Want to break free from a Microsoft world? Leigh Dyer looks at the alternatives.

With the free products on our new cover DVD, you need never buy software again. So why do we still keep paying?

Is your PC the stable, error-free platform you need? We didn't think so. Leigh Dyer, David Kidd and Ty Pendlebury present the essential guide to fixing your PC.

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Every expert has a toolkit. Tim Dean takes you through the 10 tools any Windows expert cannot live without. So, to give you a head start, here are PC Authority's top 10 tools for the ultimate Windows user.

Climb the steps all the way to Windows guru status with our invaluable selection of tips and shortcuts for XP and Vista.

In conjunction with several of their other top-of-the-line software application upgrades, discreet have released the long-awaited combustion 3. Unique in some of its features and price point, combustion seems to have been searching for its market-place slot. Sharing the code, tools and quality of its bigger siblings, flame, inferno and smoke, combustion has, in the last two years, pulled its price down from 10 thousand dollars to around two thousand.

According to Software as a Service providers -- who want you to run your business online -- SAAS has come of age. We put it under the microscope.

Microsoft’s radical redesign promises ‘better results, faster’. Be fully prepared for this world-leading productivity software.

We provide the commentary on a bruising eight-round battle between Vista and Tiger.

FreeHand has had a long, distinguished career since its launch 15 years ago, but time has caught up with it. While Macromedia concentrated development on its Web-oriented MX applications, FreeHand was put on the back burner and fell seriously behind its main rivals CorelDRAW (see issue 60, p54) and Adobe Illustrator (see issue 51, p88). So, is this latest release evidence of further decline, or has FreeHand finally risen to the challenge?

A dreadful performer in almost every regard.

A modular scanning tool that catches most unwanted software – but not quite all

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Selecting the right photo editing software can be a difficult task, given the number of capabilities offered in today's graphics packages.

There was a time when semi-professional video editors and home-video enthusiasts had little choice but Adobe Premiere. Back then, video capture and output depended on proprietary hardware, which often only worked with its bundled software.