I have made the full switch to listening exclusively to Internet Radio stations many years ago. The core reasons? Accessibility while working on the PC, less ads and talking while songs are playing, and better recording possibilities (see our StreamWriter review for an excellent program that can be used for that purpose. I usually use [...]

Full disc encryption or encrypted container files are useful to prevent unauthorized access to a larger number of files. This may feel like overkill though if you only want to make sure that a single file is protected from access. That’s where a program like Encoding Decoding comes into play. The program, available as a [...]

Cebit, the world’s largest computer expo, is held each year in Hannover, Germany. It is an international expo that is attracting companies and trade experts, as well as tech savvy visitors from all over the world. This year’s Cebit is taking place from March 6 to 10. Single tickets and full-event tickets can be ordered [...]

File and program icons distinguish different file types and applications visually from each other. Users come into contact with icons every time they use the computer, but only a few would consider changing or modifying program icons on their system. I can only think of two user groups who would need the to view, modify [...]

I sometimes see phrases or words on a page that I need to look up. Sometimes, those phrases can also lead to additional resources about a certain subject that I’m researching. While I could highlight and right-click the phrase to search for it on the default search engine, I do not have options to search [...]

When you currently open a new tab page in the Firefox browser, either by clicking or using the shortcut Cltr-t, you see a blank white page with no information whatsoever, not even a search form. Other web browsers, like Opera for example, are displaying information on the page, like the most popular web pages visited [...]

Instagr.am is a popular photo taking and sharing application for Apple’s iPhone. You can basically use it to take snapshots with the phone’s camera and send them directly to sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. It comes with other social features that make it that more enticing to a crowd that likes to socialize [...]

If you read tech blogs and technology oriented sites regularly you notice that privacy is a hot topic on those sites. Most readers who visit those sites cherish their privacy, while the majority of Internet users are likely unaware of how their privacy may be compromised on the Internet. Tracking is directly related to a [...]

Music2PC is a free music downloader for the Windows operating system. All that users need to do is type in an artist, band, song name or album to see results populated instantly in the interface. A single click on the download button is all it takes to download the music to the local PC. The [...]

If you are using Windows Explorer for your file copying jobs you have probably noticed that it is not the best tool for advanced operations like copying all mp3 files in a folder structure to another folder, or merging directories. That is where specialized tools like SmartCopyTool come into play. The free program lets you [...]

With the Windows 8 Beta just around the corner, it is becoming easier to see into which direction Microsoft is heading in regards to the final version of the operation system. I have already expressed my concern that Windows 8 could become too tablet centric, and as a result alienate a large part of the [...]

Color Pic-a-Pix is an addictive online puzzle game that is more or less a spin-off of the Japanese Kakuro puzzle game. The core difference is that numbers have been replaced with colors. Here is what this game is all about. Each game consists of a set number of rows and columns, and color hints that [...]

You may have heard about so called ransom ware before. This is a type of malware that tries to extort money from computer users by making the system or data inaccessible until the money has been paid. This can be a serious issue, especially if you need access to the data immediately. Kaspersky WindowsUnlocker is [...]

Opera, in the most recent stable version of the web browser, and also in the latest snapshot build, has made changes to the browser’s address bar suggestion feature. This feature basically handles the suggestions the browser displays when the user begins to type in the address bar. Users in the Opera forum were the first [...]

Google recently revealed the plan to merge the privacy policies and terms of service for most of the company’s products. This move gives all Google services direct access to all user data. Google search for instance can take into account what kind of emails a user gets in Gmail to personalize the search results based [...]

You sometimes may want to erase traces of web pages that you have visited in the past. This is especially useful on multi-user systems where every user is sharing the same account and profile, but also for privacy conscious users who want to protect their privacy from third parties (for instance during US border controls [...]

While closing some of the company’s lesser popular services, Google’s popular services such as Google+ or YouTube have received plenty of updates in the past. Google today announced that they have updated YouTube’s browse, video editor and video manager pages. Channels have moved into the focus on YouTube with recent updates, and the new browse [...]

One of the issues that many users who tried Google Music experienced was the inability to download music officially to a connected device. And while the service’s app saved some of the songs locally while listing, it did not really provide a comfortable user experience. Third party programs like Google Music Downloader filled the gap, [...]

If you are working with multiple profiles in Firefox you have probably your own ingenious way of launching them. Some Firefox users may use shortcuts to launch their profiles, others the built-in profile manager, the command line or an add-on like Switchy If you are new to the concept, I suggest you take a look [...]

If you like to view comic books, ebooks, or image series on your computer you are probably using a specialized program like CDisplay or CoView for this which offer features that standard images viewers do not offer. GonVisor is another versatile software that combines the functionality of an image viewer with ebook and comic book [...]

Having currency exchange rates displayed in your web browser can be useful in several situations. Maybe you prefer to buy some goods overseas and want the exchange rate right in your browser to make a rough product price calculation. Or you are trading on the foreign exchange market and want to make sure that you [...]

Keeping track of all your history items can be quite the feat if you are using more than one browser. Privacy conscious users usually delete the information regularly, while the majority of users is likely unaware what their web browser and operating system can reveal about them. History Viewer is a free program for the [...]

Usually when you want to download a video from a popular site such as YouTube, Gametrailers, Facebook or Twitter, you need to put at least some effort into it. You could for instance install a browser extension like Download Helper for the Firefox web browser or the desktop application Video Cache View which displays cached [...]

Audiobooks these days are usually delivered on CD or as a digital recording on the Internet. They are not cheap by any means, new bestsellers cost anywhere between $15 to $30 which often is more than you would pay for the bestseller in book format. Why am I telling you this? Because Audiobooks has just [...]

There is not really a lot that you can do with Firefox’s address bar, other than entering keywords or web addresses. A click on the site’s favicon opens a window with security related information about the site and the bookmark’s star at the end offers to bookmark the site. UI Enhancer improves the Firefox address [...]

Most email notifiers inform you whenever messages have been received in a connected email account. These programs usually make no distinctions between important messages and unimportant ones, which can be a issue of the account is regularly flooded with spam, newsletters and other non-time-relevant messages. The free Microsoft Outlook add-in Important Mail Alert changes this [...]

Bundling third party applications with your own software is not a new thing on the Internet. It is for instance quite common that you see the Ask Toolbar, Babylon Toolbar, or any other toolbar added to software installations. Users who do not pay attention to the installation are then not only installing the software they [...]

An announcement was posted yesterday on the official Google blog that indicates that changes are being made to Google’s privacy policies and terms of service. What first looks like a reasonable thing to do is in fact something that will keep privacy advocates up at night. Google will merge their privacy policies, of which about [...]

Google Takeout is a service that Google users can make use of to export their user data to their local PC. Not all Google services are supported by Takeout though, which limits the use of the service somewhat. Up until now, it only offered to export Picasa Web Albums, Google+ related information, Google Voice data [...]

I sometimes close applications accidentally, and every now and then forcefully, for instance when they are not responding anymore. To start them again, I have to click on their icon in the system tray, start menu or another location from where they can be started. The free software Undoclose changes this, as it adds an [...]