Four new-ish freeware offerings you might like to check out

I just love my freeware, but it’s impossible to test and review all the new products which continue hitting the shelves almost on a daily basis. Most of those I do review are either of particular interest to me personally, or I believe might be useful in general, or are bringing something new/refreshing to the table. With that in mind; here are four new freeware offerings I have come across recently which I have not actually tested but which I believe might be worth checking out:

Lightweight yet effective:

Free Any Burn: According to the blurb on the Free Any Burn home page… “Free Any Burn is a light weight but professional CD / DVD / Blu-ray burning software that every one must have. It provides a free and complete solution for burning.” Well, I’m not prepared to argue with that summation; the download is certainly on the small side for burning software yet Free Any Burn appears to provide a majority of the most popular features, including the all important Copy Disc – which actually copies direct from disc to disc (or on-the-fly). Many of the free burning utilities do not include this feature but instead will create a file copy of the source disc on the hard drive and then write that file to the destination disc, which is generally slower but can be useful when producing multiple copies. Free Any Burn provides both options:

The software appears to be very new, most freeware download sites added it to their listings on or around 11th-12th July. And the Free Any Burn site hasn’t been rated yet by any of the leading site advisory services, which is generally a pretty good indication. So I scanned the file through Virus Total and went through the installation process (sandboxed) to make sure there is no bundling or nasty surprises – everything came up roses.

• Download = 888KB
• Virus Total scan = 100% clean

Enhanced privacy?:

PrivaZer is a relatively new cleanup/privacy tool, similar in vein to CCleaner, which is reputed to be powerful and thorough. PrivaZer is developed and distributed by a US-based company whose products are digitally signed by Comodo. PrivaZer can either be installed, run directly from the executable, or generate a portable version:

PrivaZer can be set to perform the usual in-depth scan of the system drive as well as a variety of limited scans on selected drives, and users can define a secure overwriting method from one of 7 US DoD standards. PrivaZer scans and cleans 18 areas in total:

• Download = 2.47MB
• Virus Total scan = 100% clean.

NOTE: Any tool, such as PrivaZer, which cleans the system at low level involves a greater potential for generating problems. We advise users not to run the software on a system which hasn’t been backed up, and also recommend creating a system restore point prior to any cleaning operations. I’ll actually be taking a closer look at PrivaZer and publishing a full review next week.

All-in-one Recovery:

Lazesoft Recovery Suite Home Edition: As the name suggests, this is a suite of various recovery tools, including:

• Lazesoft Windows Recovery – Windows System Recovery
• Lazesoft Data Recovery – Data Recovery
• Lazesoft Recover My Password – Windows Password Recovery
• Lazesoft Disk Image & Clone – Disk Backup, Clone and Partition Manager

As one would expect with so many components, Lazesoft Recovery Suite is not a small download by any means, but it certainly has a lot on offer, especially considering it’s free:

With a series of easy-to-use utilities on Lazesoft Recovery Suite Home Edition Recovery CD, you can recover your data even if file deleted, partition formatted, you can repair your Windows even if Windows crashed, you can reset your windows login password even if you forgot it.

With Lazesoft Recovery Suite Home Edition, just three steps to recover your data, repair Windows system or reset Windows password. It is easy as 1, 2, 3. Create an Free Lazesoft Recovery Suite Recovery CD or USB disk by yourself, then boot PC from it to fix most of computer problems easily and instantly.

There is also a Pro version of the software available but the differences appear minimal – view Full Feature Comparison Chart.

• Download = 62.15MB
• The downloaded executable exceeds Virus Total’s maximum file size but it scans clean through both Avast and MBAM.

NOTE: As with any new and relatively complex software, until such times as a definitive reputation has been established, DCT advises caution.

For budding audiophiles:

Ocenaudio: is a cross-platform audio editor which has been compared favorably to the popular Audacity. According to editorial reviews; Ocenaudio is almost as powerful as Audacity and superior in terms of user friendliness, including a more intuitive interface. Ocenaudio offers some pretty impressive features, including:

• *Support for VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugins.
• *Real-time preview of effects.
• *Multiple audio file management.
• *Full-featured spectrogram.
• *Efficient editing of large files – no limitations.

Ocenaudio supports a huge range of input audio file formats, and exports files as RAW, WAV, CAF, MP3, Mp4, OGG, etc. I believe it also includes a feature for creating ringtones with automatic fade in and out.

• Download = 13.9MB
• Virus Total scan results: 1/40

NOTE: Ocenaudio is currently in Beta stage so not yet suitable for less experienced users. DCT strongly advises all users exercise caution.