Monday, October 7, 2002		Downloads

MOST home computers are family systems used by different family members at different times. Thus it is necessary to have some kind of control over its usage especially by children. This fortnight we feature one such freeware that lets you control and monitor PC usage. Another freeware featured is a media player that supports DVD format in addition to any media files that can be played by the normal Windows Media Player. Considering its features, it is hard to believe it is a freeware. But the Net has lots of program writers who believe in making available quality programs free to Netizens.

This is a program that lets you restrict kids from visiting Websites and news groups that may contain pernicious information. It can block e-mails, chat sessions, and instant messages if they contain inappropriate words. It can control the list of applications that can have access to the Internet. Besides it will set a schedule to specify days and times when online activity is allowed. It secures your computer against hackers’ attacks and defends your confidential data from Trojan horses and spyware. This freeware will filter boring advertisements; decrease the traffic of junk information to your computer and save your time and money. It will get detailed information about Internet resources used by your computer, Websites that have been visited by your computer, amount of data that have been sent or received from/to your computer network resource usage and the activity of the Internet applications on your computer. You can view the data of log files in the user-friendly form of charts or diagrams. It can also save on the hard drive all Internet content that has been downloaded. With iProtect, you will get a huge built-in database with pre-selected bad sites and news groups. iProtectYou does not gather any private information about you or your computer’s activity and does not send anything to any third party and does not show annoying banners either. You can download it from this site www.softforyou.com

This is a robust media and DVD front-end player. Zoom player was designed to be simple at first glance while being remarkably dynamic and flexible when used to its full potential. It works in two modes. A Media mode that can play any file supported by DirectShow (any file which plays in MediaPlayer) and a DVD mode which uses pre-installed DirectShow DVD filters to play DVD content. Its specific DVD features include: DVD Front-End navigation using any DirectShow compatible combination of DVD Decoder filters, automatic and manual DVD Graph Construction with many pre-built profiles for easy selection and registration of filters, DVD Overlay Colour control including an easy to use on-screen interface, smart DVD bookmark system, auto loading of selected bookmarks on play to bypass previously seen DVD menus, auto saving last disc’s position for automatic resume at later times, auto saving of disc definition file which includes a per-disc setting for later use and the ability to assign DVD-Insert notification to Zoom player or any other program. It has DVD Trailers interface allowing you to play trailers prior to starting the movie. Zoom Player has a per-file chaptering system allowing you to save pertinent information about played file that can be recalled the next time the file is opened. It gives easy access to popular audio/video interfaces such as DivX/MPEG4 dialogs. It provides rewind support in all media formats. It works with most Windows operating systems, including NT4. It is lightweight and doesn’t take over the system. While some of the settings may seem intimidating, you can be rest assured that the online help covers each function in detail. This program is freeware. Download from www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml