Timeless Tales

With Windows 7 becoming the popular operating system for newbies and tech savvy users, it is a pain in ass job to look around for freeware CD/DVD burners or simply say you want burner for free. None the less most popular burners come for a price while still there are equally competitive and compulsive alternate CD/DVD burners out there as good as paid counter parts. Some people still stick around with cracked shareware burners. Here is a list of 20 freeware CD/DVD burners which supports nearly all popular Windows platform( Win XP/Vista/Win 7 ) and compatible with the most of the hard ware writers. Many of this burner also supports Blu-Ray disc apart from CD/DVD. These freewares have given the paid counter part the run for their money. Nero developers too came up with Nero 9 Lite freeware, a striped down version of Nero 9 with just the basic feature. With all such options in hand, do we need to purchase a DVD burner software? Look at the list below:

1. ImgBurn

ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application. ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats - including BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI. It can burn Audio CD's from any file type supported via DirectShow / ACM - including AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV. You can use it to build DVD Video discs (from a VIDEO_TS folder), HD DVD Video discs (from a HVDVD_TS folder) and Blu-ray Video discs (from a BDAV / BDMV folder) with ease.If you use Wine, it should also run on Linux and other x86-based Unixes. It's a very flexible application with several advanced features that are often lacking in other tools, especially when it comes to burning DVD Video discs. It supports all the latest drives without the need for updates.

* Download ImgBurn

2. CDBurnerXP

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.

* Download CDBurnerXP

3. BurnAware Free

BurnAware Free is a free CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc burning software. It is ideal for users with basic disc burning needs as backup, creating data, audio, MP3 music, DVD-Video discs and burning disc images. Free, easy to set up, it enables you to save your files to disc quickly and provides clean, flexible interface to help you complete your burning tasks much faster.

* Download BurnAware Free

4. Burn4Free

Burn4Free is the new free burning solution. Easy to use. Compatible with more than 1100 CD/DVD drives. Burns data and audio from different files types (WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG and .CDA (Import from Digital Audio Disc File)) Burn/Save .ISO file. Verify content. Import your audio compilation from .M3U and .ASX Plyalists. CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD+R/DVD-RW/DVD+RW/DVD-RAM drives (SCSI-IDE/EIDE-USB 1.0/2.0) are supported. Multi-languages. ISO support.

* Download Burn4Free

5. Explore&Burn - a free lightweight CD and DVD burner

Explore&Burn is a freeware CD/DVD burning application with intuitive and easy to use interface, integrated with Windows Explorer. It is the easiest and fastest way to burn files and ISO images on your computer to CD or DVD. Explore&Burn is extremely lightweight comparing to other bloated disc burning software, and does just what you need.

* Download Explore&Burn

6. DeepBurner - Powerful CD and DVD burning package absolutely for FREE

DeepBurner is an advanced and extremely powerful CD and DVD burning package that comes absolutely for FREE. It removes the hassle of making CDs, DVDs, and autoruns. It even makes it easy for you to create and print your own labels and booklets. DeepBurner supports a very wide range of internal and external (USB 2.0 and FireWire) CD and DVD writers. Burn any data, copy any disc, make backups, make ISO CDs with this very easy to handle software.

* Download DeepBurner

7. Ultimate CD/DVD Burner

Ultimate CD/DVD Burner is a powerful and easy to use CD DVD burner software. Ultimate CD/DVD Burner is a free, fast, powerful and easy to use CD DVD burner software that burns data, audios, videos, and images to CDs or DVDs.

* Download Ultimate CD/DVD Burner

8. SilentNight Microburner

The multi award winning SilentNight Micro CD Burner is a small standalone multimedia burner without need of any dll files or aspi layer to operate. You can even run it from a USB-Key. If you need to backup or burn some data/movies etc. or would like to duplicate a CD/DVD or even create some .ISO files, well... this is the burner for you.

* Download SilentNight Microburner

9. UsefulUtils Discs Studio

This free utility supports SCSI, ATAPI, Parallel port, USB and FireWire devices with features like On-The-Fly burning, PerformOPC, Over-burning, Test burning, Buffer Underrun Protection, various burning modes, bootable discs, Multi-session disc burning with choice of session import, multiple disc copies and audio track ripping with conversion to WMA, MP3, OGG and FLAC with FreeDB support. A Full-functional compact application for burning data, DVD-Video (miniDVD) and AudioCD on optical discs in Windows 98/NT/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Win7.

* Download UsefulUtils Discs Studio

10. Totally Free Burner

Totally Free Burner is a CD/DVD burner with a nice, minimalistic interface and an excellent range of features which will cover most people's CD/DVD burning needs.

* Download Totally Free Burner

11. Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.76 FREE

Ashampoo Burning Studio is a free burning studio software allows you CD, DVD and Blu-Ray burning, multi-disc file backup, burn multiple discs, disc verification after burning and more. Beside that, you can also rip music tracks from Audio CDs and create or burn disc images in ISO or BIN/CUE format using Ashampoo burning studio. Ashampoo Burning Studio Free is focusing on what you want: burn discs quickly, easily, with maximum quality and minimum hassle.

* Download Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.76 FREE

12. Nero Lite 9.4.12.708

Nero Lite is basically a stripped-down version of the original Nero suite. In fact it's so reduced it only lets you burn data discs and also create copies of discs. Nero Lite works with CD and DVD, and offers some basic options such as the ability to simulate the burning process before actually doing it or verify data on disc after burning. Nero Essentials also includes tools to analyze your disc and also erase re-writable discs.

Download :
http://nero-lite.en.softonic.com/download

or

http://www.nero.com/ena/downloads-nero9-free.php

13. Plato CD DVD Data Burner Free 10.11.01

Plato CD DVD Data Burner Free Burn your data on CD, DVD, Double Layer with Plato CD DVD Data Burner .It supports all major drives including CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM, supports multisession, disc image and has easy file/folder management. Simple interface make it a most convenient software to create data CD and DVD.

* Download Plato CD DVD Data Burner Free 10.11.01

14. RZ Free DVD Burner

The RZ Free CD DVD Burner application was designed to be an easy to use burner software, that can help you burn files on any writeable disc, burn ISO files, burn AudioCD from wav audios, and burn Video DVD from hard disk Video DVD folder.

* Download RZ Free DVD Burner

15. Freaky Burn

Freaky Burn - CD / DVD burning software, allowing you to burn games, movies, data, audio, MP3, documents, and much more in a matter of few short clicks. Freaky Burn is using the latest technology in the market, with one of the best burning engines, allowing you to burn even faster then you thought your burning recorder is capable of. Version 1.2 is a bug fixing release.

* Download Freaky Burn

16. Free Easy CD DVD Burner V3.9

Free Easy CD DVD Burner. Complete free and easy CD & DVD burning solution. Burn data and audio (WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, M4A) to your CDs & DVDs is now very easy with Free Easy CD DVD Burner. Burn and save ISO files, copy your CDs DVDs. Save your favorite audio CDs to mp3 with the internal grabber (CDDB request to get information about the album). Standard ISO9660 Joliet, buffer UnderRun protection, Support multisession. Support for dual-layer DVD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW.

* Download Free Easy CD DVD Burner V3.9

17. ICBurningRom

The ICBurningRom is a program for writing to CDs, DVDs, Blue-rays and all other types of discs. The ICBurningRom is one of the quickest too and you can configure lots of options in it. Before burning ICBurningRom is configuring your laser on CD-ROM so the CD-ROM will work longer. Version 1.1.10 features Audio burning and new design.

* Download ICBurningRom

18. Astroburn Lite

Astroburn Lite is a handy utility that was designed in order to help you quickly burn your files to disc in batches. It also supports writing disc image files. Handy tool for burning and mastering CD, DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD media.Astroburn allows you to perform burning, copying, erasing operations with all types of optical storage media: CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, BD-R/RE, HD-DVD-R/RW and DVD-RAM. Program also works with a wide variety of burning hardware.With Astroburn you can easily grab original discs to create image files and save them on your hard drive or compile disc images with the data or audio projects. Create CDs and DVDs with just a few mouse clicks. It’s easy to learn and to use.

* Download Astroburn Lite

19. Express Burn 4.27

Express Burn you create and record MP3/WAV formats to CD in Windows for free. With Express Burn you can record a CD quickly and easily by dragging the files you want onto the Express Burn icon and clicking 'Burn'. The software then does the rest, including converting the files to .cda. Audio is recorded with direct digital recording (so perfect audio quality is maintained). Audio CD burning supports wav, mp3, wma, au, aiff, ra, ogg, flac, aac and a number of other audio file formats. Can burn audio CDs in seamlessly mode (with no pause between tracks). Normalize audio volume of tracks. Supports multi session recording to Audio CD. Records CD Recordable (CDR) and CD Re-recordable (CDRW) discs. Features a trial of Paid functionality - Video DVD Authoring and Data DVD Recording.

* Download Express Burn 4.27

20. StarBurn

StarBurn is a powerful burning tool for grabbing, burning and mastering CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD media. StarBurn supports all types of optical storage media as well as a wide variety of burning hardware. The advantages of StarBurn burning software is their DVD Splitting Wizard you can split DVD-Video discs into smaller parts and burn them to DVD writable discs or share them with the StarPort DVD-ROM emulator and watch DVD video directly on your PC. This enables you to create copies of 8.5 GB dual layer DVDs with just a few mouse clicks.

* Download StarBurn

With millions of free download for "Windows 7" Beta, Microsoft has already build up a plateform for new operating system which will replace not so popular "Windows Vista" and also provided an ample amount of time for software vendors and makers to develop wares for this new OS-X. As this operating system is in beta stage and yet to perfect, there are many issues bugging with it. Lately I came across that Nero won't install or simply say it does get activated with keys. I don't know whether it is an issue with others or not. Lets say there's a bug in "Nero" or in "Windows 7", either way it doesn't work. In the search for any burning software compatible with Windows 7, I came across a software which is full and free and works well with all versions of Windows including "Windows 7". Its o.k even if you replace Nero with this one. For time being, its the best burner for "Windows 7". Look at the product:

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.
*Operating Systems: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/Windows 7

For a newbie, making a poster isn't an easy task to accomplish. While a professional can do a whole lot of image editing with Adobe Photoshop or an alternative to make a nice flashy wallpaper or Poster and then print it to his/her desired size. A poster making requires a big size scale of about 3600x4800 cm size. By default even the most image editors doesn't come with such scalable big size. And theres no end to such long list of shareware poster making tools. While the most shareware poster making tools comes with lot of features to play with. But still, just only for making a poster you have to cough out a hefty price of $30 to $60.00 for these commercial poster making tools. I have listed 7 free Poster making tools here, which includes all the necessary applications, right from designing a poster to printing it. These pack includes free poster making tools, poster printing tools and a poster trimmer or razor to scale the poster to a small size for printing which can be later put together to make mega poster size like that of movies. With such freebies in hand, making a motivational posters, wallpapers, collage photo albums at home, office and work place has become so easy. The best thing about these pack is that they come with simple straight forward interface and very easy to do approach. If I were you, last thing I'll do is put together all those money you were thinking of spending on those costly softwares to upgrade my computer hardwares like a laser printer and scanner combo. Look at the list.


Poster Forge Standard

Poster Forge is a software program for quick making of professional looking posters practically without any efforts and totally for free! It contains predesigned templates for creation of inspirational, motivational, movie or old west "Wanted" posters. Special built-in free version of poster printing utility ProPoster - allows you to print your own huge size posters and hang them on the wall. Why not to put your creative ideas in your posters and amaze your friends and colleagues? Or why not to use your new posters in the internet profiles or in the blogs?

Picture Collage Maker Free

Picture Collage Maker Free is a simple-to-use Windows freeware that turns ordinary photos and pictures into stunning keepsakes to share with family and friends. With just a few clicks, you can create digital collages, scrapbooks, posters, invitations, calendars, and greeting cards.

Posteriza

Posteriza is a software application for designing all kind of posters, banners and murals. It's very easy to use, it have been designed with inexperience users in mind, so everyone can create a customized poster in seconds. It allows printing posters of any size, as big as you want (imagine your favorite photo resize to 10m2, covering all the wall) even you could add text to make it more spectacular. Don't need to install, just download

Easy Poster Printer

Easy Poster Printer enables you to print posters of any size (max 20x20 meters) with a regular printer. Just drag n drop your picture into the application and click print. Easy Poster Printer comes with a Windows Shell Extension that allows you to see thumbnails of your posters in Windows. This ensures that it is very easy to locate your posters in Windows for later use or sharing. Easy Poster Printer uses the latest technologies from Microsoft .NET, which ensures you a wide compatibility.

The Rasterbator

The Rasterbator is an application which creates rasterized versions of images. The rasterized images can be printed and assembled into enormous (or smaller, if you prefer) posters. Enter the online Rasterbation Gallery to see what the images look like. The Rasterbator originated as a web application at homokaasu.org, but it has gained so much popularity that the web server occassionally cannot handle the load and a standalone version was in place. The standalone version is the same as the web version, except that downloading images from the web and image cropping are not supported, and you have to set the output size numerically (number of pages wide/high) rather than using a fancy drag handle. The results are exactly the same.

PosteRazor

The PosteRazor will cut a raster image into pieces which afterwards can be printed out and assembled to a poster. As input, the PosteRazor takes a raster image. The resulting poster is saved as a multipage PDF document. An easy to use, wizard like user interface guides through 5 steps.

It has been ages I turned on my home computer. I was welcomed with a nag by Windows saying that my antivirus is out of date. With few days left unattended, my PC had collected dusts. Its now working at snail's pace. So I thought It was time I format my drive and save my PC. Atleast I'll save precious time sitting in front it. Formating & partitioning is such a tedious job to do as I have to move all my collection of movies, songs and softwares to another drive. With loads of jumboes to move, I wasn't ready to take the plunge but then virus problem persisted and it hampered the actvity at my PC. And the worst part of the story I badly needed a hard drive Partition Manager software. Of course, there are too many sharewares in the market but then as a home user I didn't wanted to buy. On the other side I wasn't either thinking of settling for a less. I was looking for a freeware Partitioner Manager that will fit right into my bill. My pursuit for freewares landed me to some real treasures of Internet buried underneth. I have carefully listed some softwares here that will come handy to an enthusiast. The list comprises of few popular ones and rest are some awesome least explored shores. Some of these popular counter part are compatible with Windows 7 too. These list of freeware Partition Manager is exclusively for Windows users which includes all the earlier edition of Windows. Have a look at the freeware Partition Managers.

1) Cute Partition Manager

Cute Partition Manager is a free advanced hard disk partition management utility that allows you to easily add, edit, delete and manage the partitions in your computer. Cute Partition Manager is very easy to use, and one of the best features about it is that It lets you preview the changes before you save them. It lets you edit the boot flag, partition type and other advanced parameters. It gives you total control of your system during the partition process. For example, it lets you edit all existing partitions. It even lets you install all the operating systems from scratch. It supports all versions of Windows (9x,ME,NT,2K,XP,Vista), DOS, Linux, etc.

* Download

2) Easus Partition Manager Home Edition

EASEUS Partition Master is an ALL-IN-ONE partition solution and the easiest and most convenient hard disk partition manager toolkit including Partition Manager, Partition Recovery Wizard and Disk & Partition Copy Wizard for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 and Server 2000/2003/2008. It allows users to Resize/Move Partition, Extend System Drive, Copy Disk & Partition, Merge Partition, Split Partition, Partition Recovery, Redistribute Free Space and much more. You can free enjoy EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition like the commercial Partition Magic software.

* Download

3) Partition Logic

Partition Logic is a free hard disk partitioning and data management tool. It can create, delete, format, and move partitions and modify their attributes. It can copy entire hard disks from one to another. With Partition Logic you can make partitions on your hard disk. Partition Logic is free software, available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It is based on the Visopsys operating system. It boots from a CD or floppy disk and runs as a standalone system, independent of your regular operating system. Partition Logic is intended to become a free alternative to such commercial programs as Partition Magic, Drive Image, and Norton Ghost.

* Download

4) Partition Manager 2010 Free Edition

Partition Manager 2010 Free Edition, the latest free windows partition software from paragon helps windows user partitioning hard drive within few click. However, this partition manager 2010 free edition provides basic hard drive partitioning features such as create, format, delete and move/resize partitions from various file format like FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS. While partitioning your hard drive with Partition manager 2010, an user friendly wizard will be appear to assist windows user simplify down partitioning task. Meanwhile, the best part of partition manager 2010 free edition is the Paragon Hot Resize technology, which a Resize Partitions Wizard able to increase free space on one partition by up-taking the unused space of an adjacent partition of your hard disk. So, you can easily resize without any data loss and without rebooting Windows.

Beside that, Partition Manager 2010 also provides Recovery Media Builder, which allow you create a Linux/DOS bootable partitioning disc for emergencies use purpose. This bootable partitioning media is very useful, which you can complete a data-sensitive operation (resize, move) if you can’t boot up your windows platform. Moreover, with its help you can save data from partitions of your hard disk directly to compact discs or burn ISO-images.

To install Partition Manager 2010 Free edition, you need to register with Paragon–including your e-mail address. After that, they’ll send you the free product key and serial number you need to complete the install.

* Download

5) eXtended FDisk

Xtended FDisk, or short XFDisk, is a free DOS FDISK replacement that offers more comfort and comes with a bootmanager that allows you to have more than one operating system installed on your hard disk. With XFDisk you can partition your hard disk or install and configure the bootmanager, which will be located in the first 17 sectors of your first hard disk. The bootmanager will not occupy an own partition, so you can fully use the four available primary partitions per hard disk. If you choose to have an extended partition with logical drives on your hard disk, XFDisk transparently manages the extended partition for you. So you don't need to worry about the size of the extended partition any more. Of course, XFDisk and the bootmanager support more than one hard disk and even booting from logical drives. But it must be said clearly that most operating systems that are commonly used on PCs require a primary partition on the first hard disk at least for their boot files. This is true for all versions of DOS and Windows 95/98/ME, but it is also true for Windows NT/2000. However, some operating systems like Linux or OS/2 can boot from virtually any hard disk, even though OS/2 may need its own bootmanager for installation.

* Download

6) Partition Wizard

Partition Wizard, a free Windows partition software that perform more hard disk partition functionality than default Windows partition application. Meanwhile, partition wizard also support raid partition beside of normal hard disk partition. It can perform hard disk operations such Resizing partitions, Copying partitions, Create partition, Delete partition, Format partition, Convert partition, Explore partition, Hide partition, Change drive letter, Set active partition and Partition Recovery. The user interface of Partition Wizard is simple to understand which can easily perform partition operations safely and quickly. The Enhanced Data Protecting technology keeps your data safe even in case of power outages or hardware failure. Beside that, Partition Wizard is a Windows based partition manager that supports both MBR and GUID partition table format running on 32/64 bits Operating System including Windows XP, Vista, Windows Server 2000/2003/2008 and latest Windows 7. Plus more, this partition software is free for commercial and personal use.

* Download

7) GParted Live

GParted is an industrial-strength package for creating, destroying, resizing, moving, checking and copying partitions, and the file systems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, copying data residing on hard disks and mirroring one partition with another (disk imaging). GParted Live is a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86 machine. It enables you to use all the features of the latest versions of GParted. GParted Live can be installed on CD, USB, PXE server, and Hard Disk then run on an x86 machine.

* Download

8) Active Partition Manager

Active Partition Manager, a free partition software that perform hard disk partitioning features such as create, resize, move, concatenate, copy, undelete the hard drive partitions that you have on your hard disk. However, Active Partition manager has their advantages compare to other Windows partition software that you don’t need to restart or shutdown your computer system while creating, deleting or formatting hard drive partitions. Beside that, this free active partition manager slide your partition from moving your existing partition from one location on the disk to another location, without losing data. Plus more, this free hard disk partition software able to convert hard disk partition from NTFS to FAT32 or vice versa available on the other Windows partition software.

* Download

9) Ranish Partition Manager

Ranish Partition Manager is a powerful hard disk partitioning tool. It gives users high level of control for running multiple operating systems, such as Linux, Windows 98/XP, FreeDOS, and FreeBSD on a single disk. Partition Manager can create, copy, and resize primary and extended partitions. It includes command line interface and simulation mode that works with large files so you can safely experiment before working on the real hard drive partition tables.

* Website | download

10) M Mini Partition Magic

M Mini Partition Magic can convert your drives to NTFS without format it or loss your data. select your drive from list and click on convert button to start convert. M Mini Partition Magic is also able to set label on your drives.

* Download | download

11) SwissKnife

SwissKnife is a free partition management software can format your partition your IDE hard drives upto 120GB and allows creation of FAT32 & NTFS partitions. FAT16 option is provided for compatibility. Plus more, it is capable to partition external hard disk such as Hi-Speed USB, PCMCIA, SATA, SCSI, USB 1.1, and FireWire® external drives.

* Download

Firewalls are the basic line of defense against any kinda cyber threats for a PC. When it comes to freeware firewalls for Windows XP or Vista, there are just too many choices. Windows 7 platform has been lagging in all front. Most of the novice PC user prefer not to stick with default firewall in Windows 7. Windows 7 platform has been a challenge for most software makers. Most of the freeware firewall for Windows of earlier version hasn't been updated lately by most of the vendors or many have been abandoned after some few editions. I have compiled a list of 10 freeware firewall application that works fine with Windows 7. If there happened to be a test comparative for all Windows 7 compatible firewall, then the testers will have only few candidates to look in for. Last not least still the Windows 7 users have 10 freeware firewalls to boast of. Look at the compiled list.

1. PC Tools Firewall Plus

PC Tools Firewall Plus is a powerful free personal firewall for Windows® that protects your computer by preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to your computer through the Internet or a network. By monitoring applications that connect to the network Firewall Plus can stop Trojans, backdoors, keyloggers and other malware from damaging your computer and stealing your private information. PC Tools Firewall Plus is advanced technology designed especially for people, not just experts. Powerful prevention against attacks and known exploits is activated by default while experienced users can optionally create their own advanced packet filtering rules, including IPv6 support, to customize the network defenses. All you need to do is install it for immediate and automatic ongoing protection.

* Website | download

2. Windows 7 Firewall Control 3.0

Protects your applications from undesirable network incoming and outgoing activity, controls applications internet access. Allows you to control personal information leakage via controlling application network traffic. Manages and synchronizes port forwarding provided by external network connection (firewall/router) box with applications requirements and activity.

* Website | download

3. Online Armor Free Firewall

Online Armor's range of firewall products are designed to fit every need. Our free version provides great security for those on a tight budget. The premium edition expands this protection with automatic updates and our unique "Banking Mode" to protect you when banking online - and our top of the line Online Armor ++ includes powerful Antivirus and Antispyware capabilities.

* Website | download

4. ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 9

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall blocks hackers from infiltrating your home PC by hiding your computer from unsolicited network traffic. By detecting and preventing intrusions, ZoneAlarm Free Firewall keeps your PC free from viruses that slow down performance, and spyware that steals your personal information, passwords, and financial data.

* Website | download

5. Comodo Firewall

The Comodo firewall is easy to install without complex configuration issues, yet the multi-award winning software prevents malware from entering your computer and gives you control which application run on your PC using Default Deny Protection (DDP): If the Comodo firewall doesn't recognize an application it assumes it to be hostile - a very effectice way to deal with new unknown threats. Last but not least can the Comodo firewall send personalized alerts, and updates automatically.

* Website | download

6. Agnitum Outpost Firewall Free

Outpost Firewall Free gives you solid firewall protection with standard packet and application filtering to safeguard your data against unauthorized third parties. Plus, you get advanced protection against illegal program activity that will help stymie unknown threats. All this coupled with minimum impact on your system resources makes Outpost Firewall Free a must-have instrument for an unprotected PC.

* Website | download

7. Sunbelt Personal Firewall Free

Sunbelt Personal Firewall used to be called the Kerio Personal Firewall (KPF). Kerio was going to discontinue it, but Sunbelt acquired it from Kerio to save the product from "going under". We needed a new name, and changed 'KPF' into the new 'SPF' (so much for software geeks being creative...). Despite its boring name, Sunbelt Personal Firewall is a very good piece of code, and received many awards. Tucows gave it their 5-Cow Rating. Computer Shopper in the U.K. gave it their Budget Buy Award with: "A seriously good firewall for the money.". Firewall expert Scot Finnie said: " ZoneAlarm Free and Sunbelt Personal Firewall - the two firewalls I've pointed to in the past as having the best user interfaces in this field".

* Website | download

8. Ashampoo® FireWall FREE

This is something that Windows own firewall doesn't do, and it's essential for identifying and stopping the activities of many malicious virus and spyware programs. For example, this enables you to prevent your system from being turned into a zombie controlled by destructive hackers or spammers. Ashampoo FireWall is also amazingly compact. Even with its four additional security tools it's a tiny program that uses very little memory and computer resources. You get the heavy-duty protection without heavyweight overload on your system.

* Website | download

9. Private firewall

Privatefirewall is a Personal Firewall and Host Intrusion Prevention application designed to help individuals and businesses protect Windows desktops and servers from malware and unauthorized use. Privatefirewall addresses the operating system and application level vulnerabilities and intrusion techniques that hackers exploit to gain access and cause damage to private systems and data. Privatefirewall provides an excellent layer of additional protection to the Windows operating system. Beyond unparalleled personal firewall protection, Privatefirewall leverages proprietary HIPS technologies that model and monitor system and application behavior to identify and block activity characteristic of known malware, hacking, phishing and other threat types. Privatefirewall ranks among the best performing desktop defense applications tested against the industry's most rigorous leak, general bypass, spying and termination tests and is among a short list of free personal firewall and host intrusion prevention software (HIPS) products that fully supports Microsoft's Windows 7 Operating System.

* Website | download

10. Jetico Personal Firewall

Jetico Personal FirewallTM software protects computers against hackers and malicious software when networked or connected to the Internet. It offers detailed, configurable event logs, reports, plus the option to view and edit the firewall configuration. The modular architecture is as open as possible to assist with easier evaluation of the security.

* Website | download

Sites of note:

* How good is your firewall? Test at this PC Flank site.

* Complete guide to firewalls at Firewall Guide.

* Learn more about firewall at Firewall.Org.

Spoofing, spying and keylogging are the words that are always been associated with the hackers and cyber criminals. Based on them, security vendors have specifically tailored their security software. On the contrary to the popular concept, keyloggers are used as a tool to find out what other users do on your computer in your absence, be it at home or office. It is designed for the hidden computer monitoring and to record the activities done at the computer. It logs the sites that are visited, records the key strokes that are typed and when scheduled it takes the screen shot of Windows. Rather it gives you a complete handy solution as parental controls to track your childs behaviour in your absence and check your office employees time wasting attitude. Here's a list of 12 best free keyloggers for Windows 7. Have a look.
Revealer Keylogger Free Edition

Free and reliable keylogger monitoring tool that logs everything that is typed on your computer, it records every keystroke including passwords and conversations (one side only) in common instant messengers. It's a simple and very light software with a user friendly interface. It runs in the background saving system resources, no button or icon is present in the Windows Task Bar to ensure invisibility. Revealer Keylogger is surely the easiest and faster way to record keyboard inputs. There is almost nothing to configure, in fact everything is configured internally with the best settings.



Ultimate Keylogger Free

Ultimate Keylogger Free Edition is a free popular all-round monitoring solution. It runs in the background and monitors all typed keystrikes, applications, passwords, clipboard, email, and visited websites' URLs. You can view the reports as HTML files. Ultimate Keylogger will help you to find out, what exactly took place in the system. You will be able to find out what your children search in the internet, and to check them. You can perform the full control of the computers of your company or enterprise. You will always know about all actions performed by the employees or other people on the computers of your company.



BlackBox Security Monitor

BlackBox Security Monitor is a handy and powerful tool for security monitoring. It is designed to collect information from multiple computers and report it to one central location - on the computer where BlackBox Security Monitor is installed.
Get alerts on programs launched, Web sites visited, keywords detected in Web searches, E-Mails, Web Mails, Instant Messenger conversions, total network traffic etc..



Refog Free Keylogger

Refog Free Keylogger is an opportunity for you to be a good parent and keep an eye on your children. And isn't it wonderful that your parental duty will cost you nothing this time. Refog Free Keylogger can look after your children without them even noticing. Even technically minded children won't detect the key logger when it runs in a stealth mode. Refog Free Keylogger removes all the shortcuts and can be accessed only through a hot key combination. Running unobtrusively from the moment the system boots, Refog Free Keylogger keeps track of all typed or pasted text. You can set it to monitor only selected applications or everything that is done in the system.



Super WinSpy

WinSpy is a program designed that helps you find out what's been done on your computer. With Super WinSpy, You can find out exactly what others have done on your computer , including what web sites they have been, what text, images, movies they have seen. and also what files they opened/saved, what kind of search they have done and what they ran at the start menu. Double click the displayed item will directly open or link to the file or the URL stored on your computer.



Personal Keylogger

The Personal Keylogger application was designed to be a small tool that will allow you to secretly record all keystrokes and other input. All specific instructions are explained in the application. To use this program, you have to agree with the disclaimer shown inside. To exit it and recieve your logs, you will need to enter in your keycode. If you have forgotten your keycode, you will need to restart the computer.



NextGen AntiKeylogger Free

NextGen AntiKeylogger is the next generation anti-keylogger program that protects your data from all types of keylogging programs both known, unknown or being developed right now. NextGen AntiKeylogger uses unique method of protection. It intercepts keystrokes at the lowest possible level, encrypts them and sends via its own protected path directly into the protected application. Thus, by using its own encrypted keystrokes path, NextGen AntiKeylogger defeats all types of software keyloggers. Moreover, unlike anti-keyloggers which are based on proactive protection, NextGen AntiKeylogger has no false-positives. It works out-of-the-box, requiring no additional configuration! Even inexperienced user can use it. In fact it takes only a few clicks to install NextGen AntiKeylogger. Nevertheless, experienced users will find options they may wish to tune up! NextGen AntiKeylogger Free will provide basic protection free of charge, protecting Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.



Romaco Keylogger

Romaco Keylogger is a small and easy to use tool that can log all key-presses that are made while it is running, and display them to you in its window. It automatically exports the logged text to a text file every 5 minutes, or manually. It can be hidden at the click of a button, and recalled by vigorously pressing one of the least used keys on the keyboard, the break key.


PyKeylogger

PyKeylogger is an easy-to-use and simple keylogger written in python. It is primarily designed for backup purposes, but can be used as a stealth keylogger, too. It does not raise any trust issues, since it is a short python script that you can easily examine. It is primarily designed for personal backup purposes, rather than stealth keylogging. Thus, it does not make explicit attempts to hide its presence from the operating system or the user. That said, the only way it is visible is that the process name shows up in the task list, so it is not immediately apparent that there is a keylogger on the system.



Koom Keylogger

Koom Keylogger is a simple application which helps users to monitor their PC's activity. Koom's insides work by hooking the keyboard, whilst copying any textual data that is entered. The user beforehand specifies a password, that when typed, will trigger Koom to stop and display all the recorded data. This ridiculously simple interface allows swift configuration and deployment, essential to covert keylogging. Koom attempts to strip the concept of a keylogger down to the bare rudiments, ridding flashy animations and hefty price tags, the program doesn't try to install or make an icon on your desktop, because you can just open it straight of the web or save it locally. Our developers made a special effort to conceal the keylogging process from prying Ctrl+Alt+Delete's, but if for some reason you forget your password; the program can be terminated from the 'processes' tab on the task manager, under 'Koom.exe'.



Heretic Macro

Heretic is a powerful tool that is able to record user events, such as mouse clicks and keys, into a C/Java-like script, and play that script either once or repeatedly. It has many commands for dynamic pixel-based botting, window based botting, and static botting/macro-ing (i.e. key presses, mouse clicks, mouse moves, and pauses).


Keylogger Douglas

Keylogger Douglas is a totally freeware application which will allow you to spy and monitor any PC from anywhere. Also it takes very few system resources so it causes no suspicious slowdowns.