Quickly Download Files from Any Site with Internet Download Manager
One of the most-asked questions in on the internet has to be, “How do I download “X” from “Y’s” site?” People are always wondering how to download videos from YouTube, schedule downloads, or download certain file types into specific folders on their computer. Internet Download Manager (IDM) helps you do all that and more.
Unlike many of the apps I recommend, IDM isn’t free. The $29.95 I paid in 2007 (same price today) was well worth it, and I’ve received dozens of upgrades and updates since. IDM is a small download (4MBs or so) and installs quickly, though it *may* require you to restart Windows before you can use it. Once installed, it automatically takes over downloads from your browser(s) and you can set it to ask you to download files from *any* application that tries to fetch a file from the internet. If you have problems downloading a file with IDM (a rare occurrence) you can temporarily disable IDM from taking over downloads.
Bins – Easily Customize Your Windows 7 Taskbar
The only thing I love more than great apps is a tool that offers a simple way to organize and launch great apps. So I was naturally excited when Windows 7 introduced a new feature that allowed you to “pin” your favorite applications (and websites) to the Taskbar, figuring my need for third-party app launchers would become a thing of the past. Very quickly, however, I encountered a new problem with the pin-to-the-taskbar feature; I enthusiastically pinned a bunch of apps to the Taskbar, and I very quickly ran out of space. I was forced to result to scrolling through my Taskbar to find the apps I wanted. I don’t know about you, but to me scrolling through the Windows Taskbar is akin to trying to get through AT&T’s customer service voice prompts – annoying, to say the least.
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Digital Signing Delivers More Completed Downloads in Times Where 1 in 14 Downloads is Malware
There has been a lot of talk about a post on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer blog (IEBlog) which claims “one in fourteen internet downloads is (later confirmed as) Windows malware”. 1 in 14 is a shocking number — depending on whether you believe the number to be accurate or not. The statistic, along with a few others in the post, was gleaned with help from the new SmartScreen filter ‘Application Reputation’ feature in Internet Explorer 9. The SmartScreen filter is designed to help protect users of Internet Explorer against phishing and malware infection. Microsoft uses the presence of a digital signature along with the file’s hash as the judging criteria to determine the “reputation” of a downloadable file and thus, its legitimacy (or illegitimacy). Many other security providers, such as Kaspersky with their ‘Application Control’ feature, use digital signatures as one barometer of whether a file can be trusted.
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