Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

downloaders posts

Filed under: Fun, Games, Utilities, Microsoft, Freeware

Use PopFly Game Downloader to nab your faves before it shuts down

Microsoft may be pulling the pin on Popfly, but that doesn't mean you have to kiss your favorite games goodbye.

What's that you say? You didn't even know there were games on Popfly? Well, there are - and some are actually pretty fun.

Over at Coding4Fun, they've released a handy tool that allows you to save the games you enjoy forever and ever. Or at least until you grow weary and decide it's time to delete them from your hard drive to make room for something else.

Make sure you've got the .Net 2.0 framework and Silverlight installed, you're going to need them!

[via Channel 10]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Lists, Windows x64

5 great program downloaders and updaters for Windows


One big ease-of-use advantage Linux distributions have over Windows is the process of installing and updating applications - thanks to repositories and software like Debian's apt-get. Running Windows doesn't mean that you can't easily maintain your app installs. With a few helpful (and free) downloaders you can add that missing functionliaty to your system, too!

Here are five that I find particularly helpful - share your favorites in the comments!

Anti-Malware Toolkit (pictured above) - If you download malware fighting apps frequently, you need AMT. Nearly 40 programs are supported, including must-haves like MalwareBytes, CCleaner, Autoruns, Unlocker, Rootkit Revealer, and more. AMT also supports command line arguments for easy batch scripting and scheduling.

Read more →

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Utilities, Web services

LastSharp silently downloads MP3s from Last.Fm playlists


Last.Fm is one of the better streaming music services around, but you're probably wishing you could save the tracks it plays. Brush up on your German (or just keep reading) and grab LastSharp, and you'll be downloading in no time flat.

The download link on the author's site is just below the Aktuelle Version text (to save hassles, it points to RapidShare or you can find mirrors on Rapidspread). LastSharp doesn't require installation, just extract the contents of the rar file. As you may have guessed from the name, you'll also need the .Net 2.0 runtimes to use it.

When you launch it the first time, the interface will be in German. To change it, click the tab marked Erweiterte Einstellungen. Click the dropdown marked Deutsh and change it to English, then close and restart the program.

Log in with your Last.Fm username and password, and enter your search text - results are displayed neatly in the "Tune In" box. Downloading is as simple as checking the songs you want and marking the Continue Downloading Automatically option (otherwise you'll be grabbing them one at a time).

LastSharp has a lot of useful options, including on-the-fly normalization with MP3gain, automatic scrobbling, cover downloading, and filtering. Downloads are automatically filed in a tidy Artist -> Album name folder structure.

This is a great app for music downloaders, and I hope it sticks around long enough after this post goes live for our DS readers to enjoy it.

[via gHacks]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

QWinApt Wants to Be Synaptic When it Grows Up

With the number of apps I'm downloading steadily on the rise, I'm always on the lookout for tools to simplify the process for me. QWinApt aims to give us poor Windows users a utility with the same killer functionality of Linux's Synaptic package manager. It's a great idea, and an improvement from Win-get (which Brad reviewed in 2007), but it's still not quite up to par with its Linux cousins.

Getting QWinApt running requires two small downloads, the core app itself and wget to actually do the downloading. Extract them both to the same folder, launch the executable and you're on your way. All that's left is to choose a location for your downloads, and the package manager will open.

The graphical frontend is clean and simple (we'll overlook grammar and spelling - it's free, right?) and breaks down applications into main categories. Those categories are repeated in your download folder, so when you check an app (or apps) and hit apply, they'll download into the matching folder.

Then you're on your own. Unlike Linux the installers won't launch silently, you'll have to soldier through them yourself, which is QWinApt's biggest limitation. If you maintain an app store on a file server, however, it does offer a simple way to bulk download a number of good quality apps without having to visit dozens of different websites.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio

Joystiq

TUAW

Daily Finance

Autoblog

Urlesque

Engadget

WoW

Switched.com

FanHouse