According to people who have tested the first beta of Windows 7, this might be the fastest OS when compared to Windows Vista and XP.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from ZDNet has run some test on Windows 7 Beta 1, to see how it performs compared to Vista and XP, here are the results:

From the test’s above, I think we can conclude that Windows 7 really is much faster then Microsoft’s previous Operating systems. Windows Vista was a failure, but it sure looks like Windows 7 will make up for that.
Of course this is the first beta of Windows 7, and the code will be improved before the final release, so we can expect to see more new features, and maybe increased performance ?

Source: ZDNet
View: Windows 7 Home Page
View: Windows Team Blog

FileZilla is powerful Open Source FTP/SFTP client with many features. It includes a site manager to store all your connection details and logins as well as an Explorer style interface that shows the local and remote folders and can be customized independently. The program offers support for firewalls and proxy connections as well as SSL and Kerberos GSS security. Additional features include keep alive, auto ascii/binary transfer, download queue, manual transfers, raw FTP commands and more.

Changelog:

- Change wording of some strings
- Support yet another directory listing variant on obscure MVS style systems
- Fix odd behavior if deleting items from site manager
- Do not show proxy password in message log on SFTP connections
- Properly display “bytes” suffix in filelist status bar if not using thousands separator

Download: FileZilla 3.2.0 RC 2
View: Filezilla Home Page

7-Zip is a file archiver much like winzip, only with a better compression ratio.
Further more 7-Zip is open source software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license, meaning that it’s 100% free to use.

Main features:

• High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
• Supported formats:
  -Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
  -Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
• For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
• Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
• Self-extracting capability for 7z format
• Integration with Windows Shell
• Powerful File Manager
• Powerful command line version
• Plugin for FAR Manager
• Localizations for 69 languages

Changelog:

• The bug in 7-Zip 4.63 was fixed: 7-Zip could not decrypt .ZIP archives encrypted with WinZip-AES method.

Download: 7-Zip 4.64
View: 7-Zip Home Page

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Seen you in 2009

FileZilla is powerful Open Source FTP/SFTP client with many features. It includes a site manager to store all your connection details and logins as well as an Explorer style interface that shows the local and remote folders and can be customized independently. The program offers support for firewalls and proxy connections as well as SSL and Kerberos GSS security. Additional features include keep alive, auto ascii/binary transfer, download queue, manual transfers, raw FTP commands and more.

Changelog:

+ Bookmarks
+ Logging to file
+ *nix: Use GNOME’s Session Manager D-Bus API to cleanly shut down FileZilla on end of session
+ MSW: Improve installer’s Vista compatibility.
- *nix: Fix encoding issues with thousands separator in some locales
- Thousands separator on file exists dialog
- Rearrange filter dialog a bit
- Compile fixes for HP-UX

Download: FileZilla 3.2.0 RC 1
View: Filezilla Home Page

BurnAware Free Edition allows you to easily perform the most common disc burning tasks: write to all CD/DVD media types, including Blu-Ray; write Audio CDs and DVD-Video files; create and burn disc images; write multi-session discs and much more.

BurnAware Free Edition has a modern interface and supports Windows 98/NT/2000/XP and Vista (32 and 64 bit). The application is free and contains absolutely no adware or annoying banners.

Features:

• Added Hebrew translation
• Fixed the access violation error in Copy CD/DVD compilation
• Fixed the bug with skipping system or read-only files and folders
• Cosmetic fixes

Download: BurnAware Free Edition 2.2.1
View: BurnAware Free Edition

What’s new:

• CD/DVD/BluRay imaging ability
• Images mounting from image catalog in menu
• Auto update functionality
• Preferences dialog
• Some GUI improvements
• Languages updates

Bugs fixed:

• Images engine bugs
• Device speed detection
• Some minor GUI bugs

Download: DAEMON Tools Lite 4.30.3
View: DAEMON Tools Home Page

7-Zip is a file archiver much like winzip, only with a better compression ratio.
Further more 7-Zip is open source software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license, meaning that it’s 100% free to use.

Main features:

• High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
• Supported formats:
  -Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
  -Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
• For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
• Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
• Self-extracting capability for 7z format
• Integration with Windows Shell
• Powerful File Manager
• Powerful command line version
• Plugin for FAR Manager
• Localizations for 69 languages

Changelog:

• 7-Zip now can unpack ZIP archives encrypted with PKWARE-AES.
• Some bugs were fixed.

Download: 7-Zip 4.63
View: 7-Zip Home Page

Keep Your Vital Information Organized
Thunderbird 2 features many new enhancements to help you better manage your unruly inbox, and stay informed. Thunderbird 2 scales to the most sophisticated organizational needs while making it easy to find what you need.

Secure and Protect Your Mail
Mozilla has bolstered Thunderbird’s acclaimed security and privacy measures to ensure that your communications and identity remain safe. It’s like having your own security guard online.

Get Your Mail, Your Way
Thunderbird allows you to customize your email to suit your specific needs whether it’s how you search and find messages or listening to music right out of your inbox.

Download: Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.19
View: Other languages and systems
View: Home Page

From the makers of CCleaner. Recuva (pronounced “recover”) is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

Changelog:

• Improved messages when cancelling large file recovery.
• Secure delete is now greyed for non-deleted files.
• Improved recovery of .TIF files from FAT32 drives.
• Filter category text now updates dynamically when changing languages.
• Fixed ‘Check for updates’ position in Vista.
• Various minor tweaks and improvements.

Download: Recuva 1.22.384
View: Recuva Homepage