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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Volery relaunches as Ninite - still a hassle-free way to install great, free software

While most users won't find Ninite all that useful (there is one exception which I'll be writing about later today), the "computer friend" or family technician will probably love it.

Instead of sitting around while you wait for a dozen of your favorite apps to finish installing on a pal's computer, just check off what you want on the Ninite web site, launch your customized installer, and sit back while the magic happens. Or raid your buddy's fridge - hey, even free work deserves some kind of compensation, right?

The list of available apps has increased since Volery debuted, and now includes more than 50. Among them are favorites like Firefox, Google Chrome, Skype, VLC, OpenOffice, Microsoft Security Essentials, ImgBurn, 7-zip, and many others.

As Brad mentioned before, pay-only pro options are coming but details are still a bit unclear. According to the site, they may include things like local and network share download caching, as well as a totally silent mode.

Now, as freeware or donationware I think Ninite makes sense. I'm not sure users who would find the advanced features useful will be all that excited about paying. After all, you can pull off this kind of kung fu with Ketarin and a little bit of elbow grease -- and Ketarin is completely free.

Pro tip: when you launch your customized installer on Vista or Windows 7, you may need to right-click and run as administrator for Ninite to install properly.

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Beta

Create one installer for dozens of apps with Volery

Volery
If you're going to be buying a new computer soon, or if you regularly work on a number of different computers, you're probably going to spend a fair bit of time installing the latest version of a bunch of applications that you use most frequently. And that means downloading a bunch of apps, and then clicking next a few dozen times to until everything is configured properly.

Or you can use Volery. This service lets you create a single installer for dozens of popular freeware applications. You can pick and choose from a long list of web browsers, multimedia applications, and other utilities. Honestly, almost every application I use on a daily basis was on the list. And if you wish a program that wasn't on the list was included, you can fill out the suggest an app box at the bottom of the page.

Once you choose your applications, you just click the Get Installer button and Volery will download all of the programs and create a single installer. Click it to run, and the installer will load all of the selected applications onto your PC. The apps will all be installed to their default directories and shortcuts will be added to your desktop and Start Menu. You don't get all the advanced installation options you might be used to, but the fact that you can leave the installer running unattended kind of makes up for that.

Volery is in private beta at the moment, but the first 500 people to sign up using the following link should be able to get in on the action:


The program is free while in beta, but eventually the company plans to charge for access to the service. In other words, there will never be any offers to install the Google Toolbar or other applications that you didn't ask for during the installation process.

Final pricing hasn't been set yet, and while the company will begin charging for service, any installers you create with a beta account will continue to work even after Volery goes pro. Of course, if you want to create installers with the most up-to-date versions of each application, you'll need to pay up.

[via How-To Geek]

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