Hot Apps of 2011 Week #4
Looking for useful programs? Here are some recommendations from the Tom's Guide community for the fifth week of 2011.
Hot apps is a weekly rundown of the most popular apps according to our sister site, Tom’s Guide. The following list are ranked from first to tenth by total downloads over the last week, making them community picks.
7stacks. Even though Windows 7 won some love for Microsoft, there’s still room for improvement. Alastria Software’s 7stacks emulates the “stack” capability of Mac OS X—sorting document and program shortcuts into easily accessible pull-up menus—for Steve Ballmer’s latest operating system.
GetGo Download Manager. Download managers are a must-have utility in this age of ubiquitous internet, large files, and (unfortunately) dropped connections. GetGo distinguishes itself with its support for FLV video and music downloading, facilitating grabs from sites like YouTube, Facebook, etc.
Smart FLV Converter. Most online videos are encoded as FLV (flash video) files. Smart FLV converter converts these videos into more popular formats, for playback on Windows Media Player, Quicktime, portable media players and smartphones.
Yoono Desktop. Yoono’s instant communication and social networking client resolves all your different online accounts into one neat stream. It features support for popular services like Facebook, Twitter, Google Talk, YouTube, Flickr, and Foursquare.
Business Functions. For those managing their corporate or personal financial empires through Excel, Business Functions is a godsend. The free function library features a powerful set of projection and modeling tools, and is designed to work with Microsoft’s spreadsheet program.
Hornil StylePix. Need a powerful image editor and graphic design tool, but can’t afford Photoshop? Hornil’s free editor provides similar functionality to Adobe’s industry-standard (layers, transparencies, batch processing), with a slight emphasis on helping new users find their inner image manipulator.
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AVS Disc Creator. Like download managers, optical disc burning software are a dime a dozen. As a free utility, AVS Disc Creator stands out for its ability to work with Blu-Ray burners. It’s support for a wide variety of disc image file formats doesn’t hurt either.
Easy Duplicate File Finder. Storage space has consistently become cheaper (at least on the HDD front), but wasting space on multiple copies of the same information is still inexcusable. This utility searches your drives for duplicate files. But the free version is crippled by a ten duplicate group limit.
Twitter (for Android). The sole mobile—and non-Windows—app on this weekly list, this is simply the Twitter client for Android smartphones.
Album Art Downloader. Whether you rip songs off your CDs, or acquire bootleg copies of your favorite tunes, your digital music collection never seems complete without album art. This app helps you find these for your tracks, and assign them directly to your MP3s.
Staff Pick: Hornil StylePix may be a free download and doesn't demand too much from a PC, but it gives Adobe Photoshop a genuine run for its money.
Check out more hot apps on Tom’s Guide. Got an app you can’t live without? Or a better alternative to anything listed above? Share your wisdom in the comments below.
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requiemsallure for everything you can pay for, there is an open source application on the internet that you can get for free, the sad thing is that open source is often just as good or better than the application that you can pay for. if you are smart you won't pay for anything on the internet.Reply
p.s. switching from qwerty to dvork takes some time but the challenge is fun. -
wiinippongamer meh, I can list at least 3 better free apps than those you listed for each purpose of them.Reply -
theuerkorn requiemsallurefor everything you can pay for, there is an open source application on the internet that you can get for free, the sad thing is that open source is often just as good or better than the application that you can pay for. if you are smart you won't pay for anything on the internet.Realistically though, free also means that the developers have no interest in continued support other than enthusiasm. Once that faded, you're on your own. Paying for software may not be "smart", but a more sustainable solution. Unless you're willing to convert and/or loose your data every so often. (No business can go for that uncertainty.)Reply -
jsheridan wiinippongamermeh, I can list at least 3 better free apps than those you listed for each purpose of them.I could name 4 but I'm not going to either.....Reply -
ben BOys theuerkornRealistically though, free also means that the developers have no interest in continued support other than enthusiasm. Once that faded, you're on your own. Paying for software may not be "smart", but a more sustainable solution. Unless you're willing to convert and/or loose your data every so often. (No business can go for that uncertainty.)Reply
And you don't get that support for that item fades once they stop making substantial money from that product... APB anyone? -
Tomtompiper What is the point of the flash converter? My phone can play it as is without conversion. Sorry, I forgot about the people with iPhones ;-)Reply -
bunz_of_steel Hornil StylePix don't support psd... how dumb! typical so trash can for this stupid Krapp. I will stick with my Gimp.Reply