PC Magazine's annual rating of software utilities is interesting in that it is an indication of the kinds of computer tools people are increasingly using in the age of the Internet.

As you can guess web utilities and antivirus software are hot items.

Consolidation in the software industry has also wiped out a few recognisable names, such as Quarterdeck's Cleansweep, one of my favourites.

Remember, when deciding what to buy, not to go hog wild over packing up your hard drive with too many of the latest tools of the trade. Many utilities, such as virus checkers and one's that monitor operations, can put an incredible dent into the speed of your computer.

Remember also that you can get quite a lot of free utilities from the Internet itself. Thanks to a reader for suggesting I get the free TweakUI utility, which has an option to remove "Favorites'' from the Windows 98 start menu. A detailed guide of how to get the TweakUI utility can be found at www.futurenet.com/pcplus/w98comp/ptoy/powertoy.htm. The tool is not included in the Windows98 setup but can be found in the CD-ROM directory /tools/reskit/powertoy. TweakUI, like other utilities, gives you the power to personalise your computer to how you want it to operate and look.

A raft of free utilities and guide to sites can be found at Ryan's Download Library at www.icom.ca/ qryanjs/download.htm. I didn't dare to click to FilePile which bills itself as "A supercharged pile of 1,000,000 download files''. CN Download at www.download.com is also good as is ZdNet's "Killer download'' software library at zdnet.com.

In downloading or buying the various utilities pick the ones you really need and are going to use. I suggest one good virus utility is a basic. Another is a crash protection programme which can let you save your work before the whole thing goes down.

After those basics you pick and chose according to how you use your computer.

If you are going to put in all the tweaks to fully personalise your computer then an uninstaller utility is also essential.

Don't forget as well that Windows also comes preloaded with some useful utilities. Just go under the accessories in the "Start'' menu. Many people forget to perform regular maintenance by running the scan disk and defragmenter utilities under the system tools option. Windows 95 has a lot but Windows 98 comes loaded with goodies.

PC Magazine grouped utilities into 15 categories and have links to free versions and to sites where you can give some a test run (zdnet.com/pcmag/features/utilities99/index.html). The most useful section of the site is the link to a full descriptions of the utilities already in Windows. It's the first time I've been able to read exactly what the maintenance wizard does and what the disk defragmenter does.

Under the utility suites category PC Magazine's editors' choice pick is the Norton SystemWorks 2.0.

A utility suite combines several utilities for less than you pay for them separately. Norton's version combines antivirus, CleanSweep, CrashGuard, and Web Services tools. CleanSweep promises to monitor your system and keeps track of everything being saved on the hard disk. When you want to get rid of a program, the software ensures that all files that go with the program are killed as well. You can do the same job using the "add/remove'' tool in your "Control'' file. Cleansweep goes a lot further.

The other categories are antivirus (Norton AntiVirus 5 Deluxe), network antivirus (NeaTSuite), diagnostics (Norton Utilities 4.0), online backup (Connected Online Backup), instant messaging (ICQ 99a), disk utilities (disk imaging: RapiDeploy; disk partitioning: PartitionMagic 4.0), file compression (WinZip and ZipMagic 98), FTP Utilties (WS FTP 6.0), corporate filtering (SurfWatch ywork, and parental filtering (Cyber Patrol 4.0). The last two prevent employees and children from fooling around on the Internet.

Other categories without a top pick are the uninstaller, online, and web organiser and network utilities.

The web organisers attempt to capture entire pages from the Internet so you can view them again off line. This supposedly saves you from killing a few trees in printing them out. SurfSaver and CatchTheWeb were the only two products that were able to fully capture all pages under the test conditions.

More than one-third of UK office workers surveyed by the NOP Research Group get so frustrated with their computers that they'd like to throw them out of the window. Workers blamed God, aliens and Bill Gates for their techno rage.

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