Features

These days, it's an app that attempts to be all things to all people - play DVDs, organize music, catalog photos, convert video, interact with social networking sites, browse internet multimedia....there's no end to what RealPlayer offers to its users. Even so, it's not an out-and-out success...

Usability

For a start, installation of RealPlayer is annoying - it takes a while, requires lots of "nexts" and tries to install and enable several features that users don't really need. Finally, when it starts, you're offered a chance to upgrade to paid versions of RealPlayer before you have to register yourself with Real Networks. If all this messing around doesn't appeal, check out a slimline app like UMPlayer.

When you're up and running, RealPlayer features a wide interface where you will notice ads and videos recommended by Real Networks. This looks cluttered and messy, and it's hard to know what the app actually offers. In reality, RealPlayer is ideal for playing and sharing video with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter and it works easily with BlackBerry, iPod, iPhone and other game systems. The new video converter allows you to copy online video to your iPod, Xbox, PS3 and other devices. Unfortunately, you can't rip DVDs with RealPlayer, although this is available as a feature if you upgrade to RealPlayer Plus.

Most recently, RealPlayer has been updated with far better mobile and social networking integration. You can now copy your favorite videos to an iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and dozens of other popular devices automatically. Downloading internet videos is faster, and for those of you with something to hide, RealPlayer offers a new Private folder. Social media has also been bumped up, with direct access to Facebook videos and usefully, a built-in feature to transfer videos to your mobile devices.

Quality

That said, RealPlayer isn't bad at all. It's comparable to Windows Media Player 12 as they both have some impressive ways of organizing your music. For me, the best feature is the CD burner which is something I've used from the early days of RealPlayer. The sheer quality of some of the media only available in Real formats makes RealPlayer an essential item in the toolkit of any fan of internet video and audio.

Conclusion

There's no shortage of media players theses days, and RealPlayer is by no means a bad option. It offers lots of features, good options and is a high-quality player that will do justice to your media. The only problem is that despite its modern features, it feels like a bit of a dinosaur. It's heavy and slow, looks chunky and takes an age to respond to clicks, and for many people - especially those who have experience of lighter options - it's just not the most comfortable player.

RealPlayer is a media player that, although powerful, has suffered from serious feature-creep over the years.

Download RealPlayer 16.0.2.232 in Softonic

Although Microsoft's Silverlight was originally conceived as a competitor to Adobe Flash, it now finds itself competing with Abobe's Web 2.0 platform, Adobe Air.

The harsh truth is, Microsoft Silverlight has already fallen considerably behind Adobe Air. In typically Microsoft style, the software giant's surely missed the boat, by aiming at a replacement for Adobe Flash when the web world was already shifting towards interactive Web 2.0 platforms such as Adobe Air.

Microsoft Silverlight is a lightweight plugin that allows you to watch Silverlight-based content in your browser. It works with most major browsers, including Firefox and Safari. There is no prompt to restart the browser after installation but I recommend you do so because the first site of Silverlight content I accessed after installation simply crashed the browser.

The most important improvements to the latest version are smoother streaming, DRM management, and an out-of browser player. The out-of browser player, however, is dependent on developers embracing it and as yet, there are few examples available. The smooth streaming feature will iron out many of the streaming programs that have plagued Microsoft Silverlight in the past. If your bandwidth drops below 3Mbps, smooth streaming will kick-in so that your video isn't affected.

Microsoft Silverlight can stream high resolution video well and supports HD-quality videos. If you want to create content for Silverlight, you'll need Expression Studio and Visual Studio. In fact, this latest release is is of particular interest to developers because it adds 60 customizable controls, new layout containers, 'deep linking' for page bookmarking, search engine optimization, and enhanced data support.

The signs are though that Microsoft has realized that the battle for web content is already being won by the much slicker and more stable Adobe Air platform and is therefore aiming Microsoft Silverlight at business users. The Silverlight homepage boasts 'Learn how Silverlight is right for your business', and that companies such as Continental Airlines have adopted Silverlight for use in their reservation system, showing that Microsoft knows which side its bread is buttered on.

Silverlight has probably missed the boat as far as Web 2.0 goes, although there's probably no way you can avoid it since there will always be some websites that opt to stream content with Silverlight rather than Flash.

Download Microsoft Silverlight 5.1.20125.0 in Softonic

Adobe Flash Player is an essential plugin for your browser that allows you to view everything from video to games and animation on the web.

Features

Adobe Flash Player 10 includes a range of interesting additions and improvements when compared to previous versions. Top of that list is the inclusion of support for the H.264 video codec and the HE-AAC audio codec, which together offer a much richer, higher-definition picture along with crystal-clear sound. Introducing these capabilities in Adobe Flash Player with only slightly reduced performance looks set to trigger another revolution in web video, as HD movies are already an important element on YouTube - and they look and sound great!

Quality

Adobe Flash Player 10 irons out some of the problems that previous versions have suffered from (like security and stability issues), as well including support for ActionScript 3.0. It also makes fantastic 3D graphics possible. This makes for more dynamic and interesting navigation, games and interactivity on websites.

Conclusion

Adobe Flash Player 10 represents a leap forward in terms of quality as well as stability and security. It's therefore a highly recommended download for all users.

Download Adobe Flash Player Firefox, Safari, Opera 11.8.800.42 (Firefox) in Softonic

Adobe Flash Player (originally a Macromedia product) remains the standard platform for viewing a wide variety of web content, varying from navigation elements to every video you watch on YouTube.

Some of the main reasons to use Adobe Flash Player are:

-simple to use
-high performance
-small file size
-near-HD quality

Additions and Improvements

Adobe Flash Player 10 includes a wide range of interesting additions and improvements when compared to previous versions. Some of these great new features include the inclusion of support for the H.264 video codec and the HE-AAC audio codec, which together offer a much richer, higher-definition picture and crystal-clear sound. By introducing these capabilities and only slightly impacting performance, Adobe Flash Player is set to encourage another revolution in web video, since HD movies are becoming standard on YouTube. They also look and sound fantastic!

Adobe Flash Player 10 also irons out some of the problems that previous versions have suffered from. These include previous security and stability issues. This update also includes support for ActionScript 3.0 and makes fantastic 3D graphics possible. This means more dynamic and interesting navigation, games and interactivity on websites.

Adobe Flash Player 11 represents a leap forward in terms of quality, stability and security.

Download Adobe Flash Player (for IE) 11.8.800.42 in Softonic

It's hard to review something like Smart Installer Pack, because it's not really a software app in itself, but rather a collection of software apps.

Smart Installer Pack contains 24 popular software utilities, among which you can probably find the first five or ten you download on your computer after reinstalling your operating system. This is precisely the aim behind Smart Installer Pack: saving you the pain of having to search, download and install all those programs.

Smart Installer Pack includes Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo Widgets, Skype, Google Earth, Winamp, Firefox, BitTorrent, Gmail Notifier, Rocket Dock, a pack of codecs, Adobe Flash Player, Apple Quicktime, the Java Runtime, Adobe Reader, WinRAR, Open Office, Daemon Tools, Thunderbird, Gimp, Picasa, Avira Antivirus, Google Chrome, CCleaner and KMPlayer.

Of course, you don't have to install them all. Simply browse through the program's tabs and click on the icon of the program you're interested in. Installation will start right away.

Smart Installer Pack is certainly a handy tool that can save you lots of time. On the downside, you're obliged to download a huge file – no matter how many of those tools you'll use – and the programs included in the pack may not be updated to the latest version.

With Smart Installer Pack you can save a lot of time when downloading and installing your favorite software after an OS re-installation.

Download Smart Installer Pack 1.5 in Softonic

In an age of multiple media players all with different codecs and formats, it's nice to know there's at least one out there that can play just about anything.

Haihaisoft Universal Player supports almost all popular digital media formats and can also play digital media files protected by DRM-X. Amongst the players it can emulate are Windows Media Player, Real Player, Adobe Flash Player, Apple QuickTime Player, PowerDVD and Flash Video (FLV) Player. What's more though, this player embeds itself into Internet Explorer meaning that whenever you are presented with a format compatible with any of these file types, you can watch it instantly. The number of formats it can play is mind-boggling, including those protected by DRM such as WMV(Windows Media Video), WMA(Windows Media Audio), ASF, WMS, DVD, VCD, SVCD, MOV, RM, RMVB, AVI, MPEG, WMV, 3GP, FLV, SWF, MP3, AMR, M4A, ACC, OGG, MIDI, GIF and JPEG file format. Best of all, the program is constantly updated with the latest codecs so you don't need to worry about it suddenly not being able to play files.

A completely free player that supports just about any format imaginable and embeds itself into IE perfectly.

Download Haihaisoft Universal Player 1.5.7.0 in Softonic