Related links
Winamp 5.01 -
www.winamp.com
Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird -
www.mozilla.org/products
7-Zip -
www.7-zip.org
Skype -
www.skype.com
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We list mostly Open Source or freeware
software here, unless there's some commercial shareware which is worth a big
mention.
Winamp 5.01
Winamp is back with
a bang! After the not-so-successful version 3, Nullsoft has moved directly to
5. With a number of enhancements and features, the new player looks *really*
awesome. Winamp 5 integrates a complete suite for media handling. There's an
MP3/AAC encoder and CD ripping. What more, there's even integrated CD burning
to convert all your favorite songs to audio CDs. With a revved-up AVS, alpha
translucency, support for older skins, colour themes, and a wonderful Media
Library, Winamp tops the ratings for the best Audio Player. All these without
too much load on the CPU and memory :)
+ Feature rich, loads of
eye-candy, integrated ripping, encoding and burning, good media library
- Too many features might make a newbie fumble
|
Performance |
* * * * * |
|
Ease of use |
* * * * |
|
Features |
* * * * * |
|
Overall |
* * * * * |
Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird
Mozilla
has been synonymous with their browser. After ruling Linux, Mozilla is invading the Windows desktop
with two top-notch products: Firefox and Thunderbird. Firefox is a next
generation browser which does a lot more than simply display hypertext. With
support for tabbed browsing, ad blocking, popup blocking, themes, plugins and
extensions, Firefox is all ready to give Microsoft's Internet Explorer a run
for it's money and dominance in the Windows market. Thunderbird on the other
hand is a complete, stand-alone e-mail and news client with advanced features such as spam
control, multiple accounts, filters, HTML message support and the like. What
makes Thunderbird better than other clients is it's support for a *huge*
number of plugins and extensions such as Tagzilla, Enigmail, Offline support,
etc, Thunderbird is, like Firefox, immensely flexible and extensible. What
more, with a good theming support, Thunderbird is surely the next big client.
Although both products are still in their technology previews (Firefox: 0.8
and Thunderbird: 0.5), they surely make a very promising package. Mozilla is
sure to gain from this wonderful browser-email client combo. Watch out this
page for the latest reviews when the stable 1.0 versions are realeased.
+ Tabbed browsing, ad and popup
blocking, junk mail detection, theming, plugins and extensions
- As of now (Feb '04) both products are still in product reviews. So you might
experience problems and crashes while running them.
|
Performance |
* * * * |
|
Ease of use |
* * * * * |
|
Features |
* * * * * |
|
Overall |
* * * * * |
7-Zip
7-Zip is an open source archive manager,
like PKZip. It supports a wide number of compression formats including 7z,
ZIP, GZIP, TAR, BZIP2, RAR*, CAB*, ARJ*, CPIO*, RPM*, DEB* and SPLIT*. It also
uses a new archive format, 7z. 7z archives produce the highest compression
among all known compression formats. 7z also has support for solid compression
and 256-bit AES encryption. It also includes a file manager, which employs an
Explorer-like interface. It uses a simple dialog box to add or extract files,
keeping a small memory footprint. The UI is very minimal and it needs lots of
time for a beginner to get used to it.
+ Support for a many extensions,
high-performance 7z format, small memory footprint
- Not an intuitive UI, additions to solid archives not yet possible
* only browsing and
decompression
|
Performance |
* * * * |
|
Ease of use |
* * * |
|
Features |
* * * * |
|
Overall |
* * * * |
Skype
Skype is free and simple software that will
enable you to make free calls anywhere in the world in minutes. Skype, created
by the people who brought you KaZaA uses
innovative P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you with other Skype
users. If you are tired of paying outrageous fees for telephony, Skype is for
you! Skype calls have excellent sound quality and are highly secure with
end-to-end encryption.
+ Simple UI, no reconfiguring if
behind firewall, excellent sound quality even over dial-ups
- Software still in beta, so overall performance yet to be assimilated
|
Performance |
* * * * |
|
Ease of use |
* * * * |
|
Features |
* * * * |
|
Overall |
* * * * |
-Signing off
ashish |