Notify

This software brings Web updates from your favorite sites right to your desktop, but a missing online help file may leave you with some unanswered questions. Notify has a basic but neatly designed interface that displays preloaded sites such as BBC News and CNN. These help give you a sense of how the program works, and you can deactivate sites you prefer not to receive updates from. Messages are delivered in three modes: Animated, Sticky, and a combination of the two. There seems to be little difference among the settings, but the online help file didn't load in repeated testing to explain them. Fortunately, you won't need help to create your own links to sites with Notify's wizard. When updates occur, a window pops up and you can go directly to the site. Despite the absent help file, news and Web junkies will appreciate this freeware.