Month: November 2007

I consider Firefox to be a fast browser, even though installing too many extensions, search engines or themes can slow it down. If you want to speed up even more your browsing experience on the Mozilla browser all you need to do is delve in the options menu (preferences on Mac). Make sure new pages open in tabs instead of new windows, that pop-ups are blocked and try to clean up all your private data regularly (I’d say once a week). You can also have Firefox remember your passwords and set a Master Password to activate them all in your session. Also read up on our post to get more out of Firefox.

Another useful tip I came upon today comes from makeuseof.com. It teaches you how to enable quick searches in your favorite websites’ search engines. Now you probably know that you don’t need to type the whole address of a website in the url bar to be taken to it. For example, if you want to go to the Softonic site, all you need to do is type softonic in the address bar. You can perform a similar trick to access specific search results faster.

Go to your favourite site, right click on the search box and select “Add a keyword for this search”. A little window will pop up into which you’ll need to type the name of the search, the keywords you want to use, and the bookmark folder to save it in. In the screenshot you can see I’ve searched for adventure games on Softonic and saved it with the keyword Softonic adventure games. To get taken to the search result page, all you’ll need to do is type Softonic adventure games in your address bar. As makeuseof.com point out, this a good way to save searches on different web sites and make quick comparisons. A good tip for Christmas!

Do you get bored quickly with your Windows theme? If you haven’t by now customised part of Windows rather uninspiring default theme then you have no excuses with Top Themes Manager which allows you to chop and change themes as much as you like. Best of all, you can configure it to change automatically so that every time you switch on your PC, you’ll have a new theme on your desktop.

TopThemes Manager changes the wallpaper, appearance, icons, cursor, sound, logos, logon UI and screensaver in little more than a few clicks. The developers update it regularly with new themes meaning that you’ll always have a fresh one to look forward to. Or, if you don’t like what’s on offer, you can always create and edit your own with the theme creator which is fairly basic but allows you to change the major components on Windows. It can even create a self-installation package once you’ve created your theme meaning you can share it with friends or other TopThemes users.

Drivers are some of the most important files on your operating system enabling everything from programs to external hardware to function correctly. Without them, or if they become damaged, your PC can be effectively crippled. If you’re experiencing problems with a program or especially an external piece of hardware, then drivers are one of the first things you should check. Have you got the right ones? Are they corrupted? Have they been installed correctly. Here are 5 top tools to make all this a little easier.

• My Drivers – Detects, backups and restores all drivers on your system

• Driver Genius – Super fast program that backups all your drivers

• DriverDetective – Check whether your drivers are up-to-date

• DriverGuide Toolkit – Helps identify faulty or corrupted drivers

• Driver Max – Export all your drivers to a compressed portable file

Don’t get me wrong, I love the voice notes feature on the Nokia S60 Series, but the one minute recording time limit is a real drag for me. If you too find this a little restrictive then get a load of Extended Recorder, which allows you to capture as much audio as your phone’s memory can take.

FooBillard is a pool game originally designed for Linux that has been successfully ported to the Windows platform. Enjoy four kinds of pool (8-ball, 9-ball, carom and snooker) in single games or complete tournaments against the computer or other people, with support for online competition. FooBillard features excellent graphics and highly realistic physics.

This story comes via our sister blog, OnSoftware (in Spanish). Here at Softonic we test a few hundred apps every week, which means that despite the effort most developers put into their products, we still face all kinds of problems regarding program’s features, design and management. In fact, after some time testing and reviewing software applications, you realize that they can be easily categorized in different groups, according to their behavior and of course, the trouble they bring to your life as a computer user.

Bearing that in mind, we’ve come up with these ten categories for the most common problems in software tools. If you have any other group that we’ve failed to mention, feel free to drop us a line in the Comments section.

1. Freeware, but limited
There are many programs that fall into this group. They’re labeled as free, but once you’ve happily downloaded and installed them, they aren’t ashamed of displaying messages which kindly invite you to register. Sometimes certain features will remain blocked until you register! What kind of freeware is that?

2. Smile, surprise inside!
These programs look really nice and promise great functionality, but also ask you to pay a price for it: they include some sort of unwanted being in the shape of a browser tool bar, an ad-ridden search page or even a piece of malware. You’d better avoid these ones!

3. Hey, I can decide that for myself
Something I really hate about software apps is when they configure themselves right after installation, without even asking me first. Things like running when Windows launches, changing file associations or downloading updates are decisions I like to take personally – and not let a piece of source code do it for me.

4. Test me if you can
I know developers need to earn a living. I understand their charging for applications. But some shareware versions are so crippled that you can hardly test them. If I can’t try a program properly because nearly all of its options are disabled, how will I decide if I want to buy it?

Continue reading “Common mistakes in software applications”

Camino is a popular browser specifically developed for Mac. Built on the Mozilla Gecko 1.8.1 rendering engine, Camino gives you a very similar browsing experience to Firefox, but with a nice Cocoa user interface only Mac programs have. Camino renders pages quickly, fully interacts with your Mac’s Keychain, handles tabs and blocks pop up ads. Not as customizable as Firefox yet faster than Safari, I’d probably rank it between the two other Mac browsers.

Camino’s great pride is that it’s an open source application, part of the Mozilla project but with some development freedom. Working on open source programs isn’t easy though, that’s why since November 20 the Camino project has opened up to donations. If you want to support them you can contribute up to $10,000 dollars. Donations are tax-deductible (for US citizens) and Camino will match 2 to 1 for every dollar donated until the end of the year. It’s a good way of supporting open source projects in general and helping out what is already a top notch application on Mac.