download

I've often said no matter how good a piece of software is, there's someone out there who can make it better. Sometimes a third-party add-on can be so simple that I can't figure out why the developer didn't think of it in the original program. Then, of course, I wonder why I didn't think of it myself. As the great inventor Thomas Edison once said, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Well, here's to an idea for which I should have donned the proverbial overalls.… Read more

BitComet is one of the most popular BitTorrent applications on CNET Download.com, but did you also know that it can also work as a regular download manager. Rich DeMuro shows you how to drag, drop, and download with the P2P file-sharing app.

Fans of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) media device must continue to wait for a download store, a feature that experts have said is a must if the player is ever to launch a significant challenge to the iPod.

Sony representatives, which have been holding press gatherings in major cities in preparation for the September launch of the upgraded PSP, refused on Tuesday to set a launch date for the download store.

They did reveal that the store will launch with "short-form" games. Whether music and movies will be available at rollout is "still unclear," said John … Read more

Though we have several machines here at Download.com running Windows Vista for testing purposes, I have to admit that I haven't yet made the switch at my workspace. Maybe it's because with Windows XP, I like the way things are set up; I like the look; and I can rest assured that all my favorite downloads are going to work without fail. I'm not saying Vista won't support my programs--and I'm sure I'll make the switch at some point--but for now I'm sticking with XP.

Even though XP is my choice for now, as a major-league software nerd, I still try to find ways to improve upon a good thing. Rather than leaving well-enough alone, I continually search CNET Downloads to see what programs I can find to make my OS run even more smoothly. A few downloads I've come across trim down existing applications, clean out system flaws, and keep the whole XP operating system running at optimal speed.… Read more

Yossi Vardi, the guy who helped bring instant messaging to the world, is now trying to speed up video downloads.

Vardi is an investor in Haifa-based SpeedBit, which sells an application for speeding up downloads of games, videos and music. He claimed that by using the application, the download of a movie decreases from more than an hour to 22 minutes.

Downloading movies, of course, will get worse as high definition spreads. Some of these download services have received their share of customer complaints.

"It's the fastest growing application ever," he said, during a hallway conversation at … Read more

The number and quality of online photo-sharing sites, along with their burgeoning communities, have been growing exponentially ever since mainstream consumers embraced digital photography.

Flickr, Picasa, Snapfish, 23HQ, Zoomr, and Webshots (disclaimer: Webshots is owned by CNET Networks) are only a handful of the free sites that let you publish your own pics and explore other photographers' creations.

Once you've established your digital presence on a photo-sharing site, you may find yourself uploading hundreds, if not thousands, of photos to share with friends and family. While the sites have powerful technology to display, categorize, and host your images, they'… Read more

You've heard of summer movie flops, but sometimes software can fall just as flat. With the thousands of software programs we see every month on CNET Download.com, there are bound to be a few duds. CNET's Tom Merritt runs through the five worst downloads of summer 2007.

Every computer user needs a basic text editor for Readme files and simple note-taking capabilities. That's why Windows comes with Notepad and Mac OS X comes with TextEdit. However, if you want a program that is useful for more than just looking at Readme files, you need to look elsewhere. The best type of text editors come with numerous features and work great for writing quick notes, keeping a journal, coding Web sites, and pasting excerpts from the Web when aggregating research for a project.

While Notepad and TextEdit are useful in their own right, if I want added … Read more

Killer Download is a new feature on Download.com in which we'll present a new program each week. Most will be free, but some might be good enough that paying a low registration fee is well worth the cost. If you find you have a better option than the software featured, let us know in the comments!

What method do you use to get the news? For a long time, I used my Web browser and grabbed bookmarks when I found good news sites. But before long those bookmarks multiplied, making it difficult to find particular sites; I realized I had to find a way to organize them all. The most obvious method was to continue with a regular Internet browser and put similar sites into folders, calling them "News" and "Blogs" and "Software," or whatever category fit the bill. This method worked fairly well, but I never knew when any of the sites updated without actually going to the site and checking. Naturally, all sites don't update according to a schedule, so I quickly figured out that I needed to try something else.… Read more