freeware

Ad-Aware Free gains antivirus capabilities

The paid upgrade versions of the popular malware remover Ad-Aware have offered antivirus support for more than a year, but now that feature, plus a long-awaited scheduler, have been added to the free version.

On Tuesday, Ad-Aware Free Internet Security 8.3 offered users of its free product those two new features in a minor update.

Although the update sounds small, the addition of a scheduler comes after years of the publisher LavaSoft restricting the feature to its paid upgrades as bait to get users to buy a license. Many software publishers have similar business models, though there is an … Read more

Scrobble in Harmony

If you feel restricted with Last.fm's "scrobbling" capabilities, Firefox add-on Harmony will help you get more music onto your charts. Harmony lets you share tracks played through Pandora and other FoxyTunes-compatible players on your Last.fm profile. Foxy-tunes is another Firefox add-on; it's a music player that controls iTunes, Windows Media Player, and 21 other music jukeboxes from your browser status bar.

After downloading Harmony, a small "audioscrobbling" icon (a curvy "AS," which will be familiar if you use Last.fm) appears in the bottom-right-hand corner of your Web browser … Read more

AVG joins Opera on stage

Updated at 2:12 p.m. on July 1: Opera spokesman Thomas Ford said in an e-mail to me that he's "almost certain" that Opera's new AVG anti-malware detection system replaces the previous one that Opera used, which had been provided by Haute Secure.

The first beta of Opera 10.60 was released only two weeks ago, and on Thursday it graduates to a wide release and sheds its beta tag. Opera 10.60 for Windows, Mac, and Linux incorporates security enhancements provided by popular freeware antivirus vendor AVG, improves performance, adds further HTML5 compatibility, and … Read more

Foxit Reader stumbles into version 4

Foxit Reader has long been the most visible Windows alternative to Adobe Reader, but in the latest update this popular freeware falters. How far it's stumbled depends on how annoyed you get at installation shenanigans. Granted, there are some useful new features added, but where the jump from version 2 to version 3 cut bloat while adding in a few features, version 4 adds some new features while also throwing some unpleasant curve balls your way.

The setup process has grown more cumbersome, without a doubt. It automatically will check you into the Foxit license agreement, and users are … Read more

uTorrent for Mac ditches its training wheels

Long recognized as the fastest torrent client for Windows, the Mac version of uTorrent finally discarded its beta status today. After nearly three years of development, two of them in the public eye, the stable version of uTorrent for Mac contains the same protocol enhancements that make the Windows version so flexible.

Built natively in Cocoa, these include the new uTransport protocol, protocol encryption, distributed hash table, and peer exchange support. uTP is a relatively new protocol that slows down all connection traffic when a congestion has been detected until the problem has been cleared. It basically prevents one person'… Read more

Find That Band searches without the search engine mess

When we are anxious to hear a band's new release, nothing irritates us more than typing their name into the search bar and getting a batch of results for kitchen supplies and sheet metal companies, among other unhelpful sites. FindThatBand, an addon for Firefox, sifts through the junk that search engines often produce by finding the band across a condensed list of popular music sites.

Initially when restarting, it seems as though nothing has changed and your music search problems are not over. However, the beauty of this addon is behind the click. To search for an artist, highlight … Read more

Thunderbird 3.1 lands better search, migration tools

Mozilla's open-source Outlook alternative Thunderbird gains an impressively fast and new way to search your e-mail, a new migration assistant, and a download manager in its latest update. Arriving on-time for its development calendar, Thunderbird 3.1 for Windows, Mac, and Linux debuts several helpful new features, along with performance improvements and bug-fixes.

The biggest change to Thunderbird is the Quick Filter bar. Although the global search field was impressive when it was introduced in Thunderbird 3, Quick Filter accelerates the search process by making a number of filters readily available. It lives just below the tab bar, above … Read more

Windows Live update to create wide pipeline to the cloud

A new Windows Live Essentials public beta will have deep hooks to multiple social networking, media-sharing, and Web mail services, as well as the new Office Web Apps, Microsoft announced Wednesday. The public beta will be available starting Thursday at the Windows Live site, although Microsoft has yet to say at what time.

The Live Essentials update focuses on making Windows more Web-friendly, without leaving users on the hook for uninstalling programs they don't want their computer to come with. The new betas of Windows Live Messenger, Writer, Mail, Movie Maker, and Photo Gallery will all connect to multiple … Read more

A collection of alternative Web browsers trying to hold their own

Whether you are creating your own gaming Web site or simply checking out the latest Buzz Out Loud, trying to choose one of the dozens of Web browsers out there can be a massive waste of time. Among the big five of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, and Opera, there are still more than a dozen second-tier Web browsers that are trying to make a splash in cyberspace. These obscure browsers got a break in 2009 when the European Union settled the Internet Explorer antitrust case with Microsoft. As part of the settlement, Windows PCs sold in Europe now offer … Read more

VLC goes modern in latest update

Perhaps the best-known alternative media player for Windows and Mac, VLC's popularity has been driven by its open-source and cross-platform nature. The latest update, for Windows, Mac, and Linux, goes to great lengths to keep the player current.

VLC 1.1 adds in hardware acceleration on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Linux computers; supports encoding and decoding the HTML5 video and audio codec WebM; better MKV HD support and 40 percent faster HD decoding; introduces lua-based extensions; and has overall better performance because of the removal of "tens of thousands of lines" of code.

There's also … Read more