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

The intuitive user interfaces helps to get job done without headache. You no longer to need to mess up with Java coding and expensive IDEs. It includes a easy way to test your application using Adobe Debug Launcher which simulates mobile device. Also it generates all required icons just by providing one main icon.

Anyone who wants to start mobile games development could use this software and also everyone with no coding experience. If you are a sponsor who buys and licences Flash game this tool could easily help you to port game for Android.

Download Andaired 1 in Softonic

CCleaner is a very efficient and easy to use utility that cleans and optimizes your PC to ensure best performance and freedom from malware.

The beauty of free download CCleaner is the speed at which it carries out the various scans and fixes. Its main purpose is to clean any unnecessary files from your hard-drive and on opening the program you see the various aspects of Windows that you can search through and clear. CCleaner will also detect your installed applications that may hold on to files which are no longer any use, such as Google Earth histories or Flash Player configurations. The uninstaller is probably more useful, and more powerful, than Windows own uninstaller although use it with care! If you don't know what an entry relates to in the program list, leave it alone to be on the safe side otherwise you could end-up removing vital components.

When you install CCleaner, it will prompt you whether you want to install Google Chrome as well and whether you want to use CCleaner to preserve cookies that you use regularly to log-onto websites, security checks etc.
The interface in CCleaner is very easy to navigate and before taking any action, you will always be asked to confirm that you are sure about what you want to do. There is a useful Registry Checker that will quickly check its integrity, and let you fix bad entries after making a backup. CCleaner's uninstall and startup tools are very handy to have overall and simply add to the usability of this very rounded little maintenance assistant.

The most recent release of CCleaner now comes with a Drive Wiper. Drive Wiper can be accessed in the Tools section of CCleaner and allows you to choose whether to scrub only free space or an entire drive using three levels of strength - Department of Defense-level three-pass option, a National Security Administration-level seven-pass cleaning or a 35-pass Gutmann-level deep scrub.

There's also improved support for cleaning files left behind by Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 9. Web Apps that use HTML5 database storage are also now included in CCleaner's cleaning process. Finally, a few more System directories have been targeted for cleaning and CCleaner now supports 64 bit machines.

CCleaner makes keeping your PC clean easy for beginners and experts alike. It's small, fast, comprehensive, and free to download - get cleaning now!

Download CCleaner 4.01.4093 in Softonic

Features

Version 2 ("Twoflower") brings a new interface, faster decoding, support for more formats and the ability to play HD and BluRay. It still remains however the most stable, flexible and lightweight audio and video player around today. While other media players will play unusual formats after downloading a codec, or simply refuse to play things,

VLC media player handles tons of formats, from MPEG to FLV and RMBV files. Version 2 has seen some important additions too such as support for 10 bit codes plus multi-threaded decoding for H.264, MPEG-4/Xvid and WebM.

Also useful is the fact that you can use VLC media player to preview files you are downloading since it plays incomplete parts of video files. VLC media player is not just for video playback however. It also offers superb integration with video channel streaming services such as Channels.com giving you access to channels such as ESPN, Reuters and National Geographic. Just right-click or CMD-click on the playlist, select Services Discovery and Channels.com.

Channels.com will then appear in your VLC media player playlist. Click on it to reveal the the different categories of channels available. Click on the category you want and a drop down list of all available channels appears in VLC media player. Just click on the channel you want to watch and streaming should begin almost immediately.

Usability

VLC media player also has great hotkey support and if you take the time to learn the shortcuts so it can be controlled without touching your mouse. If you're watching DVDs or video files through it, this is not an issue. For music, it plays more or less any file and features an equalizer and playlist creation. VLC media player isn't as intuitive as iTunes as a media manager, but it's a much more flexible player in terms of file formats. You can even use VLC to convert your files, and on top of all the formats and physical media it will play, many streaming protocols and TV capture cards are supported.

VLC media player makes it easy to add subtitles to your video files too - just add the SRT file to the folder where your video is kept, and it will automatically play with subtitles.

Finally, the interface in VLC media player has been somewhat improved in version 2 although it remains strictly functional. However, you can download skins to completely change VLC media player's appearance. The preferences menu is comprehensive without being overwhelming, and there is extensive documentation online.

Conclusion

VLC Media Player is quite simply the best multimedia application for Windows and Mac. It plays just about anything, hassle free - what more could you need?

What's new

Rework and fixes of the Mac OS X interface

Fix Pulseaudio initial synchronization

Fix MKV, SWF, AIFF and subtitles demuxer crashes

Translations updates and new Welsh translation

DVB-S delivery system detection

Fix audio and video track selection through libVLC

Fix system sleep issue on Mac OS X 10.5

Download VLC media player 2.0.6 in Softonic

Recover any files you lost * 500+ File Formats: Photos, videos, music, docs, emails, .zip, etc. * Any Data Loss Situation: Recover deleted, formatted, or otherwise inaccessible files. * Not Just for Hard Drives: Recover from USBs, external hard drives, mobile phones, digital cameras, iPod, MP3/MP4 players and more. * Common file formats allow to preview, such as BMP, GIF, PNG, JPEG, JPG, TIF, DOC, DOCX, HTM, PDF, PPT, PPTX, RAR, XLS, XLSX, ZIP, etc.

Four Powerful Recovery Mode: * Deleted Recovery - Recover deleted files like videos, photos, music, and more from partition or removable storage media. * Format Recovery - Recover lost files from formatted partition or drive, USB drive, Zip Drive and camera flash memory card. * Raw Recovery - Deep scan and recover data even when the file system is corrupted.

An Easy adn effective way to recover your lost, deleted and formatted data with three clicks.

Download iStonsoft Data Recovery for Windows 2.1.18 in Softonic

Flash video (that is, FLV files) have quickly become a popular format for online videos. On the downside, not all players are able to open them, but with FLV Player you won't have that problem. It doesn’t support any other format, but in exchange for that it works fast and smoothly.

FLV Player features a simply-designed interface with support for drag and drop, plus a few playing controls. It also allows you to watch the video in full screen and open an extra window with the video's metadata.

There are no other options or features in FLV Player. Its only aim is to be the simplest, fastest FLV player you've ever seen, and it really achieves it.

FLV Player lets you play FLV video on your computer in a snap, without any extra bells and whistles.

Download FLV Player 3.0 in Softonic

If you want to play in online games on your browser, there's a good chance you'll need Adobe ShockWave Player, the daddy of online action plug-ins.

After a simple install and restart of your browser, you'll be able to enjoy a large range of graphically impressive online experiences. Most of the time you won't notice Adobe ShockWave Player is even there, but like flash and other plug ins it should be one of your basic downloads after installing a browser.

Compared to other more recent plug-ins like Unity, Adobe ShockWave Player is quite resource heavy. We tried some online Shockwave things that really slowed down our system. However, while it's a platform developers continue to use, it's useful to have.

While Flash and Unity have probably superseded it in many places, Adobe ShockWave Player can still give you some enjoyable Web gaming.

Download Adobe ShockWave Player 12.0.0.112 in Softonic

Easy to use - Just two clicks, everyone can become the master of AVI FLV Converter; Automatically shutdown the computer after conversion; High speed - A two hours long movie can be convert into a FLV movie with high quality within one hours; Many settings are adjustable, such as video size, bit rate, frame rate, so that the output FLV video will match most web video player.

Suitable for home users and company users to convert AVI video format to FLV video format.

Download AVI FLV Converter 1.0.2 in Softonic

Easy to use - Just two clicks, everyone can become the master of VOB to FLV Converter; Automatically shutdown the computer after conversion; High speed - A two hours long movie can be convert into a FLV movie with high quality within one hours; Many settings are adjustable, such as video size, bit rate, frame rate, so that the output FLV video will match most web video player.

Suitable for home users and company users to convert VOB video format to FLV video format.

Download VOB to FLV Converter Pro 1.0.3 in Softonic

You've probably got Flash installed, which allows you to see some pretty cool things from your browser, but the Unity Web Player produces really impressive results, with excellent smooth running 3D graphics usually seen only in standalone programs.

Unity itself is a Mac development tool for developing 3D games on all platforms, and while that means there are some Apple only releases, there are a lot for Windows too, and all of the browser games are cross platform.

Maybe the worst thing about Unity Web Player is that the high end graphics mean you'll need a pretty fast machine and a good internet connection to load up the games quickly. However, assuming you have this, the plug-in is highly recommended as you won't have seen games that look this good running on a web page before.

Try Unity Web Player to play some super cool online 3D games

Download Unity Web Player 4.0.1.62181 in Softonic

Get connected to entertainment content like movies, music, known TV channels, sports and more. Through its easy and intuitive interface ChrisPC JTV Player guarantees you a fast start and convenient way of watching Justin.tv and Veetle channels.

ChrisPC JTV Player is a freeware software for watching Justin.tv and Veetle channels that means is absolutely free, no charge for non-commercial use. You just need to have an Internet connection, Flash installed on your computer and it should work in an instant.

This tool should become your daily way of keeping in touch with the life of the Justin.tv broadcasters. It has handy features like running in frame mode, i.e. just the player window, a list of channels easy to select from etc

Download ChrisPC JTV Player 3.8 in Softonic

* Support for all key audio formats * Advanced export presets * Ability to save audio from videos * Delete audio fragment from file * Downloading audio files from the Internet * High conversion quality * High conversion speed * Rock-solid reliability and stability

VSDC Free Audio Converter is a powerful, feature-packed freeware audio converter for your PC. For a wide range of users.

Download VSDC Free Audio Converter 1.6.3 in Softonic

Support a wide range of video file formats like AVI, MPEG, MPG, Quicktime(MOV), and HD video such as AVCHD(MTS/M2TS), Flip video, MOD, Kodak, etc. Crop video to remove black bars and change video brightness, contrast, saturation, take video frame rate and bitrate, add effect(Gray, Old Film, Emboss)

Sometimes, you may desire to watch FLV games offline on the move. However, there is barely media players for handy devices to play back FLV video. In fact, the Cendarsoft SWF Converter enables you get rid of the hassle in its way.

Download Cendarsoft FLV Video Converter 5.8.2 in Softonic

Phone Stick brings seamless experience - plug USB cord to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and your device appears in Explorer. Transfer files both ways like you do it with local folders Explorer. Slick and innovative METRO design. Simplicity and clarity. 0% CPU usage when on stand-by mode.

The program for users who often use iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. He needs to quickly and easily send all info from to iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to your PC

Download Phone Stick for iPhone & iPad 1.2.2 in Softonic

Convert FLV to Video and Audio Formats FLV Converter supports to convert FLV to MPEG, MOV, MP4, AVI, M4V, DivX, VOB, VCD, DVD, WMV, MP3, WAV, AAC, M4A, WMA etc. Export to FLV from General Files This FLV Video Converter provides the function of converting SWF to FLV, MPEG to FLV, MPEG to FLV, MP4 to FLV. Convert and Play flv files on FLV Player Professional FLV File Converter can convert flv files to iPhone MPEG-4, iPad H.264 Video, iPad HD WMV Video files to play flv files perfectly.

FLV Converter can complete converting flv video files with easy steps and fast conversion speed. This FLV Video Converter can easily convert Flash Video Files to other common video formats like FLV to MOV, FLV to MP4, FLV to AVI, WMV, MPG, 3GP and more. Moreover, this FLV File Converter can also extract audio clip from flv video movie to play on other players, FLV to MP3, WAV, AAC, M4A, and more. FLV edit functions are also embedded such as trim video clips, crop video region, merge videos, etc.

Bros FLV Converter is a professional flv file converter, has powerful ability of converting flv format video files to common video and audio formats, FLV to AVI, FLV to MP4 and so on.

Download Bros FLV Converter Bros FLV Converter in Softonic

Improved interface

The first thing that will strike you when you start up Windows Media Player 11, is the complete revamp of the interface. No more deep blue, the whole application is now dark and shiny and you can customize it by selecting a hue of your choice. Windows Media Player's left side is a drop down pane for your library, the center displays your lists and the right side is used to create playlists which you can rip, burn or sync with a mobile device.

Compared to Windows Media Player 10, we feel that Microsoft has actually made an effort to simplify the interface and give you more ways to browse through your media list, whether by using the drop down menu or the quick rollout line on the top left. The 'play' and 'previous' and 'next' buttons are now nested at the bottom of the interface and have a jazzy glow whenever you roll over them. Microsoft has finally succeeded in integrating a good search function into its Windows Media Player interface. As you type the name of an artist or title the application will bring up the results in the main window.

Windows Media Player 11 makes all your media more accessible. Double click the Media Library button to browse from your music to pictures, movie files and recorded TV. The thumbnail view is a great way to quickly scan through pictures and videos and to include the album image to audio tracks. By clicking the “Media information changes” option under the Library button you can also scan your PC to automatically find new media files. Creating a playlist is a case of drag and drop and oddly enough you can integrate audio, video and pictures. Burning and ripping in Windows Media Player is also very simple, yet disappointingly converting is limited to WMA, WAV or MP3.

Easy to use

The sync process is promising yet remains a bit unstable. While it’s very easy to create a list and sync media, Windows Media Player can occasionally crash or fail to load your mobile device, even if you press the refresh button. When we tested it with a Pocket PC, we had to restart Windows Media Player 11 so that it would recognize it and let us sync our music. As soon as the device became accessible though, it also became visible on the left sided menu, making it very easy to browse through it for music or pictures.

A big improvement

Windows Media Player 11 is a huge improvement from version 10. The whole interface is snazzier and makes browsing through your media simpler. Microsoft has also made creating playlists, syncing, burning or ripping just a case of drag-and-drop. Windows Media Player lets you check out music on dozens of online stores and is loaded with small features to customize your interface and change how you interact with your media.

Conclusion

While the syncing process still remains a bit unstable and we lament the lack of podcast feed support, Windows Media Player 11 is a solid competitor to Apple’s iTunes.

Download Windows Media Player 11 in Softonic

Flash is a popular format to publish videos and animations, so it's always useful to have a program that can extract all the various elements inside it. Sothink SWF Decompiler is one of those programs: a tool capable of extracting the diverse elements that make up an SWF file. This includes images, sounds, text, and more. Sothink SWF Decompiler not only does the job quickly and efficiently, but is also very easy to use.

The program features a user-friendly interface with the popular ribbon-style toolbar. It also has support for drag and drop, making it even easier to work with, even for beginners. After opening a Flash movie, you'll be able to play it right in Sothink SWF Decompiler and see its structure on the right-side panel. Just note that you need to use an embedded player for it to work properly.

All the elements you choose to extract can then be opened up in a Flash editor for further work. Sothink SWF Decompiler also has a handy tool to capture any SWF movies or animations you see on a website. Unfortunately, it only works with Internet Explorer. In an age where it seems like most users prefer Firefox or Google's Chrome, Sothink SWF Decompiler is really behind the curve in this regard.

Sothink SWF Decompiler is an efficient, easy-to-use tool to extract all the elements inside an SWF movie.

Download Sothink SWF Decompiler 7.4 in Softonic