Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews

My rating:

Product:

Opera

Version: 9

By far the best Browser!

Pros: It does everything i want it to. It's very versatile and stylish looking with many cool skins to pick and choose from. Being able to empty the disk cache on exit. The mouse gestures are almost perfect. Very customisable so i can get it to exactly the way i want it. It's a browser i will stick with forever unless Opera manages to shoot itself in the foot like nullsoft did with winamp 3. Opera was always an average browser until version 8 beta and i've been a fan ever since.

Cons: Everytime i open Opera it always tries to connect to check for updates which always sets off my Peerguardian 2. Maybe i'm missing something but i don't think there's anyway to stop it from calling home. It would be nice to be able to delete bookmarks with a simple right click instead of going into 'manage bookmarks'. Sometimes the mouse gestures are too sensitive meaning that sometimes when i want to go back one page it closes the page. Luckily this doesn't happen too often. The name 'Opera' isn't very good but now i'm being too picky. This is an excellent browser!

Posted: 22-Jun-2006 05:27:49 AM

Was this review helpful?

40 of 46 users
found this review helpful.

Offensive:
Does this post contain offensive content?
Flag it for our review.

Replies:
No replies
› Reply to this review

My rating:

Product:

Google Earth

Yeah this is truly wicked!

Pros: I hate to be a conformist but i have to agree with everyone here. This program is out of this world....or erm in this world. If this was by anybody else other than google then it would be about �500 which goes to show it can be done for free and that other software developers really do extort the people. I really like the way it lists the webcams which are available on certain streets and then you can go and watch the webcams. Google Earth is a must.

Cons: Not everything is detailed. I can find my street but i can't see my house because everything is a blur but i do live in a small town. Navigating around the planet can be a bit awkward and i wish people on here (me included) would stop saying they can't believe it's free because we don't want to give google any ideas now do we?

Posted: 09-Jul-2005 06:03:22 AM

Was this review helpful?

28 of 29 users
found this review helpful.

Offensive:
Does this post contain offensive content?
Flag it for our review.

Replies:
› See all 3 replies
› Reply to this review

My rating:

Product:

BitComet Accelerator

Version: 3.0

SPYWARE ALERT!

Pros: There are more pros in smearing jam all over your private parts and sticking them in a hornets nest than the pros in using BitComet Accelerator!

Cons: This thing installs NEW.NET!!! A nasty piece of spyware junk which can be notoriously difficult to move and could possibly mess up your internet connection which may require a fresh install of windows!!!!!! What happened to download.com's zero tolerance for spyware/adware policy??? It's also blatantly obvious it has spyware. My PeerGuardian 2 went nuts as BCA tried aggresively to connect to something called AVAYA Communication about once every couple of seconds and even after uninstalling BCA it's still doing it so there must still be some new.net on my hard drive! AVAYA is even trying to contact my computer! More spyware scans are needed me thinks! Is there some collaboration between download.com and the MPAA here!? It doesn't even speed up the downloads like it said it would! One of the worst pieces of software i've come across! Please stay away!

Posted: 18-Aug-2005 06:06:19 PM

Was this review helpful?

12 of 13 users
found this review helpful.

Offensive:
Does this post contain offensive content?
Flag it for our review.

Replies:
No replies
› Reply to this review

My rating:

Product:

DivX Play Bundle with DivX Player

Version: 6.0

This is a pretty big disappointment

Pros: It's slightly better at compression than Xvid.

Cons: It's incompatable with a lot of encoder and re-encoding software out there including DivX's very own Dr DivX which they've replaced with the god awful DivX converter. They aren't going to update Dr DivX to work with DixX 6 either so i'm gutted :o( It's also incompatible with my beloved No1 DVD Ripper which just won't have any of it!!! At least No1 DVD Ripper will probably work with DivX 6 with it's next release. Also there's an annoying little icon that won't go away in the system tray whenever a DivX or Xvid file is running and there's no option to make it go away! My DVD/avi player just about managed to play a movie encoded in DivX 6 but still struggled to start. Unfortunately the cons really do outweight the pros which is why i've switched back to good ol' DivX 5.2.1 which is far more smoother and can still play DivX 6 files.

Posted: 04-Aug-2005 05:18:08 PM

Was this review helpful?

10 of 11 users
found this review helpful.

Offensive:
Does this post contain offensive content?
Flag it for our review.

Replies:
› See 1 reply
› Reply to this review

My rating:

Product:

Free Internet TV

Version: 4.5

Great idea, needs a lot of improvment though!

Pros: Lots and lots and lots of different channels from all over the world which is definitely worth the 4 stars i gave it. Very interesting to see tv from around the world (even if i can't understand most of them LOL). Worth trying out f'sure but maybe by the end of the trial you may feel that it's just not worth the cash.

Cons: Unfortunately unlike the name suggests it isn't free. I think it's called 'Free' because you don't need to buy a tv tuner card or anything else but still the name is misleading which makes me wonder why they couldn't have just called it 'Internet TV Player' or something without the word 'Free'. About 75% of channels are not in English and if you don't speak English then that will mean that 90% or so of channels will not be in your language. Some of the channel lists are misleading e.g. a high bitrate channel is really poor quality and a low bitrate channel is good quality but that only a applies to a few channels. I have the latest Real Player codecs and the latest WMP codecs but about 25% of the channels won't start, some take 5 minutes to start and when they do start the sound/video starts to stutter after a couple of minutes. A lot of the English speaking channels are just plain terrible. Winamp 5 has radio and tv stations for free, not as many tv channels as 'FITV' but most of them are in English. FITV isn't very customisable with hardly any options.

Posted: 03-Jun-2005 11:38:50 AM

Was this review helpful?

9 of 10 users
found this review helpful.

Offensive:
Does this post contain offensive content?
Flag it for our review.

Replies:
No replies
› Reply to this review

Ratings submitted:	47
Reviews written:	36
"Helpful" votes received:	152
"Not helpful" votes received:	42

My Profile: -fibreoptic-

Opera

By far the best Browser!

Google Earth

Yeah this is truly wicked!

BitComet Accelerator

SPYWARE ALERT!

DivX Play Bundle with DivX Player

This is a pretty big disappointment

Free Internet TV

Great idea, needs a lot of improvment though!

About me: -fibreoptic-