All About Freeware

Hv3 is a new web browser that is available for use with Windows and Linux. I recently downloaded and tested it…

The browser downloads and installs quickly (only 2.5 MB). It isn’t quite as user friendly as the major browsers, but is generally easy to use.

Hv3 is not compatible with as many websites as IE 7.0 or Opera 9.x, but it does load and display some sites more quickly. It doesn’t show Google Adsense ads, which probably helps to speed things up.

Unlike older versions of MSIE and Netscape, it can display the Yahoo homepage, as well as eBay search results, AltaVista.com, and most other sites I visited.

However, it lacks a lot of features like password memory or advanced options, and “forgets” custom user settings when it is closed. The bookmarking system could use some improvement as well.

Nonetheless, I plan to keep Hv3 and use it for accessing some types of websites. Future versions will probably correct the above-mentioned minor issues.

You can download Hv3 here. Just click on the EXE file after it is downloaded; no need for an “unzip” utility.

OpenDOS is an open-source variation on the operating system DOS, which is more commonly known in its MS-DOS, FreeDOS, and DR-DOS versions. OpenDOS is legally free to use for non-commercial purposes, and is available for free download on the Internet (note: I recommend downloading DODL701.EXE).

After installing OpenDOS on an older computer, I found that it provides several memory management and security features which either aren’t offered or are more difficult to use in MSDOS. It has a GUI-style setup and configuration program which is relatively convenient.

I tested several commercial DOS programs from the ’80s and early ’90s under OpenDOS and all of them worked, despite probably being designed for MSDOS. The operating system also includes a text editor, an equivalent to MSCDEX, and many other useful utilities.

PC-BSD is an alternative computer operating system that is most closely related to Unix and FreeBSD. Version 7.0.1 of PC-BSD was recently introduced in late October; pcbsd.org reports that some bugs have been fixed and improved features added. It is promoted as being more user friendly than other operating systems.

I put an earlier version of it on a computer 1-2 years ago and found it easier to install and use than a few different distributions of Linux I had tried. The system requirements are somewhat demanding, but less so than Windows Vista; it requires 256 megabytes of memory and a Pentium II or faster processor. As with Mac OS and Linux, viruses are less of a concern than they are with Windows.

It is available for free as a large download of about 1.1 GB; purchasing PC-BSD on CDs or a DVD is preferable for many users. A few different web sites sell it for prices ranging from about $6 to $30 dollars. For more details on this operating system, review the online PC-BSD Guide.

Although the most well-known unzip programs (WinZip, PKUnzip) are shareware, some completely free unzipping software is also available. Here are some details on programs of this type for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers:

ZIPEG 2.x: Unzips RAR and ZIP files, among others. Windows 2000/2003/XP (1.22 MB) or Macintosh OS X (2.21 MB)

CAM UnZip 4.0: Creates and unzips ZIP files, works in most versions of Windows (9x/2000/NT/XP). Download here (854 KB)

UnZip 5.42: Free ZIP file unzipping program available for the Linux operating system. It was created in 2001. Download (1 MB)

Cute Partition Manager 0.9.5 is a free hard disk partition management program for Windows, Linux, and DOS. It downloads quickly (232K) and begins by letting the user create a bootable floppy disk or CD. I had it make a floppy, which didn’t take long.

After rebooting the computer with the disk inserted, a blue and white screen appeared with various statistics and a list of partitions. It provided several options in an easy-to-use format; these included changing the file system types of partitions, creating or removing partitions, and setting the bootable partition.

Although it lacks some features of sophisticated commercial partition managers (like resizing partitions), CPM 0.9.5 can do things that FDISK and DISKPART cannot. For example, I found that it was able to create a small partition in 8MB of leftover space, and delete concurrent partitions - which both of those programs couldn’t do.

Overall, it is a convenient, compact, free program with more features than similar utilities included with the Windows and DOS operating systems. Download Link (file scanned with AVG Free, no viruses found)