Windows only: Browse web forum threads and posts like RSS feeds with Web Forum Reader, a free Windows application. Adding forums you frequent to the app is done through an easy-to-grok wizard, and the program parses through the topics you haven't looked at with better speed than you'd find on often ad-loaded forum pages. You can also have the program track and alert you to changes in certain threads, and load your forums into tabs for quicker navigation. Web Forum Reader is a free download for Windows systems only.

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When it comes to getting help with computer or nearly any other problem, subject-specific forums can be far more helpful than a Google search. Then again, as with Google, you have to know where and how to look. Twing, a multi-forum search site, does a great job of parsing through the results from hundreds of user-driven forums and gives you the tools to winnow down the multitude of results you're likely to find. You can pull out specific phrases, dates of posting, languages, or only the topics and threads that contain video or pictures, for example, and sign up to be alerted whenever a thread you're following is updated—saving you the hassle of signing up for the forum itself. There are many forum search aggregators out there, but I'm liking how Twing does its job, and with no mandatory sign-up.

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Tech support website Satisfaction walks the middle ground between the extensive, but nameless, answers found on community forums and official, but not always extensive, answers from company reps. Covering webapps, gadgets, and desktop applications, Satisfaction has more than 400 companies being discussed, and some of them, including Google, Sandy, Twitter and Microsoft, have actual employees helping to answer questions and troubleshoot. If you ask a new question, Satisfaction emails you when the answer appears, or you can follow the thread via RSS. It's not an all-in-one stop yet, but especially for help with webapps and newer programs, it's a good place to find help beyond the FAQs.