3.0.6

We've tried many freeware DVD rippers and converters, but so far, few have stood out. When we saw that the latest release of ZC DVD Ripper Platinum was listed as freeware, we were intrigued: Perhaps it's a premium tool that's now free? Or maybe a free trial version of shareware? Unfortunately, we were never able to clear that up with ZC DVD Ripper Platinum. Worse, we couldn't even use it.

The latest release of ZC DVD Ripper Platinum, version 3, is listed as ready for Windows 8 and includes "major" bug fixes. It requires … Read more

Have you ever played a favorite DVD so many times that it started to skip, even with careful handling? DVDs are notoriously prone to skipping when scratched or marred. With today's high-capacity hard drives, why not store copies of your favorite movies and other important DVDs on your PC? It's easy with DVDVideoTool's 123 DVD Clone. With it, you can copy and back up your DVDs to your hard drive with a single click, and burn copies of them, too. It can copy entire discs or just save the main feature, and even split programs. While 123 … Read more

A year is a long time in the life of the average PC. If it's been a while since your computer was brand-spanking-new, you may have noticed that it takes longer to start up, or your programs and files take longer to load. You can reclaim some of your computer's original performance with the help of EaseUS CleanGenius. This toolkit cleans and tweaks your system, deleting junk files and unneeded registry entries on demand or on schedule. It can make a big difference on older and slower systems, but even newer computers can benefit from regular maintenance with … Read more

Downloading videos from sites like YouTube, Dailymotion, and other Flash video providers should be easy, but we've encountered all too many downloaders that make this task needlessly complicated. SpeedBit Video Downloader delighted us with its ease of use; there was no trial and error, no need to consult the Help file, no guessing about how to proceed. We simply clicked a few buttons to download and convert our desired content. If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer, downloading Flash videos doesn't get much easier than this.

Once installed, SpeedBit Video Downloader appeared as a toolbar at the top … Read more

Alfa Autorun Killer is a free security tool that helps protect your system by scanning for and removing viruses, worms, adware, and other autorun threats on your hard disks and removable drives and by preventing unauthorized programs from executing autorun processes. It includes secure delete and process, services, and startup managers, and automatic updates.

Alfa's system-tray icon is the central access point for the software's features and settings. We right-clicked the program's icon to open its extensive menu, which stayed open even when other windows and apps were active--a small but welcome touch. From this menu, we … Read more

In September, Seagate made the first 6Gbps SATA hard drive available. The new Seagate Barracuda XT hard drive offers twice the throughput speed of existing popular 3Gbps SATA hard drives. Now you're about to get the chance to take advantage of the new drive's performance with your current PC.

HighPoint, which makes controllers for storage devices, announced Monday the availability of the first SATA 6Gbps (or SATA 3.0) host adapters, the Rocket 600 series, which are based on PCI-Express 2.0 technology.

SATA 3.0 is the next generation of the SATA storage standard. Currently most computers … Read more