14 vital Internet tools

Saleh Galiwala

June 20, 2008 (PC World) Like most people visiting PCWorld.com, you most likely live on the Internet. And that means you need help — help with your home or business network for accessing the Internet, with troubleshooting, with downloading, and with e-mail, instant messaging and security.

We’ve got that help for you — in 14 great downloads. Whether you need a universal messenger or programs to keep yourself safe, downloadable software can come to the rescue.

General Networking and Internet Tools

Need to troubleshoot your network, manage your downloads or get a free alternative to the bloated Adobe Reader? Here’s where to go. (And that’s just the beginning of these nifty downloads.)

PingInfoView

The simplest of all Internet tools is the humble ping command, which lets you use the command prompt to contact a Web site and see if it is alive and responds to your ping request. It also resolves host names to IP addresses. In other words, if you issue the command ping www.pcworld.com, it will tell you the site’s associated IP address. And it also tells you the speed of the connection and response.

The free PingInfoView makes the simple ping command a lot more useful. It lets you ping multiple Web sites simultaneously, will ping the sites on any schedule you set and displays the results in a graphical interface, rather than in a command prompt.

Is this an earth-shaking tool? Certainly not. But if you use ping at all, you’ll find it a useful, worthy alternative.

Download PingInfoView.

Price: Free

VisualRoute 2008 Lite

Here’s another update of a venerable command-line Internet tool, tracert. This tool displays the route you take to contact a Web server or another Internet device — every hop on every server or router along the way, plus the server’s or router’s IP address and how long it takes to get to each one.

This program displays all that in a visually appealing way, not just through the command line. It shows a map of every hop and graphs it against a background that shows response times. Highlight any hop, and you’ll see important details, such as packet loss and speed.

In addition, the program displays a narrative of the route, detailing whether the route has fast, average or slow throughput and highlighting any problems.

This version of VisualRoute is free, but a variety of for-pay versions is also available, with many extra features that display the network names of devices, test domain-name services and more.

Download VisualRoute 2008 Lite.

Price: Free

Foxit Reader

What’s the most annoying Internet-related application of all time? For many people, that question has a simple answer: Adobe Reader. Countless documents online are in the Acrobat format, so there’s no way around it: You need Adobe Reader. But it’s bloated and prone to crashes, nobody’s idea of a good time.

Foxit Reader is a far better solution. It’s small and loads much faster, so it doesn’t take up much memory when you use it. It also doesn’t seem to suffer from the same instability issues as Adobe Reader does. The program also has some nice extras, such as the ability to embed comments. (However, when you embed comments, the page you mark up will show that you’re using an evaluation version of the software. You can pay for the Pro pack to get rid of those marks and get some other extras as well.)

Note that when I installed the program, it integrated directly into Internet Explorer as the default PDF reader, but it didn’t similarly integrate into Firefox. To make it the default in Firefox, you’ll have to select Tools, Options and then click the Manage button in the File Types area. Double-click each of the files that Adobe Reader opens, and tell Firefox to use Foxit Reader instead.

Download Foxit Reader.

Price: Free

Advanced LAN Scanner

If you’re a techie and have more than one PC at work or home on a network sharing a single Internet connection, you’ll welcome this freebie, which offers surprisingly powerful scanning capabilities. Use it for everything from troubleshooting Internet connections and network configuration to making sure your PCs are as safe as possible when they’re on the Internet.

When you first run the program, you may encounter an error message saying that a default configuration is being used. You can safely ignore that message. Simply click the Scan button, and it goes to work. It looks across your network, finds all PCs on it and then gives you quite a bit of detail about each. Besides the local IP address of each PC, you’ll also find which ports on each PC are open. Armed with that information, you can use a firewall to close them down.

In addition to open and closed ports, you’ll see lots more information, such as what services are running on each PC, the NetBIOS names (if any) associated with each, and even a list of users and groups on each system. If any machines have shared folders, you’ll see those as well. All this data is immensely useful to those who want to keep their PCs secure or need to troubleshoot networks or Internet connections.

Making the software all the more remarkable is the fact that it’s free.

Download Advanced LAN Scanner.

Price: Free

FlashGet

If you live to download, this freebie is for you. It’s a great download manager that will speed up the process, keep you safe and help you organize everything that you’ve downloaded. Flashget makes downloads faster by using multithreading, and it lets you find downloads via many different protocols, including HTTP, FTP and eMule. It’s also terrific at file management, showing you all the files you’ve downloaded, including information about each. You’ll even be able to delete downloaded files from directly in the program.

Making it even more useful is that it integrates with your browser, so whenever you download, it jumps into action. It will also pause and resume downloads and works with your antivirus software to scan for viruses as it downloads.

Download FlashGet.

Price: Free

FileZilla

One of the Internet’s oldest file-transfer protocols — FTP — still lives. Contrary to popular wisdom, not all files are downloaded from Web sites. Many are still downloaded from FTP servers. And many individuals and businesses continue to use FTP as a way to share files. Also, many Internet service providers block large files, so using FTP is a great way around that problem.

FileZilla is an excellent FTP client that combines simplicity with a robust feature set. It has just about every FTP feature you could need, and its interface is easy to use.

Download FileZilla.

Price: Free

Bandwidth Monitor 2 Lite

Here’s a simple, easy way to check on your current bandwidth use — both uploading and downloading — and to track your usage over time. This freebie displays that usage in a constantly changing chart so you can see the fluctuations in real time. It also shows you the current bandwidth use in a text display.

Bandwidth Monitor 2 Lite is quite customizable. For example, you can skin it and change the time span in which it measures bandwidth. Also very helpful is that it will keep logs of your bandwidth usage, so you can make comparisons over time.

Download Bandwidth Monitor 2 Lite.

Price: Free

E-Mail and IM

The Internet is all about communications — but as we all know, it is not always as easy to communicate as we would like. These downloads will help you with e-mail, instant messaging and social networking.

Email Tracker Pro

Tired of being whacked by spam? Not sure if an e-mail message that you received is legitimate or is instead a forgery or from a scammer? Then give this program a try. It gives you a set of tools for examining any e-mail message that pops into your in-box.

The program traces an e-mail back to its true point of origin, shows you the IP address and location of the sender, and tells you whether the e-mail header was tampered with in order to fool you. In addition, it provides contact information for the domain from which the message was sent so that you can report any abuse.

In order to use Email Tracker Pro, you’ll have to copy an e-mail message’s headers into the program. These headers, however, don’t refer to the Subject or From line. Instead, they’re usually something hidden. How you find them varies according to your e-mail software. For example, in Outlook 2007, right click on a message and select Message Options; you’ll then see an Internet headers field.

One obstacle I encountered: The program says that it integrates directly into Outlook, but I was unable to integrate it with Outlook 2007.

Download Email Tracker Pro.

Price: $29.95 (15-day free trial)

ePrompter

If you’ve got multiple Web-based mail accounts, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Windows Live Mail, you can easily spend far too much time checking each account for new mail. This simple freebie neatly solves the problem. It automatically logs you in to all your Web-based e-mail accounts, checks for new mail, then tells you how many new messages you have for each.

In addition, you can read the messages from right within ePrompter, so you don’t have to go to your Web-based mail account. You can also delete and compose mail. When composing or reading, you won’t get a full range of options as you would when you’re on the Web-based mail site. But for quick and dirty e-mail, it’s all you’ll need.

Don’t expect a fancy interface; this program is as bare-bones as you’ll find. Also, it may not be obvious at first how to set up a new mail account; select Menu, New Account and follow the directions.

Note that this program works fine on Windows XP, but I was unable to get it working on Windows Vista. Also, if you have a Hotmail e-mail address, select the LiveMail option in ePrompter when you’re setting up the account to check; I was unable to get it working properly as Hotmail, but it worked fine as LiveMail.

Download ePrompter.

Price: Free

Digsby

The Internet was created as a way to bring people closer, but in some ways, it drives people apart. If you’re an AOL Instant Messenger user, for example, you can’t communicate with someone who uses Yahoo Messenger. And there’s no simple way from an instant messaging program to check your presence on social networking sites such as Facebook or to check e-mail from a Web-based mail site not associated with your instant messenger.

Until Digsby came along, that is. This program is a universal instant messenger, like longtime favorites Trillian and Pidgin. But it does them one better because with it, you can also check your social networking sites and e-mail accounts.

It’s extremely simple to set up any instant messaging, social networking or mail accounts from within the program. And it lets you use just about all the features of any of those programs, such as sending files via instant messaging. Considering that it’s free as well, there’s no reason not to give this tool a try.

When you install this program, by the way, it changes your home page to a Digsby home page, so if you want to retain your current home page, make sure to go into your browser and change it.

Download Digsby.

Price: Free

SMTP Diagnostics

Most of the time, sending e-mail messages goes off without a hitch. Set up your e-mail program to work with an SMTP server, send your messages, and you’re done. But sometimes SMTP — the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol — won’t work, and it’s almost impossible to figure out what’s wrong. Your e-mail program won’t give you any clue about what the error might be. All in all, it can be one of the most maddening of Internet-related problems.

SMTP Diagnostics helps. It performs a complete set of diagnostics on your SMTP connection and provides an in-depth report about any errors. You can then use the report yourself to fix the problem or send the report to your Internet service provider or network administrator, who can track down the cause of the woes.

The program is particularly useful if you’re setting up an e-mail account for the first time and can’t make a connection or if you’re on the road and can’t send mail through a hotel’s broadband connection or a wireless hot spot.

This free client is about as good as it gets when it comes to FTP. It has a simple interface that you can master in about three minutes, yet it still has plenty of powerful features, such as being able to compare local and remote directories. It also lets you have multiple simultaneous connections, for faster transfers.

Download SMTP Diagnostics.

Price: $12 (30-day free trial)

Security

You need to protect yourself when you go online. Download the following programs, and you’ll go a long way toward making sure that the bad guys and bad software won’t get you.

Comodo Firewall Pro

If you’re using the firewall that ships with Windows XP or Vista, you’re not safe enough. They don’t offer customizable outbound protection — important in a world in which spyware is everywhere. This free firewall not only stops inbound and outbound threats, but it also does things such as protecting selected files and folders so that malware can’t get at them or alter them.

When you first start this program, be prepared to spend a little time training it. Whenever a program wants Internet access, Comodo pops up and asks whether you wish to let the program use the Internet. To cut down on those pop-ups, run the program in Clean PC mode, which will scan your PC, find your existing applications, and register them as safe. You then won’t see any pop-ups associated with those programs. And to make sure that Comodo doesn’t interfere with installing software, you can use its Installation mode, which will disable certain pop-ups for 15 minutes, so you can install new software without being annoyed.

Download Comodo Firewall Pro.

Price: Free

Ad-Aware

To use the Internet is to put your PC at risk from spyware, adware, Trojan horses and other malware. Your antivirus program by itself isn’t enough to protect you because it misses many of these malicious programs. This long-time favorite offers a great, no-cost layer of protection.

It does a great job of scanning your PC for threats — including Trojan horses, rootkits and other spyware — warning you about them, then deleting them. It can also put them into quarantine, disabling them but not deleting them, so you can decide what to do about them later.

Even if you already have antispyware on your PC, it’s a good idea to use Ad-Aware as well, because not all spyware scanners find all threats, so using more than one is a good idea.

Download Ad-Aware.

Price: Free

Free Internet Window Washer

Your Internet activity leaves a trail — and one far more traceable than you might imagine. This trail includes cache files, browser history, autocomplete information, cookies, typed URLs and more. This means that anyone with access to your PC can easily see what you’ve been doing online. In some instances, even Web sites can gather information about where you’ve been and what you’ve done.

Free Internet Window Washer ensures your privacy by cleaning all those traces off of your PC. Not only will it remove traces of Internet activity, but it will also clean traces of application activity, such as which files you’ve recently opened in Microsoft Office applications. And it works with multiple browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape and Opera.

Download Free Internet Window Washer.

Price: Free

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I recently purchased an Eee PC 4G (the model with a 7″ display and 4GB of memory) on the cheap. My intent was to look at it for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I viewing it as a tool to help me in my study. In this guise, I’d use it for accessing the Bible (I’m studying theology) and for note taking. This means that I’d need to be able to install some extra software (there are several open source Bible study applications around that use public domain translations of the Bible) and type on it.

Secondly, I plan to use it for occasional web surfing and email access.. That’s where the WiFi connection and, hopefully, 3G and Bluetooth support would be handy.

Thirdly, I attend a lot of meetings in my day job and I prefer to not carry printed papers to meetings. My preference is to take PDF or other documents with me as they’re easy to annotate on the fly and my comments are kept with the original documents.

Finally, the built-in sound recording software was appealing as I could use it while interviewing folks and while at meetings and conferences.

After a couple of days of use I was totally frustrated - enough to use my soapbox at Hydrapinion for a rant titled “Eee PC proves why Linux blows”. You see, installing extra applications to the Eee PC is a pain and, if you manage to install one, getting it to appear on the Eee’s Easy Menu is something of a black art. Yeah, I know I can look to installing another operating system (there are several Linux distros focussed on the Eee PC and there are ways to install Mac OS X (don’t bother, I did it and it was 20 minute experiment that on the 7: screen wasn’t worth the effort) or Windows XP (you’ll need a legitimate copy of XP SP2 for it work) but why should I have to do that to do, what on the face of things, looks to be a reasonably simple task.

Here’s what I learned. Some of this will be dead obvious to those experienced in the use of Linux but given that the Eee PC isn’t pitched specifically at Linux users but at consumer electronics customers after a low-cost computer, I think they’re worth noting. Also, none of this stuff is my own work. I’ll credit, where I can find them, the original sources of what I learned.

Starting the Terminal

Like it or not, getting the most out of Linux requires some access to the Terminal (Windows users would call this a DOS box or Command Prompt). The Eee PC’s Easy Menu doesn’t have a shortcut for launching the Terminal so you’ll need to remember a keyboard shortcut.

To launch the Terminal press Ctrl+Alt+T

Enabling Desktop Mode

The Easy Mode, with it’s large icons is great for quickly finding and launching applications. However, many would prefer a more usual desktop system. That’s why you might like to enable the Full Desktop mode.

To enable Full Desktop mode

1 - Start a Terminal
2 - Enter the following commands

sudo bash
apt-get update
apt-get install ksmserver kicker

Note: When you run something commencing with “sudo”, you’re running it with full system access. Whatever you run as “sudo” will have access to the entire system. That means, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can accidentally mess your system up quite badly.

Exit the Terminal (just type “exit”) and then restart your Eee PC.

Now, when you press the power button, you’ll have a button to run the Full Desktop, in addition to usual Stand By, Restart and Shut Down options.

As the Eee PC runs a version of the Linux distribution called Xandros that has a very strong resemblance to Windows XP. For many people, Full Desktop might be a more familiar experience and a preferred way of working. You can boot to the Full Desktop automatically by enabling it as a permanent option by going to Settings -> Personalisation and checking the Full Desktop option.

Source: My main source for this information was Eeeuser.org

Installing Applications

For Eee PC users, installing new applications is one of the confusing things they have to do. What makes it worse is that Easy Mode, even after a successful installation, doesn’t provide easy access to the installed application.

In order to understand application installation I think a very short history lesson is in order. If you’re a Windows or Mac user, you know that, even though new versions are released regularly, that the operating system is evolving in a single direction. Linux is different. Even though, many, many moons ago there was a single Linux, it’s evolved so that there are several different types of Linux. Each type of Linux is called a distribution. Each different distribution has its own unique features.

What you need to know is that just because something works on one distribution Linux it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’ll work on all or any of the others. Now, the Eee PC runs a version of Xandros that’s been customised for the Eee PC. Xandros is a Linux distribution that sprouted from Debian so what you find is that applications written for Xandros and Debian can usually work on the Eee PC.

I’ve had some success installing Debian applications

My operating system history starts at DOS 5 and Windows 3.0 and goes through all the flavours of Windows (except Windows ME thankfully). Also, I’ve been a Mac user for about five yearts so drag and drop installation is second nature. Essentially, that means that i’m used to running an installation package and having access to the installed application a few minutes later.

Linux is different as there are many ways to install applications. Firstly, you can download source code and compile it yourself. I have never done this and never expect to in my life. I won’t be discussing this at all.

Secondly, you can run an application called Synaptic by going to the Terminal and entering the following.

sudo synaptic

This runs a program called Synaptic that makes program installation reasonably simple. Synaptic has a list of known program sources, called repositories, that are interrogated each time Synaptic is executed. This method works most of the time but is dependent on having enough “good” repositories in your list. There’s a good article on how to do this over at eeeuser.com on how to do this along with a list of decent repositories.

If you’re a Terminal or command line fan you can use the apt-get and install commands to install software. I’m not into the command line lifestyle so I’ll point you to some clear instructions. Pop over to this page and scroll all the way to the bottom where the apt-get command is explained as well as how to use the command line to find software and to delete installed software.

My preferred method is to simply use Google. Search for the application type and find an installation that’s distributed as a .deb file. For example, I installed the Opera web browser by visiting http://www.opera.com/download, choosing Xandros as my distribution and downloading Opera for Xandros 1.0 and 1.1 (the other version doesn’t work on the Eee PC (or didn’t for me).

By default, files download to the My Documents folder (you can launch the File Manager application from the Work tab of the Easy Menu - just in case you hadn’t found that yet). Right click the downloaded .deb file and choose Install DEB file… from the menu. Then just follow the prompts and it’s done

Running Applications

Having installed an application you’ll want to actually use it. If you go to Full Desktop mode, you’ll find you application under the Launch menu and looking through the Applications list. That’s great if you’re using the Full Desktop. If you’re in Easy Mode it’s a little trickier.

Open the File Manager. Go to the View menu and enable the “Show All File Systems” option. Expand the “All File Systems” branch of the file tree and then browse to “/usr/share/applications”

Note: file and folder names in Linux are case sensitive. That means that “usr” is different to “Usr”.

From there, you can look through the list of installed programs to find your new applications.

Adding Applications to the Easy Mode Menu

The contents of the Easy Mode menu are managed, in typical Linux style, through a text file. This file is made up of structured content in an XML format. There’s a tutorial on how to modify this using the Terminal and a text editor if you’re so inclined. I’m not so I poked around, looking for a graphical tool that did this.

Go to the 3epc User Portal and download Launcher Tools. Install it (it comes in DEB package so you know how to do this) and a new icon, called “Launch Tools” appears on the Settings tab of the Easy Mode menu.

To add a new icon to the Easy Mode menu, launch the SimpleUI Editor. Choose the tab you wish to add your icon to (or add a new tab using the “Tab Management” option) and then right-click on some blank space to add a new program.

Given your new icon a name and then, in the “Command” section type the full path to the program you wish to launch from your new icon. For example, the path to Opera (on my system) is

/usr/share/applications/opera.desktop

Remember, this is case sensitive.

As you’re entering it, text saying “Invalid Command” will appear below the command box. When you’ve entered a valid path, the text will automatically change to “Valid Command!” and be coloured green.

Creating your own custom icons is easy enough. There are excellent instructions and templates over at eeeuser.com. You can then use your own icons on the Easy Mode menu.

In closing…

One of the things I’ve learned over the last few days is that there’s plenty of good information on using the Eee PC. However, most of it assumes some level of Linux knowledge. I’ve approached this form the point of view of the complete Linux newbie who’s bought a consumer electronics device and wants to get a little more from it. Hence, I’ve not sought to do anything more technical than install some applications and add some icons so I can easily access the apps.

Incidentally, I’ve made considerable effort to not use anyone else’s intellectual property in writing this post. Where an idea came from somewhere else I believe that I’ve credited it and provided some link love.

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