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 Free Antivirus alerts users about outdated applications that are installed but only offers a link to the program page to download the latest update.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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Nero Burning ROM was the original Nero application and, some would argue, also the best. As a burning application, it excels. Nero Burning ROM is by no means the simplest app on the market, but what it lacks in simplicity, it makes up for in quality, configuration choices and speed.

In broad terms, you can use Nero Burning ROM to burn and copy to CDs, DVDs and DVD and CD ROMS. So far, so normal. What differentiates the application from its competitors, however, are its excellent configuration options - you'll see them as soon as you open the program. They might be overwhelming for beginners, but it shouldn't take long to get to grips with them. Once you do, you'll see this choice as one of Nero Burning ROM's major advantages.

This app doesn't stop at configuration options, however. Nero Burning ROM also offers lots of secondary tools which means there's a good chance you'll be able to meet all your CD/DVD needs from within the same program. There's an encoder, compilation tool, built-in recorder and disc explorer.

Nero Burning ROM is a one-stop shop for all your CD and DVD burning needs.

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Features

Usability

Whether you create a text from scratch or use one of the many templates included, Microsoft Word will help you with a wide array of tools: tables, text formatting options, color schemes, support to insert images and clipart and more. Microsoft Word also includes a powerful spellchecker and tools to revise documents with marked text and personal notes. Support for video, however, is still missing.

Quality

In all, Microsoft Word proves to be an excellent tool for text processing, from a simple note to a complex report with images, graphs and tables.

Conclusion

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IBM SPSS Statistics is the ultimate tool for managing your statistics data and research.

This super-app affords you complete control over your data. It allows you to make complex graphs and illustrations from statistics and is firmly aimed at professionals who want to solve business and research problems. To facilitate this, SPSS features a wide range of analytical functions that take the pain out of collating data.

SPSS offers detailed analysis options to look deeper into your data and spot trends that you might not have noticed. You can test out hundreds of different variables on your data to see how figures or performance would change under different circumstances, while the app contains multiple advanced features that will allow you get the max from your data.

An array of features

Among these features are excellent sharing options, automated models, the ability to operate server versions of IBM SPSS Statistics Base and modules on IBM mainframe servers, a syntax editor, integration with Microsoft Office, and much, much more. In order to get a better idea of the functions and features, take a look here.

Obviously, such power comes at a price. The SPSS download is pretty large, and once you do have the program installed, it’s a pretty steep learning curve until you find your feet. You could argue that SPSS is actually a glorified version of Excel, but with far more options and power behind it, it’s an impressive beast. As a result, domestic users may be intimidated and would be better off getting started on a simpler data management app.

If you’re serious about statistics, then SPSS is as good as it gets.

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What's new in Office 2013?

Microsoft Office 2013 is by no means a revolutionary update to the venerable office suite but this is the first version of Microsoft Office that has good cloud integration and a touch-friendly interface.

SkyDrive will be the backbone of Microsoft Office 2013. Settings, documents, templates, and even custom user dictionaries will all be synced to the cloud so that you have a consistent Office experience on whatever device, wherever you are.

There are also new social features shown in Microsoft Office 2013 including automatic picture importing from services like Facebook and Flickr. Easier sharing also brings along easier collaboration. Users can now hold a multi-person video conference while editing a single document.

What you get inside Office 2013

PowerPoint 2013

PowerPoint will also feature full stylus support to make giving presentations easier. Users can annotate their slides instantly. There's also a great new feature where the presenter can have notes on his or her screen but only have the main slide open on the audience's screen.

Outlook 2013

One of the more impressive features that was built into Outlook 2013 is its ability to intelligently suggest events and appointments. Outlook will detect when someone wants to create an appointment by looking for locations, time, and specific keywords. This makes adding events to your calendar much easier.

Last but not least, Microsoft also announced powerful developer tools to create plugins for Outlook. They demoed a fully interactive Bing map within a body of an email, without having to jump into a browser.

Word 2013

OneNote 2013

Excel 2013

Installation issues

Installation of Microsoft Office 2013 can be a bit of a pain on Windows 7. The Office 2013 preview downloads as an image file, which will need to be burned to a disc or you'll need a drive virtualization tool like Daemon Tools to create and mount the image. Windows 8 users will not have to worry about this as the operating system includes a disc virtualization tool.

Compatibility concerns

Microsoft Office 2013 creates a nice ecosystem for those already using their office suite but it may not be enough to woo users from other services or applications that are free. Microsoft also announced that Microsoft Office 2013 will only be compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 8. XP and Vista users will be left out in the cold.

Conclusion

While Microsoft Office 2013 received some nice updates, there was nothing revolutionary that was announced. Microsoft played the catch-up game with Microsoft Office 2013, giving its office suite many features its competitors like Google Drive and Apple Mail have had for a while.

Overall, Microsoft Office 2013 offers some huge improvements over its previous versions with great cloud and touch features but this may not be enough for it to say as the king of office suites.

Download Microsoft Office 2013 Professional Plus 15.0.4454.1002 in Softonic

Excel has always been an immensely powerful application, if you know how to use it. Microsoft specifically targeted ease of use for Excel 2013. When users input data, Excel 2013 will analyze the type of data it is and will give suggestions about the best way to present the data. If the data is comprehensive enough, it will even analyze it and present an option to make a PivotTable automatically.

There is also a new feature called Flash Fill, which will help put badly formatted data into something comprehensible. Data will be sorted into the appropriate columns for you. This takes so much work out of manually organizing your data that Flash Fill may be the killer feature for those deciding whether to upgrade to Excel 2013.

One big improvement in Excel 2013 is how organic it feels. There are little, quick animations that mimic those found in Windows Phone 8, helping to make the program feel less clinical. The animations aren't distracting and help guide your focus to what Excel is currently doing.

The ribbon interface stays but has been tweaked to be more usable. Icons are different colors and grouped nicely. There is a new option in Excel 2013 to pull in pictures from the web from services that you've linked to your Microsoft account. Setting up Excel 2013 is automatic as it'll pull information from your account.

While Excel 2013 still has an intimidating amount of features, it has become smarter, making it easier to work with data. Microsoft has done an outstanding job with Excel 2013 and anyone who uses Excel on a daily basis should upgrade.

Download Excel 2013 15.0.4420.1017 in Softonic

The Windows Live Photo Gallery interface itself is clean, clear and easy to use. It provides a great platform for your images and the picture quality in the slideshow function is excellent. Windows Live Photo Gallery also features great tagging and sorting functions and a few nice extras, such as the ability to order prints directly from online retailers, burn to CD and publish to a group.

Unfortunately, many of these extras require you to install a supplementary program or sign up for a Windows Live account. Add that to Windows Live Photo Gallery's simplistic editing tools, and suddenly the program isn't looking so rosy.

In fact, Windows Live Photo Gallery even appears to have lost a few features since the last version, as there is no sign of the screensaver function of the beta version and you can only make thumbnails that measure 100 x 75 - not exactly what I'd call progress, Windows!

Windows Live Photo Gallery is a good program for heavy Windows Live users who don't need much editing power.

Download Windows Live Photo Gallery 16.4.3503.0728 in Softonic

With spreadsheet sharing, Microsoft Excel is the ideal way of sharing, managing and analyzing information. This version of Microsoft Excel has improved access across the board, from a cleaner interface to better usability. The ribbon-like interface caused controversy when it was first introduced, but it's much easier to navigate for beginners, since you can now see all the options instead of having them hidden away in menus.

That's not to say the application has become any simpler to learn to use. Microsoft Excel is still a bit intimidating for beginners, although luckily it comes with tons of templates that help users get a better handle on it. One of the best new features it comes with allows you to restore spreadsheets you've accidentally closed. Consequently, it's now much easier to correct mistaken actions. The graphs and graphics you can add to your tables are also much improved.

Sharing data is easy as well, since you can use the Microsoft Excel web app, which allows any invited people to view or edit your spreadsheets. There are even mobile versions so you can access your spreadsheets on the move.

Microsoft Excel sets the standard in spreadsheet software. It comes as part of Microsoft Office 2010, which also includes other leading apps such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. It is incredibly powerful, and while there is a lot to learn in order to get the most out of it, anyone will be able to produce very attractive presentations with the data they enter into Excel spreadsheets.

Microsoft Excel 2010 is essential for many people at work, and there isn't a better spreadsheet application available.

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Biggest isn't always best, but in this case, kudos has to go to Microsoft for developing a tool that is both hugely comprehensive and very user-friendly. Microsoft PowerPoint features the ubiquitous 2010 ribbon interface, which makes it very easy to navigate and use. The interface is totally customizable, and as you click on the different elements of your presentation the appropriate set of editing tools appear.

Microsoft PowerPoint features all the editing tools you would expect of an Office product, as well as an impressive selection of presentation-specific options, such as transitions and animations. You can also add and edit a variety of other non-text elements, such as images, video, audio, hypertext and graphs. Where possible, Microsoft PowerPoint also supports drag and drop, making adding information and interesting elements to your presentation especially easy.

From a preparation point of view, Microsoft PowerPoint also excels. Under the file tab you'll find a document summary, including all the information - and tools to modify - non-presentation elements, such as security, compression and sharing and co-authoring options. The program includes functions for rehearsing your presentations to the minutest detail, while you can also record it to watch as a video. SharePoint is supported, and you can access a web version of your presentation via Windows Live.

All in all, Microsoft PowerPoint is an impressive product. User-friendly enough for everyone, but with the advanced features needed to produce really professional presentations, it's hard to think of a situation where Microsoft PowerPoint would not be a great option for users.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a great example of an excellent piece of software. Your presentations will never be the same again!

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After introducing it officially back in July, Microsoft have now launched the final version of the long-awaited Microsoft Office 2010.

I tested both the Technical Preview and the Beta version released months ago, and happily I've found a bunch of new features and improvements in the final version. For starters, the Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business pack includes five apps, namely Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote. If you need to test more Office apps, you can try Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus instead.

As regards appearance, all the Microsoft Office 2010 apps have been slightly modified. They still keep the "ribbon" interface – in a much clearer, almost minimalist style – but the Office button has been renamed to "File" and now shows a different pane. Not only does it include direct access to all document-related tasks, but also shows detailed information about the document you're currently working on.

Leaving changes aside, the truth is that Microsoft Office 2010 has pretty much the same features we already saw in the Technical Preview. The context menu in Word, for example, has been greatly improved and lets you see changes in real time as you browse through the different options. You can now add videos to your PowerPoint presentations, remove redundant messages from conversations in Outlook and insert small color charts inside cells in Excel spreadsheets. There are also tools to translate text, take and use screenshots, and apply special effects to the images you use in your documents. What's more, Microsoft Office 2010 now lets you save your documents on SkyDrive and share them online in just two clicks.

Regarding performance, Microsoft Office 2010 seems to be as fast and light on system resources as the Technical Preview. There's a significant improvement in the time the suite apps take to launch, and how they behave when working on your documents.

In all, Microsoft Office 2010 is an excellent productivity suite with great new features that make it easier and more comfortable to use, and also turn it into an even more professional solution for daily work tasks.

Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business lets you fully test the new, long-awaited version of the world's most popular productivity suite.

Download Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business 14.0.6029.1000 in Softonic

Microsoft has finally launched the long awaited Service Pack 2 for Office 2007. Taking into account that the pack contains more than 600 improvements and bugfixes, this is practically a compulsory download for all Office 2007 users.

Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 contains hundreds of enhancements for the productivity suite, as well as some interesting new features, such as compatibility with the OpenDocument format in Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and the possibility to save as PDF in all Office apps.

Other improvements include a better charting system in Excel and an optimized support for IMAP and RSS in Outlook. The email client also boasts faster startup, searching and syncing.

All you need is to be patient enough to wait for the 290 MB file to download, and it's all yours.

Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 includes more than 600 fixes and improvements for Microsoft's productivity suite.

Download Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 1.0 (SP 2) in Softonic