Free Software Central – Free Software Downloads

Captain FTP might sound like some kind of swashbuckling, seafaring FTP client but ignore the name – it’s actually a really good client.

Captain FTP is an intelligent client because it uses what the developer’s call “Sync Browsing”. This means that if the local and remote directory structure match, users can browse folders locally and the remote folder will automatically follow the local folder. Captain FTP supports all major protocols such as SSL and SFTP and it even has presets for those that upload to Amazon S3 and WebDav uploads.

The interface of Captain FTP couldn’t be simpler. It features simple navigation with Quick Connect, supports drag and drop, supports virtual folders, Growl alerts and built-in internal viewers for movies, pictures, sound and PDFs. Captain FTP also supports scheduled transfers, accelerated transfers, resuming, auto-reconnect, synchronization, Applescripts and much more than it should do for a such a simple client.

The only downside is that the largest file it will transfer is 2GB although that will surely be enough for most people’s FTP needs.

Captain FTP is an excellent FTP client that will satisfy just about every conceivable FTP need within a compact but powerful package.

Download Captain FTP 6.1019 in Softonic

Coming from the developer of the excellent Acquisition search tool, we’re bound to expect a top notch program. The Xtorrent client does not disappoint.

This Bittorrent client offers a powerful search tool, reminiscent of Acquisition, and a great way of organizing your different downloads. These will be separated by type (image, video, audio) and can be stored in different groups. Once a file is downloaded you can have Xtorrent automatically store it somewhere, such as place audio files in iTunes.

Torrents can be managed individually and Xtorrent offers both a progress bar and bottom information window to keep you updated on all the stats relating to the torrent.

I enjoyed the torrentcast feature, which is ideal to download new episodes of a file being released regularly.

If there’s one thing that’s missing from Xtorrent, it’s the ability to create your own trackers, a feature now available in most torrent clients. I also felt the interface could get a little crowded with many downloads running.

Overall though, Xtorrent is a clever torrent client with a great search tool and a cool torrentcast feature.

Download Xtorrent 2.2 (v82) in Softonic

With PureSync you can easily synchronize data between two different sources in a variety of ways.

PureSync synchronizes content between folders on different drives, creates backup copies of selected folders and helps you extract photos from your digital camera and other devices you can connect to the computer. You can create multiple syncing tasks, each of them with its own name and configuration options, and set them to work according to a schedule or only when you manually start them.

PureSync is very easy to use: a step-by-step wizard guides you through the whole process of creating each syncing task. The program’s interface displays a summary of all the actions applied to files and folders, using a color code to distinguish different types of synchronization.

PureSync supports also incremental backup copies – that is, copies only those files that have changed – and can be seamlessly integrated with Windows Explorer.

With PureSync making backup copies, transferring photos to your PC and syncing data across different folders can be much easier.

Download PureSync 2.1.6 in Softonic

If you have private information that needs deleting, you shouldn’t make do with just the Recycle Bin. You need to make more of an effort to ensure that your confidential details stay confidential.

Moo0 FileShredder is a handy program that does just that. The application opens a small interface that can be expanded to see the precise details of each deletion method. There is also a blank area, which is where you drag your unwanted files to. You chose from one of the four levels of deletion – from Shred Once to Vaporize – and drag over your file. Bear in mind that dragging it into Moo0 FileShredder is all you need to do in order to delete it forever, so make really sure that you’ve picked the right file!

Moo0 FileShredder hasn’t got many options, but the ones it does have are quite useful. You can set the program to close by simply clicking the middle mouse button, or expand or reduce the window by right-clicking. Moo0 FileShredder is also available in a variety of languages, and leaves a relatively small footprint on your machine. If you need to delete confidential files on a regular basis, it’s a very good bet.

Moo0 FileShredder – a slick program that does what it says on the tin.

Download Moo0 FileShredder 1.06 in Softonic

QuuSoft Driver Smart allows you to easily detect and update the latest drivers for your entire hardware devices. It can also back up the existing drivers and restore the drivers in case that you needed to reinstall or upgrade your operating system. QuuSoft Driver Smart provides an easy-to-use interface through which only a few clicks [...]

Do you feel like brightening up your desktop? Changing the icons is an easy way of giving it a new look.

This icon set, Must Have Icons is a pretty comprehensive collection of 50 icons, each in four different sizes. They can be used in Windows or OSX, and instructions available from the developer’s site. There are XP and Vista only instructions included.

The icons are all high quality, and have a clean, modern style to them. They are not radically different, and are more utilitarian than stylish, but attractive none the less. We would have liked to see more unique folder icons, as the included folder icon is pretty dry.

For a free collection, Must Have Icons is impressive. It features pretty much every icon you might want for your desktop environment.

Download Must Have Icons in Softonic

Want to finally create that website you’ve been thinking about? Don’t worry you don’t actually need to be an expert designer or programmer to build your own. Applications like RapidWeaver make it easy to create and publish websites.

RapidWeaver offers a very clean GUI from which you can easily pick out what elements to create for your website such as a movie album, contact form or styled text. The application comes with 40 different themes, and you can easily find hundreds more created by users from the developer site. Just click on one of the themes from the bottom half of the interface to select it. If you have some coding knowledge you can also work with the xhtml and css to tweak themes to your liking. The application also includes its very own open RapidWeaver Sandwich file format so you can work on your website outside of the program.

Publishing is really simple in RapidWeaver. Once your page is saved, just enter the login details for your FTP or .Mac account and pres publish. Thanks to the preview button at the top left you can also check how your pages will look in a browser before publishing.

Although you can work with the PHP, XHTML and CSS some more advanced users might find it too basic.

However, thanks to a clean interface, lots of themes and easy publishing, RapidWeaver makes it easy for anyone to have their own website online in minutes.

Download RapidWeaver 4.3 in Softonic

There are times when you need to schedule a given task on your PC: lock your user session, run a certain program, even shut down the system. And all of these tasks require a timer.

Marxio Timer is the perfect tool to program your computer to perform certain actions without needing your constant attention. The program lets you select the type of task and the moment when it should be done, and includes some additional features such as showing a countdown window or taking a screenshot.

With Marxio Timer you can choose between actions such as turning off the PC, locking your user session, displaying a customized text (perfect for desktop alarms) or running a selected application, among others. When it comes to choose the moment this action should take place, you also have several possibilities to choose from: at a selected hour, after a certain time has elapsed, after certain idle time… Unfortunately there’s no option to trigger actions depending on CPU usage.

Marxio Timer includes a very interesting feature: the ability to save user profiles and even create a desktop shortcut for them for later use.

With Marxio Timer you can easily schedule your computer to perform different actions according to a user-defined period of time.

Download Marxio Timer 1.11 in Softonic

InfoWatch CryptoStorage is a reliable means of ensuring confidentiality of data with which you can:
• Protect the data stored and processed on a personal computer and local network resources;
• Ensure security of information stored and used on laptops and removable media.
InfoWatch CryptoStorage provides comprehensive capabilities for data protection. The solution provides installation of cryptographic protection [...]

Although Postbox has clearly been inspired by Thunderbird, it features many useful tools that make organizing and tracking your e-mails a real pleasure.

Postbox is designed as an alternative e-mail client that quietly works behind the scenes to catalog everything in your email. That means every single bit of text, contact, address, link, picture, document and attachment. The great thing is Postbox is a lot simpler than Thunderbird and getting your webmail – such as Gmail or Yahoo e-mail onto your desktop – is extremely quick and painless. It can even retrieve your Facebook messages for you using a simple setup wizard.

When you install Postbox, you’re taken through a very simple setup wizard to retrieve your mail. My Gmail account info was retrieved within seconds and suddenly I had a fully searchable and backed up copy of my e-mail on my hard drive. There are various features of Postbox that make it worth a look. One of them is just the general ease of use and another is the images view which allows you to scroll through every single image in your inbox. You can also view messages by conversation, create to-do items and organize mail into folders. It does not however extract labels from Gmail which is a downside because it means reorganising your entire collection once again.

If Postbox looks and feels a lot like Thunderbird, then it’s no surprise because some of the same development team worked on both projects. However, if Thunderbird has failed to grab you, you should definitely give Postbox a try.

Download Postbox 1.0.0 in Softonic

DivX is the worldwide codec standard behind many of those compressed videos that are legally or otherwise downloaded from the net.

Of course, there are now hundreds of players out there that play DivX but whichever you use, your files need to be encoded in DivX to work properly. The only way to do this is to run them through a converter such as DivX 7 which converts your files to the latest version of the DivX standard. DivX 7 for Mac provides everything you need to enjoy high-quality digital videos including high definition H.264 (.mkv) videos with AAC audio.

The DivX for Mac download includes the DivX Player plus trial versions of the DivX Pro Codec (6-month trial) and DivX Converter (15-day trial). The DivX player is one of the sleekest out there featuring translucent windows, clean play controls and on-demand scrub bar. It will also play Quicktime and other popular formats. The converter is extremely simply to use as it merely requires you to drag and drop files into it’s tiny interface. Conversions can be rather slow though depending on the size of the file you want to convert.

DivX 7 takes DivX to new levels of quality although since so many other players now playback DivX, the price to upgrade may put off many. If you want the real deal with the converter as well though, DivX 7 promises the best and most accurate DivX conversions and playback

Download DivX 7.1 in Softonic

OmniFocus, the Getting Things Done productivity tool, is finally out of Beta and officially 1.0.

With the help of productivity whiz Ethan Schoonover, aka Merlin Man, OmniFocus is an unassuming yet highly effective piece of software. It gives you limitless possibilities to organize and manage your notes. First plan your projects and actions, then set them in contexts, whether by date or by topic. Features can be added, removed and shifted around as you like. The Perspectives feature is great to save all your custom settings a click.

The folks at Omnigroup have really worked on interaction, and integrated OmniFocus to Mac apps like Mail, Spotlight and iCal. The program is also built so that notes taken anywhere, whether in an email, a document or another note taking app, can be effortlessly integrated in OmniFocus. Another handy little feature is SmartMatch. With this method you can quickly access or edit notes or parts of notes in a few keystrokes. Saves you a considerable amount of time.

While OmniFocus is a highly flexible application and even though you can use it whatever your style of project management, it still is very GTD centric. If you don’t particularly like that method then you might not adjust to it. Another point: at $79.95 it’s a pretty expensive piece of software, but considering the level of innovation put into it we think it’s worth it.

OmniFocus is the perfect organizer for GTD afficionados.

Download OmniFocus 1.7.3 in Softonic

Photosynth is a creative mixture of two independent breakthroughs: the ability to reconstruct the scene or object in 3D from a bunch of flat photographs, and the technology to bring that experience to virtually anyone over the Internet. Photosynth constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and [...]

Kodak Easyshare is a digital photo organizer which gives you access to your Kodak Gallery and make use of Kodak’s project and print services.

You’ll find it offers what you expect of a digital photo organizer, such as being able to save your photos in albums and show them in calendar view, adding tags, easy transferring from your camera and sharing them with others via email or burning on a CD. You can also create a little slideshow to view albums in full screen.

I did find the application a little counterintuitive, partly due to the color of the interface, which makes it difficult to set buttons apart. A simple action like adding an album, wasn’t easy as it should be.

Although limited, the range of editing tools available was OK. You can enhance your picture, set the balance and add a few effects to make a little snazzier. Both the tips and online guide provided by Kodak are thorough.

You can use Kodak Easyshare without actually having a Kodak account, however you’ll find many places in the application where it encourages you to do so. Your use of the application will also obviously be limited if you don’t have one as you won’t be able to print photos or create projects.

Kodak Easyshare is a digital photo manager that gives access to Kodak services online. Despite its counter-intuitive interface, it boasts sturdy editing tools and lots of help for beginners.

Download Kodak Easyshare 6.2 in Softonic

gMote allows you to record gestures (mouse motions) and assign them to frequently performed tasks. Use gestures to bring up programs, websites, control your browser, media player, clipboard and much more. You can even assign your own key combinations to a gesture – make text bold by drawing a “b”, lock your computer with an [...]