Clikka Mouse Free

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on June 04, 2012

Windows offers numerous accessibility options in the Control Panel under Ease of Access, including the ability to activate windows by hovering the mouse over them and to control the mouse with your keyboard. But there's considerable room for improvement, such as the mouse control options offered by Clikka Mouse Free.

This simple tool places a series of icons controlling mouse buttons in a tiny interface that stays out of sight on the left side of your screen until you mouse over to it. All you have to do is hold the cursor over a button to activate the corresponding mouse command. It can help individuals who depend on assisted access devices improve and expand their control options.

When installing Clikka Mouse Free, we specified English for the interface language. But when we clicked the Settings icon on Clikka's small panel, the settings sheet was in Portuguese. We clicked the button labeled Idioma and specified English from a list of language files. Clikka's controls start at the top with an Exit button and continue through six icons clearly illustrating each mouse command: right-click, center-click, double-click, and so on. One especially helpful feature performs a left-click, beeps, and then lets the user scroll by moving the mouse. When the cursor stops, another beep marks the end of scrolling. The aforementioned Options button let us adjust the program's Tolerance, which is its sensitivity to mouse movements, and Wait, the length of time Clikka waits before clicking when the mouse stops. We could also access our mouse's properties in Explorer, enable Clikka to start with Windows, add languages, and make other changes. A Web-based Help file explains each feature.

Clikka Mouse Free works very well indeed. We simply had to hold the cursor over a mouse button and then move the cursor and hold it over the target command, like a browser button or desktop shortcut. With Clikka, users who can move and pause the cursor have full access to their systems. We recommend Clikka Mouse Free to any who can make use of it, and we commend its developers for making it freely available.