Toluu

The Daily Download: Software tips, news, and opinions from Download.com editors

Download.com editors cover the world of downloadable software, web applications, and beyond.

Featured Freeware: iMacros for FirefoxToday

Automating repetitive Firefox tasks is one way to save your fingers from undue stress, and iMacros for Firefox is a great way to do it. From a sidebar you can toggle on and off, you can run, record, and edit macros. Recording is as simple as pressing a button before starting and clicking another to stop. For more advanced tasks you can turn to a set of demos, but the Web site wiki and step-by-step tutorials were easy enough to follow.

While iMacros can theoretically be used to input passwords, best security practices dictate that you shouldn't. Being able to save macros as bookmarks and being able to share them via e-mail and Delicious are great features, though the plug-in lacks a scheduler. Unfortunately, macros can only run in active tabs, so when you run lengthier ones plan on a long break.

Featured Freeware: WinRARYesterday

There are plenty of solid compression utilities to choose from, but this powerhouse offers the features and ease of use that place it near the top of the compression category. WinRAR is easy to use, lightweight, and flexible.

An intuitive interface and big icons with mouse-over labels keeps things simple. If you don't like their candy-coated appearance, you can always choose from several themes at the developer's site. The Folder Tree Panel makes sifting through your directories to find files easier than ever. But once you see the size savings of a RAR archive, with a compression ratio of 8 percent to 15 percent better than the ZIP format, you'll understand why so many users and developers are making the switch from other apps. With virus scans now integrated and minor interface tweaks for Vista, only the slightly slower decompression speed holds the app back.

Beyond its good looks and right-click readiness for basic compression and unzipping, WinRAR offers unpacking support for a large number of archive formats, including TAR, ACE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, and ZIP. WinRAR's advanced features are icing on the cake, with Unicode support for international formatting, embedded file comments, damaged archive repair, archive locking, self-ex

ChunkIt for search clarityOctober 10

For some people, Web searches are second nature. They're comfortable jumping from a basic text search to using Boolean terminology to navigating a minefield of open-ended results. It's hard not to appreciates the depth of material available on the Internet, but parsing 75,000 results can be daunting to even seasoned searchers.

ChunkIt for Firefox and Internet Explorer aims to streamline your query results into a manageable list by surfacing the relevant blocks of content directly below the appropriate link. This may sound like CoolPreviews, which opens a mini-window to preview a link before you click on it, but it's far more involved.

ChunkIt drills down to relevant search terms to get you to your results faster.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

ChunkIt splits your browser tab into two vertical sections, the left side with the ChunkIt results and the right with "unchunked" returns. Clicking on the text of a ChunkIt result loads the text in the right pane, replacing the unchunked results. The terms in the chunk that match your search term are highlighted in yellow. ChunkIt also jumps directly to the

Video: Rescue your e-mail from prying eyesOctober 10

How do you know for sure that your e-mail is safe from interception? You don't. Unless you digitally sign and encrypt it with a strong, safe key, that is.

In this Insider Secrets video, CNET Editor Tom Merritt shows you how to install and use an open-source privacy tool that does both, for fee.

>>See all encryption software
>>See all privacy software

Adobe embraces latest Canon, Nikon, Sony SLRsOctober 10

Now supported by Adobe: Sony's new top-end Alpha A900 SLR.

(Credit: Sony)

Adobe Systems has updated Photoshop's ability to deal with raw-format images from several of the latest SLR cameras with its new version 4.6 of the Camera Raw plug-in. Adobe's John Nack has the download links.

Less than a month after beginning beta testing, the final version is out with support for Canon's newer entry-level EOS Rebel XS, its brand-new midrange EOS 50D, Nikon's freshly released midrange D90 and full-frame D700, Pentax's newest entry-level model, the K2000, and Sony's ambitious 24-megapixel full-frame Alpha A900.

Also released is a new version of the DNG Converter software, which can help out people with older, more