Mozilla Firefox

Firefox 12 is a worthy expression of Mozilla's ideals. The browser is competitively fast, sports a new minimalist look, and includes some excellently executed features. Unfortunately, that describes most of Firefox's competition, too.

For those of you who spent last year away from the Internet, it's the year that Firefox went from annual major-point updates to a Chrome-style quick-release cycle. How quick? A new major version number along with a spate of performance and feature improvements lands in the Firefox stable version every six weeks. So, Firefox is on version 12 at the time of this review. As a point of comparison, Chrome is currently on version 18 even though it only launched in 2008.

To put it bluntly: Firefox has benefited from the rapid-release cycle. Both fixes and features get out to users faster than before, which puts a safer, sleeker browser in your hands with fewer delays. A vocal, minuscule minority has pooh-poohed the increase in version numbers, but that's hardly a legitimate complaint in a world where mobile apps update silently and effectively.

These major changes first landed in Firefox 4, released in March 2011, so we're going to be referencing it a fair bit. The browser that you can download now is in the same speed category as its competition; offers many similar features (stronger in some areas and slightly weaker in others); includes broad, cross-platform support for hardware acceleration and other "future-Web" tech and standards; and is a must-have for Android users (download for Android)
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Firefox 12 continues to build on the Web site developer tool improvements that first landed in Firefox 10 and Firefox 11. Version 12 makes more than 85 changes, big and small, to the features that help developers construct the sites that you use. But those weren't the only changes. Where Firefox 10 began marking most add-ons as compatible by default, and Firefox 11 begat add-on synchronization, Firefox 12 makes one small but noticeable change to the Windows version. Firefox on Windows will no longer ask you to interact with the User Account Control after you give it initial approval. This means that from Firefox 13 and on, if you use Windows, you won't see a UAC query before updating.

It's important to point out that there are four versions of Firefox available at the moment, and this review only addresses the stable branch, intended for general use. Firefox's other channels -- Firefox beta (download for Windows | Mac | Linux); Firefox Aurora, analogous to Google Chrome's dev channel (download Aurora for Windows | Mac | Linux); and the bleeding-edge, updated-nightly Firefox Minefield (download for all versions) -- are respectively progressively less stable versions of the browser, and aimed at developers.

Another big new feature in 2011 has been support for restartless add-ons. These add-ons are written differently from standard Firefox add-ons, and are expected to become the format for add-ons in the future. As such, relatively speaking, not many restartless add-ons exist -- fewer than 1,000, compared with the thousands of "standard" add-ons. However, this is an improvement of more than 600 add-ons since Firefox 4 debuted in March 2011.

As mentioned earlier, Firefox 12's performance has been greatly improved by the addition of graphics processing unit (GPU) hardware acceleration. It allows the browser to shove certain rendering tasks onto the computer's graphics card, freeing up CPU resources while making page rendering and animations load faster. These tasks include composition support, rendering support, and desktop compositing.

Firefox 12 faces a challenging and ever-advancing field of competition. Some people have probably abandoned Firefox because of the significant speed differences between version 3.6 and Google Chrome. Others might be turned off by Mozilla's open-armed embrace of the rapid-release cycle, and the diminishing importance of version numbers. Frankly, we find that a bit silly, as it's better to get newer features and fixes as soon as they're ready, instead of waiting for a once-yearly update. Competition has forced Mozilla and others to put out better browsers in order to thrive, and we think that Firefox 12 will keep the browser competitive.

Try Mozilla Firefox the best browser by Download it here

Free UMPlayer

UMPlayer stands for Universal Media Player, and this open-source freeware aims to be a universal media solution. With hundreds of codecs, it plays most video and music files as well as audio CDs, DVDs, SHOUTcast, and live radio and TV from tuner cards. Of course, it plays YouTube videos; in fact, it has a built-in YouTube player/recorder feature and search field on its toolbar. With a skinnable interface, hot keys, subtitle sync, and the regular free updates of an active open-source project, UMPlayer poses a serious challenge to VLC, MPC and other popular free media players.

As an efficiently configured desktop media player, UMPlayer's user interface can only be so different from other free players without looking freakish, but its attractive layout has enough simple differences to make it stand out without screaming, such as its subtle but effective highlighting of the title and counter section or its user-selectable toolbar that includes a screenshot tool, DVD player, quick access to files and Web links, and access to the program's Preferences, as well as the aforementioned YouTube search box. You can quickly toggle this toolbar off for a more traditional look, but we suspect many users will find it handy for daily use. The Help menu includes FAQs, Tips and Tricks, and Web links; the Skins menu offered six styles with a link to get more.

The proof is in the playing with digital media, and UMPlayer didn't disappoint, even in direct side-by-side comparisons to VLC, our default media player. We didn't run through the entire list of supported formats for each player; suffice to say that each does most of what the other does, and just as well. Few users will notice any difference for most file types. It comes down to a matter of choice. If VLC has a fault, it's that it just does too much. If you like the idea of a free, open-source media player that can handle just about anything but find VLC a bit overwhelming, give UMPlayer a spin.

UMPlayer is an advanced yet simple to use open-source cross-platform multimedia player that aims to fill all your needs; with over 270 built-in Audio and Video codecs UMPlayer can play any media format including AAC, AC3, ASF, AVI, DIVX, FLV, H.263, Matroska, MOV, MP3, MP4, MPEG, OGG, QT, RealMedia, VOB, Vorbis, WAV, WMA, WMV, XVID as well as Audio CDs, DVDs, (S)VCDs, TV / Radio cards, Youtube videos, SHOUTcast Radio streams and even incomplete or damaged media files. It also comes equipped with some unique features such as a built-in subtitles search, YouTube player / recorder, SHOUTcast Radio player, skinable interface, customizable hotkeys, audio / subtitles sync, and many more.

 Just Download it if you want to try this good player for your laptop.

RealPlayer

These days, a great number of people are not only finding the majority of their entertainment online but are also conducting a fair amount of their social lives there as well. In such times, it's great to have a quick and simple tool for downloading, editing, sharing, and transferring media. RealPlayer for Windows already had most of that down, offering a sweeping array of features, from one-click video downloading to automatic transcoding to social network sharing. The latest offering focuses mainly on improved device integration and an even smoother user experience.

RealPlayer has been around since 1995, which is practically the dawn of the Web. It started as a basic media player, becoming the preferred embedded app for streaming audio and video as sites started to offer that functionality, and eventually morphing into the easy-to-use, fully functioning beast we have today.
The previous version of RealPlayer already offered an easy, one-click solution for downloading unprotected videos for the Web. Another click transcodes those same videos to your portable device without a bit of extra effort on your part when it comes to fiddling with tricky digital format settings.
The program also incorporates a very simple-to-use video-trimming tool that allows you to select only certain bits of a video to transfer or share, and there are one-click buttons that let you share with a variety of social sites, such as Facebook and YouTube. In addition, you have the option to strip the audio out of the videos and save those as separate files.

The latest version of the software adds even more devices to the ever-expanding list of compatible handsets. Plus, RealPlayer now shows USB-connected smartphones and cameras inside the library in the main app window, allowing users to quickly and easily transfer content to the devices via drag-and-drop. Perhaps more compelling, though, is a new back-end feature that simplifies the process of getting photos and videos off of those devices and organized on your PC. In our testing, content was slow to load, but it's a welcome feature nonetheless.
Best of all, you can do all this for free. RealPlayer only requires a license fee if you want to upgrade to the Plus version in order to access additional features, such as H.264 conversion and DVD burning.

For digital media enthusiasts who enjoy online and offline media files, RealPlayer is a universal media player that plays video and music files in virtually any format. RealPlayer also lets you download, convert and transfer videos to mobile devices, in addition to organizing your videos, music and photos.
This latest version brings improvements to the free application that leads the industry with its free and innovative features, such as downloading online videos, converting videos to mp3.

What's new in this version in this new RealPlayer:

• Download and watch videos in Private Mode, a new feature that makes your video collection secure with password protection, anonymous file names.
• Instant access to your Facebook videos with Facebook video integration. After signing in, view and play videos that have been shared by your friends without leaving RealPlayer.

Click Download to try and see the best of once video player for your laptop.

Any Video Converter

Any Video Converter is an all-in-one video converting freeware with easy-to-use graphical interface, fast converting speed, and excellent video quality. It can convert almost all video formats including DivX, XviD, MOV, RM, RMVB, MPEG, VOB, DVD, WMV, and AVI to MPEG-4 movie format for PSP or other portable video device, MP4 player, or smartphones. It is the freeware to convert video files between multiple formats and download YouTube videos.

What's new in this version: Version 3.38 adds new iPad formats and FLAC lossless audio formats as output.

Any Video Converter attempts to do just that and choosing the free version permits you to convert from a myriad of video formats for free. The only annoyance is that, after each conversion, a nag screen will pop up pointing you to the advanced, paid version of the software. The application is nothing fancy and it aims to provide the user exactly with what he/she needs: fast and good quality results. Options are wrapped into a straightforward interface that does not leave too much room for confusion. All menus are simple and configuring them to your best needs is easier than a stroll in the park. Main application window shows the menus in the upper part of the interface, while in the right, there is a preview window to see the videos before conversion, operation details, as well as a drop-down bar containing the formats you want to turn the videos in the list to.

Any Video Converter is limited to work with one file at a time just like most converters on the market, but this does not mean that you cannot add more items for a batch process. It will deal with each file at a time. The list of supported file formats is available in the help menu and if input is rather generous and includes AVI, WMV, ASF, DVR-MS, MS-DVR, MOV, MP4, 3GP, 3G2, M4V, QT, RM, RMVB, FLV, MKV, AVS, M2TS, MPG, VOB, DV, M1V, M2V, DAT, AMV, output is restricted to MP4, MPG, WMV, FLV, AVI, WAV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. But this still translates into support for plenty of video and audio formats. Besides the data on the local drives, it can also download and convert video from the Web. Supported websites are the all inclusive YouTube!, the famous Metacafe, Google Video and Nico Video. Right-clicking in the conversion list reveals the option under the name of Paste Video URL. The application needs first to download the online video in order to convert it.

Any Video Converter is a two-in-one tool because, besides the basic conversion process, it also features file trimming so that you can extract only the necessary part of the movie. The procedure is quite simple and the instruments for the job are present right under the preview window that is actually the codec-inclusive MPlayer. In the upper right hand of the interface, the application makes available a set of profiles. These are not for various portable devices (save for mobile phones) but are useful if you can't make up your mind regarding the codec to use.

Deciding on the video parameters is pretty easy if you know exactly what you want. Instead of trying to trim the video to the desired end point from the preview window, an easier way is to twiddle with the start and stop times under the Output Duration menu. You can enter the values manually and skip the frustration of not being able to drag the slide to the point in the movie. You can also set up the Video Options and select the video codec to be used in the operation, adjust the video size, aspect, bitrate and framerate. Next in line are Audio Options, which feature tampering with the audio codec, bitrate and sample rate.

All this is easy for an aficionado but a novice may have some trouble with choosing the right values and, unfortunately, there are no guidelines as to how these should be set in order to achieve the best possible final result. Opting for different values may lead to failure to convert the video. In order to get the most quality of a video, one of the key settings required is to drop the video size to a lower resolution. With Any Video Converter, there is no exception either. As long as you convert to a different format but preserve the original settings, the resulting video will be of poor quality.

A downside when it comes to the actual conversion process is that there is no time estimation for completing the operation. The only hint you will benefit from will be the progress bar at the end of the item in the conversion list. Besides the presets available, the application also features customizable profiles for MP4, WMV and AVI video formats, where you can make any settings you deem that best fit the rendering device. The only hindrance in opting for high quality result is the size of the video.

If you have more videos and would like to stitch them together into a single file, there is no need to use a different tool because Any Video Converter can achieve this quite nicely. All you have to do is select all the items you want to merge and choose the “Merge Output” option in the context menu. They will be sutured in the exact same order as in the file list. Configuration panel of Any Video Converter is nothing complicated and it includes setting the output folder for the results, adjusting the CPU priority for the process, choosing the desired level for volume control, adjusting the video and audio parameters and providing the necessary credentials for YouTube! and Nico Video accounts for online file conversion. The application will keep it as simple as possible and will not display tons of details and adjustments.

You can Download Any Video Converter now for free.