Windows only When we come across application launchers they naturally focus on one thing: launching applications (duh). Impressively the free WinThunder program wants to focus on presenting you with a beautiful interface for opening only your most used shortcuts, but it also throws in some niceties you may not find in other launchers.

Every now and then someone really shocks me with what they've managed to do using Autohotkey... Quick Cliq is a fine example of just that. Most people look at Autohotkey as a scripting language, but Quick Cliq demonstrates how it can be used to create a full-featured application.

I'm always on the lookout for unique apps, and Stick is one of those that is unlike most others. Some may say it's an application launcher or even a note taker, but it really just comes down to what you decide to use it for.

I am a big fan of the redesigned Taskbar in Windows 7 because it provides faster access to the things I want/need, and one of the ways it does that is through the jumplists that appear whenever you right-click on an icon regardless of whether the app is actually running.

You may not know this if you haven't used Windows XP (or earlier) in a while, but all Windows versions have a killer feature that lets you launch applications quickly without having to install memory-eating launcher apps.

One of the things that I've come to realize with using a computer is that you can never have too many ways to launch an application. The Quick Launch bar is probably one of the most famous ways of doing so, and I've seen people who have a Quick Launch bar that takes up more than 50% of the Taskbar. Crazy, I know.

I was beginning to think that there was no real purpose to the Caps Lock key other than to annoy you when it's accidentally turned on. Then Ghacks comes through and digs up an application called Capster (Windows only) that can really save you oodles of time with a concept that is so incredibly simple.

We love to cover new and exciting application launchers because they can really improve the productivity of a user. When we came across the free sTabLauncher for Windows we really felt like this is something a lot of people would love.

I'm a huge fan of of the free Launchy because it is a well-developed application launcher. A new program that I recently decided to give a whirl is called Enso, and it is also free. In many aspects I would also say that it is even better than Launchy.

In the past we've shown you how to create batch files for synchronizing two folders, and today we're going to demonstrate how they can be used to launch your favorite applications.

Do you find Windows starting up slow because of all the applications that are set to automatically run at the beginning? If you consult anyone tech savvy they will say to cut back on the number of applications that start with your computer, but that's hard for some people to do. Most of the time those programs serve a purpose, and people want them to be running when they need them.

Application launchers are such time savers that we've made it our quest to cover all of the best ones. There's another one that I thought would appeal to many of you because of the small memory footprint (under 4MB) and the extremely simple interface. It's called Faster Than Ever, or FTE for short.

I'm always looking for ways to get things done a bit faster, and today we bring you what could very well be the ultimate sidebar. It's actually more like a personalized homepage, a sidebar, and an application launcher all rolled up into one. That sounds pretty interesting, doesn't it?

The right-click menu (a.k.a. context menu) is one area in Windows that Microsoft refuses to let users customize out-of-the-box. There should be some sort of utility that lets people choose what's included, and the order that the items are placed in. I don't think I even use half of the options that are often located in the menu!

I think this week should be declared application launcher week on CyberNet. :) Exactly one week ago we wrote an article on the best application launchers, then one of our readers pointed out a cool app that we missed called Executor, and finally yesterday we wrote about Launchy 2.0 Alpha.

Launchy is one of the best application launchers available, and it is about to get a lot better with version 2 that is right around the corner. Just today Launchy 2.0 Alpha 8 was quietly released in the Launchy forum, and I've been using previous Alpha's for over a week. Despite being early in the development process it is incredibly stable.

A few days ago we put together a list of the best application launchers, and as it turns out there were some that were mentioned by commenters which we had never heard of. FMsaziri mentioned one in particular, called Executor, that really caught my eye when I checked it out.

Applications are pretty much the core reason that computers are useful, and I've seen people that have literally hundreds of different programs installed. I'm not sure how they make it through each day with the super-sized Start Menu that they normally have, but I'm guessing that they use some sort of efficient application launcher.

Could you imagine using a computer without having shortcuts? Probably not, and that’s why shortcuts play an important part in how we use our computers. Now what if there was a way to manage your shortcuts in a way that gives you the fastest access possible to all of the apps you use the most? 8Start is exactly that and more...

Launchy is becoming a well-known application among PC power users. When the latest version launched back in April it included a plugin called Runny which added a whole new aspect to the application. I love that plugin because you can create customized commands for Launchy, such as one for composing an email.