Very very fast, stable, tiny memory footprint, superb page rendering. This is a highly customisable browser, with many built-in privacy, security and general features, including support for both Firefox bookmarks and Internet Expolorer favorites. It has a slightly geeky look and feel which I find delightful, but some might prefer more glitz and translucent buttons!

Always gets top ranking for detection and response rate. Very light footprint, nice interface, good scheduler, and it has built-in rootkit scanning and removal. First class product!

NB for ZoneAlarm users: Avira will show up in the firewall as constant traffic from the "AVguard" component on the loopback adapter. Don't worry - this is normal behaviour, and quite harmless!

Very fast, stable, highly customisable browser. Very intuitive, attractive interface, that is also fully skinnable. Lots of added security features make this probably the safest of the browsers based on the MS Trident rendering engine, while retaining the reliability of IE's page display. The whole feel of Avant Browser reminds me of what Firefox was intended to be, but never quite was. With lots of extensions Firefox could reproduce the functionality of Avant Browser, but would be far far slower.

Seriously, by far the best sound of any audio player available for Windows. You have to try XMPlay to understand what I'm getting at - it really is in a different league to most players.

Very fast and responsive, really tiny (typically 5000K)footprint. The interface is nice and easy to use on a basic level, but dig deeper and this little player is very versatile and configurable. Make sure to read the support documentation, online or in the extensive text document included in the download.

Fair range of skins in case you don't like the attractive, but very blue, default skin. Skins are getting better all the time, but are not of course yet up there with some of the Winamp masterpieces.

Decent media library and playlist editing, exhaustive track information, excellent streaming radio support. Loads of neat little tweaks, such as media library auto-update (much faster than Winamp's), auto preamp gain, reverb and much more. Little tip, not too well documented: double-click the main window to toggle between mini and normal modes.

Still the best, most useful all round media player, despite such a credible challenge from Quintessential. Winamp just goes on quietly getting better and even more solid. Lovely flexible intuitive interface, plug-ins for just about any format out there, peerless streaming radio, and still, I think, the best library and playlist integration around.

Very good media player indeed. Fast and stable, small memory footprint. Media library as good as any, much better than WMP. True freeware - no nag screens or feature limitations. Extraordinarily good streaming radio support, including both IceCast and ShoutCast full listings. First rate sound, attractive interface. First really credible challenger for Winamp!