Yahoo Messenger 10 beta

Yahoo Messenger allows you to see when friends are online and you can send them instant messages. It can also alert you to new mail in your Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Personals account, or when you have an upcoming meeting recorded in Yahoo Calendar.

In Yahoo Messenger 10 beta, enhanced video calling lets you feel like you're there with high-quality, full screen video and voice calling. See your friends' latest updates from Yahoo, Flickr, Twitter and more with the new "Updates" view. Improved language support lets you change your preferred language in Yahoo. Messenger with just a few clicks.

More Features: instant message with one friend, or conference in a bunch; get an all-new Insider with Yahoo Mail, news, weather, search and more; easily find or invite friends from other services to come chat with you; send text messages (SMS) to friends' mobile phones for free; make free PC-to-PC calls and PC-to-phone calls for as low as 1 cent a minute (plus free voicemail); use the built-in media player to watch Web videos and view photos with friends; show your style with emoticons, avatars, audibles and IMVironments.

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Yahoo Messenger 10 beta

Yahoo Messenger allows you to see when friends are online and you can send them instant messages. It can also alert you to new mail in your Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Personals account, or when you have an upcoming meeting recorded in Yahoo Calendar.

In Yahoo Messenger 10 beta, enhanced video calling lets you feel like you're there with high-quality, full screen video and voice calling. See your friends' latest updates from Yahoo, Flickr, Twitter and more with the new "Updates" view. Improved language support lets you change your preferred language in Yahoo. Messenger with just a few clicks.

More Features: instant message with one friend, or conference in a bunch; get an all-new Insider with Yahoo Mail, news, weather, search and more; easily find or invite friends from other services to come chat with you; send text messages (SMS) to friends' mobile phones for free; make free PC-to-PC calls and PC-to-phone calls for as low as 1 cent a minute (plus free voicemail); use the built-in media player to watch Web videos and view photos with friends; show your style with emoticons, avatars, audibles and

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AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.5.406

This antivirus program offers rock-solid protection. AVG Free provides the bare necessities, including a real-time shield to prevent infections, anti-virus and anti-malware wrapped up in one engine, and a link scanner for Web surfing with care.

By default, the application is set to search for new virus definitions daily, but you always can use the scheduling tool to change this. Should a virus create serious system problems, AVG creates a rescue disk to scan your computer in MS-DOS mode. The program doesn't tax your system when scanning or when running in the background and always proved effective in our tests. The new interface is much easier to navigate than in previous version, with tabbed navigation on the left assisting users in drilling down to the tools they need.

Though the free version of this program will suffice for average folks, those who demand more control should certainly consider AVG Anti-Virus Professional.

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Transform XP to Vista 3.11

If you like the look of Vista, but don't want to upgrade Windows XP, this suite of desktop applications makes it easy to emulate most aspects of Microsoft's controversial operating system. It doesn't replicate the Aero theme, but what it does do is take existing XP emulations of parts of Vista and combine them under one installer.

To replicate the sidebar, the program installs Yahoo Widgets. For the Start menu, the publisher uses its own XP Start menu replacement, Vista Start Menu. And for the look of Vista, Microsoft's own Vista desktop theme for XP is included. The Yahoo and Microsoft solutions are the most elegant, while OrdinarySoft's Vista Start Menu has never quite worked right for us. It's bloated and feels chaotic, although it is free.

Overall, the hodgepodge of programs works fine, even if some users might feel mislead for thinking this was one unified solution to their Vista desires. However, these applications are available on their own and this round-up doesn't bring anything new to the table.

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War Rock 20081102

War Rock is a tactical, modern FPS (first-person shooter) exploding with intense, fast-paced combat. Armed with the world's deadliest weapons and controlling the most lethal vehicles, players attack three story-driven, killer game play modes in the air, on the land and over the sea. The game is free to download and Free2Play so players can get right into pwning other players from around the world.

CNET Editor's Note: This is a very large (580MB) file and may take several hours to download via dial-up modem.

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