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Nitro PDF Reader is the most powerful free PDF reading and creation tool you can find, performing many tasks usually only available in for-pay PDF tools. As a PDF reader, it's lighting fast. For example, it opened a 174-page graphics-heavy PDF nearly instantly--faster than any other PDF reader I've tried, including FoxIt Reader, Nuance PDF Reader, and Adobe's own PDF reader, among others. It lets you search, zoom in and out, rotate pages, and more, pretty much everything that you'd expect from a PDF reader.

It does more as well. You can add notes, highlight text, type text into a text box, insert a signature into a PDF and much more, including commenting on other people's notes. Nitro PDF also does a very nice job of extracting text and images from PDF files. The program will even take a form scanned in via a scanner as a PDF file and let you type directly on the PDF form.

If you're looking for a free PDF tool, Nitro PDF Reader is the one to get.

Note: This software comes in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. This is the 32-bit version. If your 64-bit PC is running a 64-bit OS, please download the 64-bit version instead.

--Preston Gralla

When most businesses start out they are able to make do with a couple of email addresses and a few shared directories to get their daily work done.
But as they grow in size they usually start to look for products that will give them more features and better tools to share emails, calendars, project notes, remote email and so on. The most obvious solution for most companies that are already using Windows is to set up a Microsoft Exchange server which offers all this and more.

There are many good reasons to install Microsoft Exchange: It is easier for system administrators to manage email accounts, add and delete users, keep email in a central repository as well as enable calendars and calendar sharing. But, Microsoft Exchange is also expensive to buy, has a finite set of features and is not open source.

Which is why many users consider open source groupware alternatives that offer the features of Exchange without the cost and limitations. Here we look as some of the most popular of these.

Zimbra

Owned by Yahoo, Zimbra is one of the most popular alternatives to Microsoft Exchange and is a good example of how an open source platform can offer all of the traditional Exchange features as well as a range of additional ones.
Although there is speculation that Yahoo is looking to sell Zimbra, development of the product continues and just a couple of weeks ago version 6.0 of Zimbra Collaboration Suite was released.

In addition to providing email services, Zimbra also caters for shared calendars, contacts and wikis. Although Zimbra can be used with almost all email clients from Outlook to Evolution, one of its strengths is its own web-based email client which gives access to all of Zimbra’s features.
Although web-based Zimbra’s email client is not unlike Google Mail and feels like a desktop application more than a web-based one.

Users don’t have to use the web-based email client, however. There is also a desktop client available as well as support for most mobile clients as well as the usual third-party clients from Thunderbird to Outlook to Apple clients. Zimbra also supports over the air syncing to Blackberry and iPhone clients.

There is a free version of Zimbra available which has almost all of the features of the paid-for version which adds a few additional capabilities.

Horde

Horde is not traditionally marketed as an Exchange alternative but thanks to its extensive base it is perhaps the most feature-rich platform around.
Horde is essentially a PHP framework which can do just about anything from email to contact lists, shared calendaring to task lists. The Horde framework provides the basic platform and the various modules add in wanted features.

Horde is completely open source so it is free for all uses.

As with Zimbra the best of Horde is available through the web interface, although certain amounts of its functionality can be accessed through standard email clients.

Because Horde is so open-ended with any number of features possible, it is not as easy to set up as Zimbra which is built to task. Most administration is done through a web interface like Zimbra.

Horde is not a drop-in replacement for Microsoft Exchange but it does offer a broad range of possibilities.

Kolab

Originally created for German Federal Office for Information Security, Kolab has matured over the past five years to become a full-featured groupware suite which offers a range of collaboration features from email and calendaring to room bookings and multi-client support. Kolab uses IMAP4 to manage emails, contacts and calendaring which means that almost all IMAP-capable clients can access Kolab data and calendars can be shared between users.

Being open source Kolab supports all popular open source mail clients from Thunderbird to KDE’s Kontact suite. Outlook users can also access Kolab data using a proprietary plugin, including one available from SA-based developers Toltec.

Open-Xchange

Not unlike Horde, Open-Xchange is a groupware framework that can be enhanced with a range of modules from email to project management. Again, most of the features are accessed through the web interface although a limited selection of tasks can be done through standard email clients.

Open-Xchange does, however, support push email for Blackberry and iPhone clients as well as document sharing through the web interface which makes it a powerful alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

Scalix

Originally based on HP OpenMail, Scalix is a full-featured Exchange alternative. Like most of the servers here, Scalix also includes a web-based email client which uses Ajax to replicate the feel of a desktop application.
For those that don’t want to use the web-based application most popular clients are catered for with connectors for the likes of Evolution and Outlook available.

Scalix includes support for push email, PIM, group calendaring, free/busy services, public folders, delegation, and so on, just like Exchange.

There is a free community edition of Scalix available for download or organisations with a large number of high-end users can opt for the paid-for supported version.

The original idea to create an exact copy of a CD-ROM disc and place the data into a file which can be stored on a hard drive or USB flash drive was a great invention. This made it possible to store collections or backups of your important optical media in one location. These files, which can also store a copy of DVD or Blu-ray media as well, are more commonly known as ISO images. Even Microsoft these days utilizes ISO image files and some versions of Windows are distributed as an ISO. ISO image files can easily be created, all you need is an optical drive and a real optical disc, alternatively they can be downloaded from many sources on the internet. Once you have the file stored on your computer, there’s several things you can do with it. The ISO can be burned to a new CD or DVD to create a copy of the original disc, it can also be written to a USB flash drive to install something like Windows or Linux more rapidly. Another option is using software to make the ISO image behave like a real disc, this allows you to install apps and games or read the disc just like if it was physically inserted into your computer. The software to use is known as virtual drive software because the drive isn’t real and it just emulates a real optical drive, the the ISO image is then mounted to the virtual drive to create a virtual disc. Here we list 10 free virtual drive emulators that you can use to mount ISO images so they behave like real discs. 1. Microsoft Virtual CDRom Control Panel Microsoft Virtual CDRom Control Panel Although Virtual CDRom Control Panel dates back to 2001, Microsoft re-released it in 2013 with a new webpage and an announcement that the program does actually run on XP, Vista and 7 despite its age, but Microsoft themselves offer absolutely no support for it. What we like about this tool is it doesn’t require installation to mount ISO images and the whole package is under 60KB in size consisting of only a driver file, executable and a Readme file. It isn’t as intuitive and easy to use as some other tools and requires some manual work to install the driver, so make sure to read the Readme.txt carefully. 2. DVDFab Virtual Drive DVDFab Virtual Drive tray menu This is a useful addition to the DVDFab range of tools that specialize in video ripping, conversion and playing. Virtual Drive is like a simplified version of Daemon Tools but has some nice advantages like support for up to 18 virtual disks, mounting a Blu-Ray ISO image or folder so it can be played in PowerDVD, and no adware/media tools offered during the install process. Although it doesn’t say on the website CD ISO images are supported, they work fine. DVDFab Virtual Drive supports mounting 8 types of disc image and can also create the newer .Miniso Blu-Ray format ISO images . It works on windows XP and above. 3. WinCDEmu WinCDEmu mount iso options Mounting an ISO image file using WinCDEmu is really easy. Just install and all you need to do is to double click on the ISO image file to automatically mount it to a drive letter. If you want to unmount, just right click on the drive and select Eject. WinCDEmu has a simple option to create an ISO from a CD/DVD or Blu-Ray disc, just right click on the drive in Windows Explorer and Choose to Create ISO Image. A useful option for administrators is the requirement for admin rights to mount an ISO image. A portable WinCDEmu is also available but isn’t quite as up to date as the setup installer version. There is support for XP to Windows 7 including 64-bit, Windows 8/8.1 is not listed but works fine. 4. Virtual CloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive is very simple to use, supports a number of different image file formats to mount a virtual disc, and allows up to 8 virtual drives at the same time. While there are no extra or advanced options available like creating or burning an ISO etc, which can be found in some other software, usage is as easy as double clicking on an ISO image file to auto mount it as a drive or right clicking on the tray icon. This is just a simple, no frills, light on resources and effective image mounting utility that does its job well. Supports from Windows 98 up to Windows 8/8.1 64-bit. 5. MagicDisc MagicDisc tray mount options MagicDisc is created by the same developer as the popular MagicISO image creation software. It can mount a wide range of CD/DVD image formats and can also create a CD/DVD image from disc. The program has no GUI and works entirely from the right click context menu found on the system tray icon. It supports just about everything from Windows 98 up to Windows 8. Make sure you download the correct version as there are 5 different ones available! One for 98, 2000 and ME, one for Windows 7 (x86 and x64), another for Windows 8 (x86 and x64), and separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions for XP, 2003, 2008 and Vista.

6. WinArchiver Virtual Drive Winarchiver virtual drive configuration WinArchiver is a shareware archiving software and this is the standalone virtual drive component from it which is completely free. The creators, Power Software, also develop the excellent PowerISO. In addition to being able to mount up to 23 virtual drives and selecting a specific drive letter for each, WinArchiver Virtual Drive has another trick up its sleeve. That is the ability to mount just about any type of file archive as a virtual drive. Zip, 7z, RAR, WIM, CAB and many other types of archive can be mounted without actually extracting the archive first, useful for large movie or game archives. Over 25 disc image formats are also supported. Works on Windows 98 and above. gBurner Virtual Drive is another free ISO mounting software that uses the Power Software virtual disc driver. It’s almost identical to WinArchiver Virtual Drive apart from it supports 16 virtual drives and not 23. 7. ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver mount new drive setup While ImDisk is certainly a bit more complicated to use than the other tools here, it is very powerful because in addition to the option to mount ISO CD or DVD ROM images, you can also create removable or fixed virtual hard disks and floppy drives. These can be created in system memory to behave like a RAM disk which can be written to, and then saved out to a .img image file while being reloaded and reused at a later date. ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver is installed and accessed via a Control Panel entry, and is compatible with Windows NT up to Windows 8/8.1 64-bit. 8. Gizmo Drive Gizmo Drive virtual disc emulator The Gizmo Drive tool is part of a larger suite of tools called Gizmo Central, although you can turn off the other tools during install. This is the only free virtual disc emulator that can create an image from both disc and folder. There are some other useful options like mounting virtual hard disc (VHD) files, and also a function to burn a folder or ISO to disc. Gizmo Drive also has a very handy function which is the built in support to create a RAM Disk. Have a read of our RAM disk benchmark article to see how it performs. It works on Windows 2000 up to Windows 7 64-bit. 9. DAEMON Tools Lite DAEMON Tools Lite Free License interface Be careful during installation because Daemon Tools will ask to install adware. You will need to select the Free License during the install process, and there is also a feature pre installed by default which is an online service called Mountspace. The number of supported image formats to mount ISOs is huge and you can also create an image from a physical CD, DVD or Blu-Ray disc. Up to 4 virtual drives are supported including a SCSI virtual drive which can emulate music and game disc protections. A more recent feature adds burning an image to CD/DVD via Astroburn. Supports Windows 98 and upwards. 10. Alcohol 52% Free Edition Alcohol 52% options The free version of Alcohol 52% supports up to 6 virtual drives, RMPS protection emulation which can help with game and music disc DRM etc, an option to create images from physical discs and a CD/DVD manager that gives detailed information about drives and discs. There is also a freely downloadable Audio Converter add-on option which can rip music discs to MP3. Alcohol 52% Free Edition works on Windows 2000 up to and including Windows 8/8.1. The free versions of Alcohol now require you to install “Smart File Advisor ” and you cannot deselect it, trying to uninstall later will uninstall Alcohol 52% as well. For this reason we recommend you only use Alcohol if you specifically need one of its features.