iTunes 11 has been completely redesigned from the ground up. Development of iTunes has been stagnant the last few years so Apple needs to get this one right. Has Apple nailed it or is the new iTunes a mess? Read on to find out.

Features

iCloud integration has also been tightened. Every track you've bought in iTunes will now show up in your music library, whether or not it has been downloaded. Click on it to download the album. User can now also stream directly from the cloud instead of having to download the track first. This also applies to all your TV and movies that were purchased in iTunes. There's also a dedicated tab for iTunes Match, Apple's music matching service to make all of your tracks available across devices, if they're available in the iTunes store.

The iTunes store has also gone through a redesign with featured content up top. Top lists are still there and are easier to browse. iTunes 11 will also allow you to access the iTunes store content from your music library, suggesting similar artists and tracks, without having to take you to the iTunes store.

Usability

New in iTunes 11 is the "Up Next" feature, which is basically a fancy name for your queue. Add songs to your queue from wherever you are in the interface. You don't need to manage a playlist to arrange and rearrange the tracks to your liking.

Creating playlists is much improved. Instead of having to jump in and out a playlist to add and arrange tracks, playlists now have a dedicated pane on the right where you can manipulate tracks without having to jump around the program.

The mini player has also been completely redesigned and is actually useful now. The mini player has gotten smaller but utilizes that small space much better than previous versions. Player controls will show up with you hover your mouse over the mini player. There's access to search and your Up Next queue can be manipulated from the mini player.

Devices now show up as a button at the top right. Clicking on it will take you to a detailed page where you can manage everything. Choose what you want synced, manage your apps, and even play music directly from your iOS device. Everything is easier to read and comprehend in the device tab.

Quality

Conclusion

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Features

avast! Free Antivirus is loaded with tons of features. From the home tab you can gain quick access to your system status, virus scan, software updater, stats, and the market. Features like the firewall and SafeZone require a premium subscription.

The software updater that's included with avast! Free Antivirus alerts users about outdated applications that are installed but only offers a link to the program page to download the latest update. Paying for a premium subscription will allow you to update your apps within the application. There's even an option to update automatically in the paid versions of avast!

avast! Free Antivirus offers more than just virus protection. The application also includes "cloud services," which gathers information from other avast! users to compare the reputation of similar files. These updates are constantly streamed to and from avast! so users don't have to worry about downloading updates.

New to avast! Free Antivirus is the Market where you can purchase additional features and services. The app itself is very good at reminding users how many features are missing so the Market makes it even more tempting to upgrade. Purchases can be made directly inside the application.

Usability

Using avast! Free Antivirus is very straightforward. Features and sections of the application are clearly marked with short explanations about what each feature does.

Like with many other antivirus applications, the amount of options and features is a little overwhelming. There are icons in the Security tab that are clearly marked with a green status light indicating everything is working as it should. This makes it easy to see what parts of the application require user action.

For the most part, avast! Free Antivirus is an application that you can configure and forget about. The program will display a popup if anything needs your action.

Quality

avast! Free Antivirus is well designed with tons of features. While it's not as simple as it could be, it works well and is completely free. It's nice that avast! Free Antivirus doesn't include an annoying tool bar, but it does install a web extension to monitor malicious links while you're browsing.

While avast! Free Antivirus excels as an antivirus application, it doesn't do much in the way of being a one-stop-shop for all your computer maintenance needs. Other apps like IObit's Advanced Systemcare with Antivirus offer more features that will make sure your computer is running its fastest.

Scans were performed quickly but not the best we've seen. This really depends on your hardware and how many files you have on your computer.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, it's easy to see what avast! Free Antivirus remains at the top of our download charts. The amount of features that free users have access to is amazing. While it's annoying that the app nags you to upgrade to a paid subscription, it's a small price to pay for a well designed antivirus solution that's completely free. Now if only avast! could include some computer maintence features.

What's new

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Easy installtion and configuration

Installing Ares only takes a few minutes and the interface is simple enough that anybody will feel comfortable with it. When you start Ares, it lets you auto-scan your PC to find files you might like to share on the network. Beginners will be relieved to know that there is no complex configuration</strong> process - all you need to do is select the search tab and type the name of the file you want. Once it appears, double click to begin downloading. You’ll be able to check progress in the transfer tab. The recent update adds bittorrent support, opening Ares up to loads of new content.

Chat client

If you enjoy communicating with other users, click on the chat tab and connect to one of the thousands of channels available. You can pick up tips on how to use Ares better, ask which files other users recommend or just talk about your life in general. You can even insert emoticons into your conversation and keep a list of your favorite chat channels.

Detailed previews of files

Of all the P2P programs, Ares probably features the widest preview screen. You can set it to fit to screen or adjust it to your preference. This is a great way of making sure you’re downloading the right movie or to get a sneak peak at your downloads.

Unlike WinMX or FileNavigator, the two other spin-off Gnutella projects, Ares did not drop into obscurity and unites a flourishing community of users. However, the same old problems seem to arise. According to many Ares users, the application suffers from connection problems that make it difficult to properly search for a file or successfully complete downloads. Others will worry that Ares is a smaller network than the globally used Gnutella and does not offer as many download sources.

Conclusion

Ares is an ambitious project, and the fact that it still remains standing while eDonkey has fallen is characteristic of its reliability. Thanks to a strong community of users, a simple interface, a great preview page and multichat service, it's a sharing app that's still going strong. Ares is the P2P app of choice for anybody interested in sharing files over the internet.

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The hoo-hah surrounding the closure of Napster all those years ago now seems like a distant memory. At the time, users were literally crying that they would no longer be able to share files for nothing over the Internet. As it turned out, they needn't have worried because since then we've seen countless P2P clients come and go. Aside from being the world's first radio-enabled peer-to-peer software, FileCroc doesn't bring anything new to the table, however, it does combine a wealth of useful features with a smart GUI.

With shades of Ares about it, FileCroc works through a decentralised network with more than 50 million users, meaning that you invariably find what you're looking for and transfer times are pretty quick. It can even be used to download Torrent files, giving it extra bonus points in my book. Thanks to its drag-and-drop control method, it's dead easy to start sharing files with the program from the get-go.

Besides just giving you a platform to share files, FileCroc also includes a smart chat facility, with the ability to create your own rooms and host files within them. You also get a neat built-in player that lets you preview and play songs before they download. I've heard some grumblings before about an adware toolbar called 'Navelex,' which installs automatically with the client, but I found no sign of it in this version.

If you want a fully-featured P2P client with a fast search facility then FileCroc could be just the thing you're looking for.

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Putting these prejudices aside, if you're someone who is just looking to download movies, TV shows and clips then BearFlix could be seen as an ideal choice. The clear, tabbed interface incorporates many of the elements of its father application, which is one of the easiest P2P clients to navigate around, making this a great program for those who are new to the world of file sharing.

The BearFlix user interface is optimized for video downloading, including a nifty filtering function that allows you to hone your search to a specific movie file type. There's also a traffic progress monitor at the top of the main window indicating the amount of bandwidth currently being commandeered by the app.

BearFlix's built-in video player allows you to preview videos and play them once they've been downloaded. Given that this is such an integral part of what supposedly what makes BearFlix different stand out from other P2P apps, we were somewhat underwhelmed by this feature. Playback with BearFlix is often a little slow and juddery, and the range of player controls is very basic.

That said, there are still many positives to be taken from BearFlix. The advanced parental controls feature puts you in control of what content your kids can get hold of, searching is very quick, and best of all the network returns a substantial number of matching results when compared to other P2P software like Ares or Frostwire.

If you're looking for rare TV shows or older movies, BearFlix is a fast, simple and reliable solution. If it's newer releases you're after though, you're probably better off with a Bittorrent client. Remember though, stick to the copyright-free material if you want to stay on the right side of the law.

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KCeasy is a windows front end for the giFT filesharing system. Plugins allow giFT to support different kinds of filesharing networks. KCeasy currently supports the following networks:

• Gnutella (Shareaza, Gnucleus, LimeWire, Bearshare, XoloX)
• Ares (Ares Galaxy, Warez P2P)
• OpenFT (A new network developed by the giFT project)

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