smart recovery is an application that's supposed to lend you a hand when trying to get back photos and audio files you lost accidentally by deleting them from your computer or removable drives.

Just like all the other recovery software solutions on the market, smart recovery needs to scan the computer for removed data, trying to recover every single bit with the help of a comprehensive process.

The program relies on a straightforward interface that prompts you to follow three simple steps before reaching the actual recovering point.

You have to select the device you wish to scan, the file format you want to recover and the destination folder where all the found data will be placed.

Since it's supposed to work with multimedia files, smart recovery supports virtually all audio and video extensions, including JPG, AMR, TIF, AVI, MOV, WAV, DSS, 3GP, NEF and CRW.

Unfortunately however, the application will need a lot of time to complete the recovery, as the scanning process for a 100 GB drive took about six hours in our case. It did recover some of the photos we've deleted before, but there are some tools on the market able to do that a lot faster.

A thing that's worth mentioning is that smart recovery remains very friendly with computer resources, even when conducting a scan, so older machines could run it safely as well.

Plus, the ace up its sleeve is the fact that it's being offered with a freeware license, while many other recovery solutions on the market might seriously hurt your pocket.

So all in all, smart recovery deserves a chance, at least when trying to get back precious files you accidentally removed from your desktop. But keep in mind that patience is a virtue...