In a recent article I told the world about my addiction to software. Shareware, Freeware, Bloatware, I don’t care. Obviously, the less I have to pay for it the better, because the less I pay the more I get. The World Wide Web is a gigantic storage vault of excellent software. And now, my friends at PC Magazine Online have gathered a bunch of these treasures together at one site to make it easy for me and all of you who haven’t admitted you’re just as crazy about good, inexpensive software as I am.

If you will travel to http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/utilities98/index.html, you will find a listing of their choice of the top 225 Windows utilities and they have divided them into 13 assorted categories to make it easier for you. These categories are:

There are reviews, editor’s choices and summaries of features to take all the guesswork out of finding just the right tool for the just the right price. For example, under "browser acceleration" you’ll find reviews on Go Ahead Got It!, Java Booster, NetAccelerator, PeakJet, Speed Surfer, Surf Express, and WebEarly. The editor’s choice under this category is Go Ahead Got It! because it is the only product that lets you specify which pages to preload, giving you ultimate power over accelerating your surfing experiences. You can also have the program preload frequently visited pages, and it's the only program to notify you when pages have changed. A partial summary of features looks something like this.

Most of the software reviewed has links to either the parent company’s web site, where you can purchase and download immediately, or to PC Magazine’s Online Shareware library. There is also a full explanation of the system requirements, so there is no doubt as to whether the software will work on your PC or not. It really couldn’t get much easier to purchase software.

Also, at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/index-ut.html you can link to PC Magazine’s superb FREE utilities such as Dupeless, to get rid of duplicate files on your system, SiteSnagger, that lets you download entire websites and read them offline, Checkers, where you can play against the computer or a friend and COA32, that allows you to move some of those 32-bit Windows programs that are taking up so much space off that crowded C drive onto that new hard drive.

These are just a very few of the many treasures that are located at PC Magazine Online. Next time you’re out for a spin on the super I-way stop by and browse for a while. You’ll be glad you did! u