Need a Free Collection of System Tools and Utilities? – Get Glary Utilities

Glary Utilities the number one free all-in-one utility on the market, is a must have collection of system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. Personal experience with this application for the last 6 months has convinced me that a typical user can really benefit by having this application on their system.

With this free program you can tweak, repair, optimize and improve your system’s performance, and its ease of operation makes it ideal for less experienced users.

You can quickly find the tool you’re looking for: disk cleaner, uninstall manager, secure file deletion, memory optimizer, registry cleaner, duplicate file finder, tracks eraser, empty folder finder; a very convenient feature for those of us who like to test drive new software. Prior to making important changes to your system, Glary Utilities creates a backup copy first, a very important feature.

As well, you can also manage and delete browser add-ons, analyze disk space usage and find, fix, or remove broken Windows shortcuts, and manage startup programs.

Key Facts:

· Disk Cleaner Removes junk data from your disks and recovers disk space

· Registry Cleaner scans and cleans your registry to improve your system’s performance

· Shortcuts Fixer eliminates the errors in your start menu & desktop shortcuts

· Startup Manager manages programs which run automatically on startup

· Memory Optimizer monitors and optimizes free memory in the background

· Tracks Eraser erases all traces, evidence, cookies, internet history and more

· File Shredder erases files permanently

· Internet Explorer Assistant manages Internet Explorer Add-ons

· Disk Analysis provides detailed information files and folders

· Duplicate Files Finder searches for space-wasting duplicate files

· Empty Folders Finder removes empty folders (I love this feature)

· Uninstall Manager completely uninstall programs

Designed for Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista. The 64-bit versions of Windows XP/Vista are not supported.

Download here: Download.com

Scamming By Spamming – They Just Won’t Quit!

It’s just human nature that allows us to think that we can get something for nothing. That’s the way of the world, and human environmental psychology.

Scam artists of course, count on this human failing to increase the chances that their constantly evolving criminal schemes will succeed with enough people to make their efforts economically worthwhile.

Again this morning, I received another carefully crafted email scam; this one aimed at the 120 million strong Blogging community. I have to wonder however, if the people who write these emails have ever heard of a “spell checker”. It boggles my mind as to how the creative minds who can devise these essentially brilliant schemes, can’t spell!

In any event, the following is the email that I received; notice the spelling mistakes.

Subject: Advertising Inquiry

From: advertising@polimedia.us

Hello,

We have reviewed your blogger.com blog on behalf of one of our

clients that would be interested in placing advertising with you.

Client profile :

DoingFine (http://doingfxxx)

We’d like either a 150×150 button, 160×600 skyscraper or 468×60 full banner (or footer). Alternatively, we may be interested in text-only advertising.

This would be a weekly, monthly or yearly arrangement. In either case we will require a one time, one day (24 hours) free placement in order to test the quality and quantity of traffic your website can actually provide*. Within this interval, we will make a final determination, based on the traffic volume, quality, and your asking price. Should we find your terms acceptable, this trial day will count towards the agreed interval.

Kindly let us know if you would be interested, which arrangement best suits your editorial needs, and what rates you would like to charge. We prefer using PayPal but may be able to accomodate alternative payment methods.

Thank you.

*Please note that we employ software that reliably detects autoclick and autosurf bots, pay per click and paid to surf type traffic, and other such non-human traffic. This may be a concern for you, especially if you are buying “bulk traffic”, or employing the services of dubious “SEO experts”

So can you see the problems with this email, other than just the spelling errors?

Well in the first place, they are looking to place a “one time, one day (24 hours) free placement in order to test the quality and quantity of traffic your website can actually provide”. But in reality, there are a fair number of SEO services such as Website Grader, that provide this service and more, at no cost. So the question is: why wouldn’t a professional advertising organization not have this type of information at hand? This doesn’t make sense.

It seems to me, that one of the objectives of this scam is to insert bad JavaScript ads into the Blogs of those who commit to the one time, one day free ad placement. As well, since PayPal is mentioned, it is conceivable that a second part of the scam is aimed at obtaining the credit card details of those who respond to this offer.

While I despise the objectives of these scams, it’s difficult for me not to have some degree of admiration for the creativity, and the audacity, of these scam artists.

As ever, we need to be security conscious while dealing with web related issues and to be sure to always practice the following: Stop – Think – Click.

A great web site which is dedicated to debunking email hoaxes, thwarting Internet scammers, combating spam, and educating web users about email and Internet security issues is Hoax-Slayer. Check it out.

Want the Best in Free Internet Security? – Get People Driven Security With WOT

Some time ago I received an email from Esa Suurio, CEO of a relatively new free web service/browser add-on, WOT (web of trust), in which he set out the advantages of this Internet community whose purpose is to allow its members to exchange their personal knowledge about a web site. According to WOT, the user community now has reputation data on over 17 million sites worldwide.

The shared information on a site’s reputation includes trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy, and child safety. In addition, WOT uses hundreds of trusted sources including phishing site listings, to keep users protected against rapidly spreading threats.

Based on the information I gathered I decided to test this browser add-on for 30 days. A major attraction for me was WOT’s ability to provide information on the reliability/unreliability of online shopping sites. I was so impressed with WOT’s functionality that I have kept this browser add-on as part of my permanent security armor.

People-driven security is an idea whose time has finally arrived. An obvious advantage of the Internet is the gathering and dissemination of information. What better way to use the Internet then, than to provide critical security information gathered from web users, to the people most in need of this information; other web users.

Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the Internet Storm Center (ISC), has been quoted as saying with respect to people driven security “The good guys need to out-share the bad guys to help counter them.” Given the unstable state of Internet security, it would be difficult to disagree with the sentiment expressed in this statement.

Quick facts – WOT checks the following:

• Trustworthiness
• Vendor reliability
• Privacy
• Child Safety
  

 

WOT is free and it’s available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Download at: MyWot

Rootkits – Kernel Mode Trojans – Are You Protected?

A rootkit is a malware program, or a combination of malware programs, designed to take low level control of a computer system. Often, they are Trojans or Keyloggers as well.

Techniques used to hide rootkits include, concealing running processes from monitoring programs, and hiding files or system data from the operating system. In other words, the rootkit’ files and processes will be hidden in Explorer, Task Manager, and other detection tools.

It’s easy to see then, that if a threat uses rootkit technology to hide, it is going to be very difficult to find.

All power to the major anti-malware companies though; many have come up with a free serviceable solution to rootkits. Enter the Rootkit detector which will give you the tool to find and delete rootkits, and to uncover the threat rootkits may be hiding.

Generally, rootkit detectors are capable of the following type of scans, although it is important to note that not all scan, or handle rootkits, in precisely the same way.

· hidden processes

· hidden threads

· hidden modules

· hidden services

· hidden files

· hidden Alternate Data Streams

· hidden registry keys

· drivers hooking SSDT

· drivers hooking IDT

· drivers hooking IRP calls

If you think you might have hidden malware on your system, I recommend that you run multiple rootkit detectors. Much like anti-spyware programs, no one program catches everything. To be safe, I use each of the rootkit detectors listed below on my machines.

The following are a number of free rootkit detectors available for download.

AVG Anti-rootkit

The AVG Anti-rootkit download is a tiny 414kb, and it installs quickly. Its straightforward, no-frills interface allows a regular search and an in-depth search.

Download here: www.free.grisoft.com

Microsoft Rootkit Revealer

Microsoft Rootkit Revealer is an advanced root kit detection utility. Its output lists Registry and file system API discrepancies that may indicate the presence of a user-mode or kernel-mode rootkit. According to Microsoft, Rootkit Revealer successfully detects all persistent rootkits published at http://www.rootkit.com, including AFX, Vanquish and Hacker Defender.

Download here: www.download.com

IceSword

IceSword is a very powerful software application that will scan your computer for rootkits. It also displays hidden processes and resources on your system that you would be unlikely to find in any other Windows Explorer like program. Because of the amount of information presented in the application, please note that IceSword was designed for more advanced users.

Download here: www.majorgeeks.com

GMER

This freeware tool is essentially a combination of Sysinternals’ Rootkit Revealer and Process Explorer. The program can list running processes, modules and Windows services, in addition to scanning for the presence of rootkits.

Download here: www.gmer.net/files.php

I Got a Refund Notice from the IRS – Except I’m a Canadian – What a Scam!

Like you, I love to get money back from the government. Since I am a Canadian, and I reside in Canada, when I do receive a refund on my income taxes that money comes from the government of Canada. Imagine my surprise then, when I received an email purportedly from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service advising me that I was eligible to receive an income tax refund of $873.20.

Tax refund (Message ID L9238s7ds8)‏
From:	Internal Revenue Service (efile@re-fund.co.us)
Sent:	February 23, 2008 9:51:16 PM
Reply-to:	efile@re-fund.co.us
To:

A Secure Way to Receive Your Tax Refund

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that
you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $873.20.
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-9 days in order to
process it.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.
To access the form for your tax refund, please click here
Note: For security reasons, we will record your ip-address, the date and time.
Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.
Regards,
Internal Revenue Service
Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved.

Unfortunately, since I am Canadian I will not be getting a refund from the IRS, but instead the scammers responsible for this email expected that I would click on the enclosed link. Clicking on the link would have begun the process whereby the scammers would have stripped me of all the confidential information I was willing to provide. The scammers would then have used the information to commit identity and financial theft.

The reality is of course, the IRS doesn’t send out unsolicited emails asking for personal or financial information. Credit card numbers, ATM PIN numbers and additional financial would never be required to find out the current status of your tax return, or your tax refund. The link in these phishing emails goes to a fraudulent IRS website, (http://spanishmegapixel.com/tien.da/images/.e-f), hosted abroad.

According to the IRS there are over 1600 IRS phishing sites operating, or online, at any given time in search of potential victims willing to hand over sensitive financial data. It’s easy to see that the email I received is not an isolated incident. The IRS goes on to say that by their estimates, 1% of all spam email is an IRS phishing scam.

What makes this particular scam so potent is the average person, on receiving an email from an authoritative source, generally lowers their defenses. As well, giving the time of year, the timing is right. Be warned, IRS scam emails always ramp up before tax day and continue for some time afterwards.

You know what to do right? Follow the tips below to protect yourself against these threats:

• Your bank, the IRS, or any other legitimate organization will never ask you to divulge account information or passwords via email. Never give out this information, especially via email.
• Don’t open emails that come from untrusted sources.
• Don’t run files that you receive via email without making sure of their origin.
• Don’t click links in emails. If they come from a known source, type them on the browser’s address bar. If they come from an untrusted source, simply ignore them.
• Keep your computer protected. Install a security solution and keep it up-to-date. Also, before carrying out any kind of financial transaction on the Web, scan your computer with a second-opinion security solution, like NanoScan at www.nanoscan.com.
  

 

Elsewhere in this Blog you can download freeware anti-malware solutions that provide excellent overall security protection. Click here.

Be kind to your friends, relatives and associates and let them know that these types of scams are now epidemic on the Internet. In that way, it raises the level of protection for all of us.

To help you fight back, the following information has been taken from the official IRS web site and provides instructions on how to assist the IRS in shutting down these schemes.

The good news is that you can help shut down these schemes and prevent others from being victimized. If you receive a suspicious e-mail that claims to come from the IRS, you can relay that e-mail to a new IRS mailbox, phishing@irs.gov.

Follow instructions in the link below for sending the bogus e-mail to ensure that it retains critical elements found in the original e-mail. The IRS can use the information, URLs and links in the suspicious e-mails you send to trace the hosting Web site and alert authorities to help shut down the fraudulent sites. Unfortunately, due to the expected volume, the IRS will not be able to acknowledge receipt or respond to you.

IRS reporting site: phishing@irs.gov

Web Site Spoofing – The Danger of Public Proxy Servers

A week or so ago I wrote an article on Surfing on Public Computers? – Stay Anonymous in which I stated, “You have a number of choices when it comes to anonymous surfing. You can use a free proxy server service; not my personal first choice – but that’s fodder for another article!” 

Now comes word from Panda Security that in some cases public proxy DNS’s, the database that associates numeric IP addresses (206.4.XX.XXX) with URLs, microsoft.com for example, have been known to have been modified. 

The modification consists of changing the legitimate association for a fraudulent one, so that when users type a specific URL, they are redirected to a fraudulent page.  For example, if users try to log onto their banking web site, the server could redirect them to a phishing site which resembles the legitimate page, but which is designed to steal their bank details.

According to Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs, “The danger of this type of attack is, users with malware-free, up-to-date computers with a good firewall, etc. could fall victims to these attacks”. 

To reduce the risk of phishing attacks it’s important not to use anonymizer services if you’re accessing sites at which confidential data (e.g. online banks, pay platforms, etc.), is being transmitted. 

It’s equally as important that you use a browser add-on such as McAfee Site Advisor, LinkScanner Lite, or WOT (Web of Trust), so that you have a first line of defense against this type of attack. 

If you’re interested in learning more about web spoofing, there is an excellent article at Princeton University’s web site entitled Web Spoofing: An Internet Con Game

5 More Gigs On-line Storage – Microsoft Windows Live SkyDrive

Microsoft has officially launched an online storage service that lets you securely upload and share documents, photos and music on the web for free. 

Windows Live SkyDrive came out of beta format in 38 countries yesterday and contains a significant increase in storage size from 1GB to 5GB. 

Files can be easily accessed anywhere, at any time, on the web. Users can even share files via email whether the recipient has a Windows Live ID or not. 

The 4GB increase in storage capacity to 5GB gives you enough space to upload around 1,000 songs, 30,000 Office documents of average size, or 30,000 digital photos at a resolution of 1200×1200. 

SkyDrive has three options for storing and sharing files, ranging from keeping all files personal, sharing them with people you select, or making them public to anyone on the internet. 

Furthermore, with the permission settings users can limit the actions of others when accessing files in the shared area by letting them add and change files or only read files. 

From Microsoft’s Site:

• 5 GB of free online storage, available from any computer with Internet access.
• Create personal, shared, and public folders — you decide who has access to each folder.
• Windows Live SkyDrive works well on any Windows or Macintosh computer with Firefox 1.5 or higher, or Internet Explorer 6 or higher.
• Your personal folders are password-protected with your Windows Live ID, so only you have access.
• When you create a shared folder, the friends you’re sharing with need to sign in with their own Windows Live ID and password.
• Just like at your online bank, all file transfers are protected using Secure Socket Layers (SSL).

Learn more at: Windows Live SkyDrive

 

You can read more on additional free on-line backup sites on this Blog at, So You Want FREE Online Backup?

Here’s a Complement – Not!

As a matter of principal I make it a habit to reply to all comments left on my Blogs. After all, if someone has taken the time to read an article I wrote and then took the time to comment on that article, they deserve an acknowledgement of the comment.

There was a kind of delicious irony involved then, when a scammer/phisher recently commented on my article “Rogue Security Software on the Rise – What You Need to Know Now!” The article described in detail the concept of rogue software and how to guard against it.

In this particular case the cyber crook simply wrote “good job”, as his comment. Now he might actually have meant this to be a complement, perhaps something along the lines of 🙂 “Hey, you know what we’re really all about, don’t you?”. More likely I suspect he assumed that if I replied to his comment, I would do so without verifying the integrity of both his email mail address and his referring web site.

Because cyber crooks use every method that they can to defraud us, I am as careful in responding to comments as I am to any other form of web activity. So it’s my standard practice to verify email addresses and referring websites of those readers who choose to leave a comment, unless of course they are regular commentators.

On checking the website referred to in this reader’s comment I found the following site information through McAfee Site Advisor.

This example points out, once again, that all of us need to be armed with the appropriate tools to keep us safe on the Internet. None of us is safe from potential manipulative attempts to defraud us. In this particular case, McAfee Site Advisor was up to the task of keeping me safe and protecting me from this phishing site.

It’s also possible that this site is even more dangerous than it appears. Very likely it is seeded with drive-by downloads, as well as being a phishing site as pointed out by McAfee Site Advisor.

If you don’t have McAfee Site Advisor and you would like to read a review and download it then read my article, “Don’t Have McAfee Site Advisor? Then How Do You Know Where You Are on the Net?”

If you would like to read the previous articles discussed in this article, please see the following links.

“The Paradox Created by Firewalls/Security Applications – Drive-by Downloads”

If you missed “Rogue Security Software on the Rise – What You Need to Know Now!” you can read it here.

Hard Drive Maintenance/Free Diagnostic Applications

Your hard drive is the workhorse of your computer, but do you really know what it’s up to in there? Here’s a brief description of how your hard drive works, and what you can do to make sure it keeps working the way it should.

How it works

When you save a file to your hard drive, it is magnetically recorded onto a platter inside your hard drive. Most hard drives have several platters mounted on a spindle that allows them to spin as fast as 15,000 times per minute. Each two-sided platter is mounted on a single arm with a slider that lets the heads move across the surface of the platter to access data.The amount of data each platter can hold is usually measured in Tracks Per Inch, where a track equals one concentric ring around a disk.

Because of the amount of data that can be stored in a single track, each track is divided into sectors, and when you save data to the disk, it is referenced according to its track and sector.

Organize your hard drive

Occasionally your hard drive will make a whirring sound as it searches for a file. This is the sound of the platters spinning as the read heads zoom back and forth to access each sector where the data has been stored. You can speed up this process by periodically “defragging” your hard drive. The Windows Disk Defragmenter utility reorganizes the scattered data on your hard drive to make your files run more efficiently. It also moves the files that you use most often to the beginning of the hard disk where they’ll load faster.

To run Disk Defragmenter in Windows XP, follow these directions:

Click Start > Programs > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.

You should analyze a drive (volume) before defragmenting it. Because defragmenting may take considerable time, this tells you whether you need to take the time to perform this task. Click the Analyze button.

A drive must have at least 15 percent free space for Disk Defragmenter to completely and adequately defragment it. Disk Defragmenter uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15 percent free space, Disk Defragmenter will only partially defragment it. To increase the free space on a volume, delete unneeded files or move them to another disk.

Click the Defragment button.

To interrupt or temporarily stop defragmenting a volume, click Stop or Pause, respectively. The bottom frame displays a graphical representation of the utilities progress.

Disk Cleanup

Another powerful utility that comes with Windows is Disk Cleanup. This application allows you to easily sort through and delete unused and temporary files, freeing space on your hard drive and speeding up its operation.

To run Disk Cleanup, Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools and select Disk Cleanup.

Choose the drive you want to scan from the drop-down menu, and wait while the program calculates how much disk space is available for cleanup.

On the Disk Cleanup tab, check the boxes next to the types of files you want to remove.

Temporary Internet Files are Web pages stored on your hard drive for quick access. Deleting these files will leave intact your Internet browser preferences and bookmarks.

Downloaded Program Files are Java and ActiveX applications downloaded from the Internet to view certain pages.

The Recycle Bin contains files you have deleted from your system. They are not permanently removed until you empty the bin.

Temporary Files are created by some applications to temporarily store data. Typically, the data is deleted when the program closes, and it is safe to delete these files if they have not been modified in over a week. Clicking the View Files button will display the files to be deleted in a separate window.

To remove Windows components or unused programs, click the More Options tab. Clicking the appropriate Cleanup button will open the Add/Remove Programs utility, where you can then select what you would like to delete.

ScanDisk

If you’ve ever turned off your computer without properly shutting down the system (or had to restart after a crash), then you’ve probably seen your computer run a utility called ScanDisk. ScanDisk checks the hard drive for errors and, if it finds any, marks the cluster of sectors containing the error as unusable, so that no data can be written to or read from that portion of the disk.You can also run ScanDisk from within Windows. This allows you to do a more thorough scan of your hard drive and detect errors that might make it difficult or impossible to read or write to the disk.

To run ScanDisk in Windows 98, and Windows Millennium:

Click Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > ScanDisk.

Select Thorough under Type of Test.

Click Start to begin the scan.

Windows XP refers to ScanDisk as an “error-checking” tool; to perform error-checking, follow these directions:

Open My Computer, then select the local disk you want to check.

On the File menu, click Properties.

On the Tools tab, under Error-checking, click Check Now.

Under Check Disk options, select the “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” box. ScanDisk should take only a few minutes to run, and should probably be done every two or three months. It will give you a report of the number and types of errors it has found, and can even automatically repair some of these errors.

More serious errors can be repaired by reformatting the drive, if the errors are “soft” errors (which means that the magnetic signal on the disk is weak or the formatting is bad).”Hard” errors, however, refer to actual physical damage to the disk, such as a scratch or a bump, and cannot be repaired.

If you have a large number of hard errors on your disk, you will probably need to replace your hard drive.The average life span for today’s hard drive is between three and five years. Simple maintenance can keep your hard drive running smoothly well past the time it has become obsolete.

Luckily, today’s hard drives rarely fail without a warning given well in advance. All modern disks are equipped with a feature called S.M.A.R.T. that allows real-time analysis and the reporting of any developing problems and potential issues. The big question is: can you read the warnings?

The following free applications take the guesswork out of the equation, and they make it easier for you to diagnose what’s really happening with your Hard Drives.

Disk Heal

• Disk Heal fixes these problems with just one click.
• Fixes Task Manager Inaccessibility
• Fixes Folder Options inaccessibility
• Fixes Registry Editor Inaccessibility
• Fixes File/Folder inaccessibility:
• Has a virus hidden your files/folders and you cannot unhide it, use disk heal to fix this problem.

For more info go to: Lugsoft

Emsa Disk Check – CD/DVD/HDD Disk Diagnostic Utility
Emsa Disk Check is a dual-purpose utility, for disk checking (prescan and full disk reading) and also benchmarking. It scans/reads the entire contents of a disk (CD, DVD or hard drive; or even floppy), and it shows any read errors that may appear. In addition, it shows drive speed information, progress statistics and so on. It was designed with simplicity in mind, but ease of use for you.

Emsa DiskCheck main features:

• Useful to quickly and fully scan removable disks like CD, DVD for surface defects like disk scratch problems, bad CD-R/RW DVD-R/RW writes, etc.
• Can check CD-ROM, DVD, hard disks, even floppy disks.
• Useful for benchmarking a drive, be it CD, DVD or HDD.
• Shows ‘locked’ files on disks.
• Useful speed comparison (shows the ‘X’ multiplier speed comparison with CDs and DVDs) with possibility of switching in CD/DVD ‘X’ mode.
• It scans/reads a disk fully until completion or user stop, at the maximal speed available.
• Reports progress, statistics (files, folders, time elapsed, estimated time remaining).
• Reports any errors encountered (error count and log entry for each).
• Prescan accesses the disk table of contents and computes file information, showing the total number of files and folders and total space on disk before running the full scan.

Download at: e-systemsHDDlife

Knowing about the possible failure of your hard drive means having time to prevent all your data from being lost HDDlife is a program that will allow you to control the health of your hard drive using an intuitive interface. Just run the program and it will show you the list of your disks with the percentage of their health left, as well as their temperature.

Main features:

• Controlling the health of your hard drives using the S. M. A. R. T. technology.
• Constantly monitoring the state of your hard drives in the background mode.
• Displaying the temperature of your hard drives.
• Disk free space info and control.

The current version supports IDE, Serial ATA and SCSI disks with standard controllers, while external, IDE RAID and SCSI RAID controllers are not supported.

Download at: hddlife.com

Don’t forget, that Hard Drive diagnostic software is offered free from all the major hard drive manufacturers. Check out their sites.

Western Digital Support:

Samsung:

Seagate:

Please note that since Seagate purchased Maxtor, the download sites are identical.

Maxtor:

Save Time/Resources – Free Virtual CloneDrive

Generally, operating systems, particularly Linux and its many derivatives are available for download on the Internet packaged as an image file, e.g. an .ISO file, or as a .BIN/.CUE file. As well, larger applications are also packaged for download in this way.

To explain briefly: a disk image is a computer file containing the complete contents and structure of a data storage medium or device, such as a hard drive, CD or DVD. As such, a disk image contains all the information necessary to replicate the structure and contents layout, as well as the actual contents, of a storage device.

Since I download and test operating systems and large applications frequently, over the course of the last year I could have easily burned up to 50+ CD’s or DVD’s just to use or install the software for testing. But by having Virtual CloneDrive installed on my test system, I saved time and resources.

Virtual CloneDrive is a small freeware application that allows you to mount image files, from a hard drive, as a virtual CD or DVD drive, just as if you had inserted the application into a physical CD/DVD drive.

Once Virtual CloneDrive is installed on your system it will be assigned a drive letter, and will appear as a drive in Windows explorer.

To mount an image file navigate to the file and right-click. When the menu pops up simply navigate to Open with > Mount Files with Virtual CloneDrive. This will create a new drive letter so that you can access the file.

An added benefit for those with a larger hard drive is, you now have the option of converting your CDs and DVDs into files that run directly from your hard drive. You can play games without inserting the physical discs — simply click on a desktop icon to launch a virtual optical drive. You can share virtual CDs, photo CDs, and disc-based applications over a network, with access rates up to 200 times faster than physical CDs; boosting the performance of PC games, photo CDs, and disc-based applications.

Quick facts:

• Supports all common image formats such as ISO, BIN, CCD
• Supports up to 8 virtual drives at the same time
• Easy to use – just double-click an image file to mount as a drive
• Virtual CloneDrive is freeware

Download from: Elaborate Bytes AG