Personal Computer World

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Alpha 5

Freeware

Some users were disappointed with the release of Mozilla Firefox 2.0. After months of betas, release candidates and previews, the new features werenÆt as spectacular as people expected. However, there is only so much you can do to improve a web browser.

Requires: Windows 2000, XP or Vista

Netscape Navigator for Windows 9.0b1

Freeware

May just give Netscape a fighting chance of some sort of comeback. Maybe. The new look is certainly an improvement, and it offers a richer browsing experience, with much faster page rendering. It's based around the existing Mozilla Firefox engine, so shares many of the latest enhancements of the Firefox browser.

Requires: Windows 98SE, 2000, Me, XP or Vista

Pidgin Windows 2.0.1

Freeware

Multi-platform instant messaging program. You can talk to your friends using AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, and Zephyr. Pidgin can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks.

Requires: Windows 98SE, 2000, Me or XP

nCleaner 2.3.2

Freeware

System cleaner that allows you to clean both your system and applications, free more disk space, boost your system's speed and get more stability and privacy protection. nCleaner contains an advanced system and application cleaner with over 90 cleaning items available.

Requires: Windows 2000 or XP

Orbit Downloader 1.5.6

Freeware

Easy-to-use free download manager. It is based on p2p and multi-source downloading technology and supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, MMS and RTSP protocols. Using Orbit Downloader, you can almost download everything online with 500% faster speed, like YouTube video, Rapidshare files, flash and streaming media etc.

Requires: Windows 98SE, 2000, Me or XP

Portable Firefox 2.0.0.4

Freeware

Transportable version of the popular web browser. You could æinstallÆ this to an external USB key and then take this USB key with you, connect to a computer, then use Firefox Portable without leaving any trace of your web use on their machine. Mozilla Firefox Portable is self-contained software.

Requires: Windows 98SE, 2000, Me, XP or Vista