for the next time you summon it.

Quicksilver's greatest strength, however, is not search. Any item you are able to find, drag, or otherwise pull into its universe is endowed with many potential uses. Hitting takes you to the action field, where you can use the same adaptive search to select what you would like to do. Among other things, files can be emailed, copied, compressed. Text can be modified, transmitted between programs, or searched for on the web. Some actions even support an indirect object, so you can send an item to a person, move files to another folder, or open files with a specific application.

Quicksilver can be given the ability to understand the data inside of files, allowing you to work with data in new, faster ways. Plug-ins add both new items and new actions, allowing you to run scripts, send instant messages, dial phone numbers, look up words in a dictionary, queue up songs in iTunes party shuffle, and much, much more.

Frequently used commands can be bound to triggers, giving you the ability to execute them immediately by hitting a hot key or using the mouse on a corner or edge of the screen.