Friday is Free Day – Orbit Downloader

Third-party download managers makes the process of downloading files from the web faster. They also provide you options to pause and resume the task. On today’s Friday is Free Day, I’ll feature Orbit Downloader and share other tasks it can do.

Orbit Downloader

Orbit Downloader is a free download manager for Windows. Just like any other download manager, Orbit splits the file into chunks and downloads the segmented file in parallel – making the download faster compared to built-in download managers of web browsers. Once installed, the “Download by Orbit” task is added on your browser’s context menu. This app works with browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Netscape, Safari, Opera, and Maxthon. It supports the following protocols:

1. HTTP
2. HTTPS
3. FTP
4. MMS
5. RTSP
6. RTMP

Grab++ is another feature of Orbit. It enables users to grab streaming music and videos from YouTube, Metacafe, Pandora, and MySpace. Just hover your mouse pointer on a video and a “GetIt” menu will appear.

One problem with Orbit is that it hijacks certain browser settings after you install – like changing the homepage and search engine. This may be avoided by doing a customized installation where you can specify if the app will override your browser settings or not.

You may download Orbit from it’s website.

PacMan Doodle

Chomp! Chomp!

In case you didn’t know or you weren’t able to see it, Google rolled out the PacMan doodle to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the game’s release last Saturday, May 22. However, this doodle is different from the others – it’s interactive and playable.  And yes, it’s now available for download and may be played offline.

The game may be downloaded from macek’s github page. Just click the “Download Source” button found on the upper right portion of the page. Extract the downloaded zip file and open the “index.html” document using your browser.

Sound issue is also resolved for the offline version. According to macek, you have to make flash trust your local SWF file. To do this, you must add the directory of your unzipped Google PacMan to the allow list using the Flash Control Panel.

On the Flash Control Panel:

1. Click “Edit Locations”.

2. Click “Add Location”.

3. Browse for your unzipped Google PacMan directory.

4. Click “Confirm”.

Source
macek’s github page

Friday is Free Day – CCleaner

Everybody loves freewares – from audio editors and graphics design to games and computer maintenance. If you can just maximize or use it efficiently, you’ll get almost the same result as its paid version counterpart.

My thumb drive is full of freewares and I use them most for computer maintenance. I just thought of sharing them and that’s how the “Friday is Free Day” concept came up. Every 1st and last Fridays of the month, I’ll feature freewares that may be essential to computer users. It could be for Windows, Linux, or Mac. If you want a freeware to be featured, send me an email at aenguillo [at] gmail [dot] com.

CCleaner

First up – CCleaner.

With this freeware from Piriform, you can recover drive space as it removes unused and useless files like history, temporary files, and cookies created by web browsers. On the other hand, Windows’  Recycle Bin and Recent Documents folder are cleaned while temporary and log files are deleted. However, only the current user’s temporary files and folders are cleaned.

CCleaner also has a registry cleaner to locate and fix problems in the Registry. An msconfig-like utility is also added which alters Windows’ startup programs. And finally the program may also be used to uninstall programs.

This application is now on version 2.31. It was rebuilt in C++ and is compatible to 64-bit versions of Windows. If you’re having problems with your current version of CCleaner, it is advised that you install and download its version 2.

You may download CCleaner from Piriform’s website or from FileHippo.