HM2K

After many years of using Nero, I’m finally fed up with it.

I have been using Nero 6 for some time now, and refuse to upgrade to Nero 7 because when I did use it, I did not like it and I felt it used up far too much hard disk space for such a simple task.

Over 200mb of space is used by a standard installation of Nero 7, there must be another option.

I looked back, and remembered changing from Easy CD Creator to Nero because of this very issue, Easy CD Creator was simply excessive for what I required, Nero was very simple and straight forward.

I had a think and realised that there is very few functions I actually require from a piece of “Optical Disc Authoring Software”, which are as follows:

• Burn off files and folders (data) onto a CD/DVD
• Burn images/ISOs to a CD/DVD
• Copy one CD/DVD to another
• Create audio CDs from mp3s or wavs
• Ability to create ISO images is handy, but optional

I began a search to locate a piece of software that would provide me with these functions. Due to the simplicity of these functions I hoped to find free software that could offer them.

I looked in the following places:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_optical_disc_authoring_software
• http://www.download.com/sort/3150-2646_4-0-1-4.html
• http://www.google.com/search?q=free+burning+software

In terms of free software these are my findings:

Click ‘N Burn Free/Amazing CD & DVD Burning/Flash CD & DVD Burner

This software looked very good, however the problem I found with all of them was that it wanted to install WhenU Adware upon install, I refused and never completed the install.

DeepBurner (Free)

This is a very simple application offering a few very simple functions: Create data CD/DVD, Create audio CD, Burn ISO image, but no direct Disc to Disc copy.

Burn4Free

This software to be honest did not appeal to me, their whole premise was that they offered the software for free, it often strikes me as unusual when the name of the software has the word free in it. Upon trying to install it, it asked me to install a toolbar, I declined and did not complete the install.

Burn At Once

burnatonce is free for non-commercial use only, which in most cases is fantastic. burnatonce is a VERY basic program, not to be confused with simple, its lack of help can be confusing to regular users, but may appeal to advanced users.

CDBurnerXP Pro

From the outset this piece of software seems very good, for what it is, and that is of course free software. I successfully completed the install, and launched the software, where I was met by 3 options: Create a new (data) Disc, from files or an ISO image – also erase or convert an ISO; Create a new audio Disc; Rip Audio CDs.

ImgBurn

This looks pretty good, a nice all round application that can read, build and write images.  You could compare this to burnatonce, but its far nicer.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for something that does the job, is small, but basic and straight forward enough, ImgBurn is the answer, if not, you could try CDBurnerXP Pro, however this software does NOT do Disc to Disc copying at the moment. Its worth noting that burnatonce does do CD disc to disc copy.