The Download Blog

Comcast's Web-based broadband meter, which was rumored to be released back in January, is still not available to consumers. According to a Comcast representative whom I spoke with earlier Tuesday, it's still not ready for prime time, and is undergoing further employee trials before being released to the public.

Once released, the meter will let customers of Comcast's high-speed Internet service monitor how much of their 250GB monthly bandwidth quota has been used. This will help keep them from going over that limit--something that results in a termination of their service upon the second offense.

Comcast imposed the monthly usage limits back in October as a way to keep network hogs from slowing down speeds for other customers. However, the only tool that was provided to help customers keep an eye on how much they were using was McAfee's Security Suite. While free, the software tool could only track bandwidth use on the machine it was installed on, and not from networked mobile phones, game consoles, or other household computers.

Comcast's monthly bandwidth cap for consumers is 250GB.

(Credit: CNET)

Back in December, DSL Reports posted leaked screenshots of what the online meter looked like at the time, along with specifics on how often the reports were being updated to reflect recent usage. Their sources noted that it not only tracked the past three months of use, but also let users break down where use was coming from, right down to the device. This could be used to help track down devices that may be using more than their fair share, be it computers or other networked home electronics.

Comcast would not provide any further details on the unreleased utility, but given the fast-approaching one-year anniversary of the cap, it's fair to expect its release sometime this fall. In the meantime, there are several ways to keep an eye on household bandwidth using a variety of software tools, which we've listed in this handy guide.

Opera's newest feature turns your browser into an app-extendable Web server. That's right: Opera Unite, the latest out of Norway for Windows, Mac, and Linux, runs counter to the cloud-based direction that most other programs are heading toward.

But is client-based serving a recipe for the future, or a return to the past? And is Unite truly client-based? See what the latest Opera 10 beta build can do in this First Look video.

You wouldn't know it by eyeballing most of the latest browser news, but there is more to browsers than JavaScript speed. Mozilla introduced its add-on alternative called Jetpack, and on Tuesday Opera debuted Unite for Windows, Mac, and Linux, which turns your browser into a Web server and the Norwegian publisher hopes will "reinvent the Web."

That's fast become the browser equivalent of the cliched comic book tag, "In this issue: Everything Changes!" So United uses your browser as as Web server, but what does that mean?

The File Sharing interface in Opera Unite.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

"The initial applications offered by Opera Unite are just simple demos (such as a "messenger" application and a media player) that replicate existing services and online functionality, showing them working in the context of Opera Unite," wrote Lawrence Eng, a product analyst for Opera, on Opera's blog Tuesday morning. OK, so they're basic features, essentially still in beta and meant more to highlight what's possible than to actually offer strong experiences at the moment. Keeping that in mind, let's look at what's available and how they work.

Unite adds a tab to Opera's widget sidebar, and comes with six apps to share your content: File Sharing, a Fridge, Media Player, Photo Sharing, The Lounge, and Web server. Specific URL-based, most are self-explanatory. Two are not.

The Fridge is for note-sharing, kind of like Facebook's Wall but without the interactivity. Once you share your Fridge URL, users can write short messages and post them to your "fridge door." Messages must be short, although I couldn't determine a specific character-limit as there is on Twitter. The Fridge app also wouldn't work in Firefox 3.5 pre, although it functioned fine in Google Chrome.

Inside Opera Unite--screenshots

The Lounge is an interactive chat room that you host on your computer. You can determine who gets to enter by sharing the URL, but if that's not private enough you can password-protect entry, as well. Where the utility of the Fridge escaped me, I can see a point to having a private, mobile, self-hosted chatroom.

The Web server is interesting, as well. Being able to host a Web page from your desktop computer, without having to worry about paying somebody for the privilege, has the potential to usher in a new age of Web hosting where the only cost is what you pay your ISP and there's no middle-man to go through. However, the most popular things to do online that require your own site--sharing media and writing blogs--can be done effectively and cheaply from third-party hosts. Still, Unite-based Web-serving has potential.

Access is granted on three levels: Public, Limited--which means password-protected, and Private. When you set an app to Limited, you're provided with a password that you can change, and then when you hit the e-mail button to share it the password gets appended to the end of the URL. When you customize a password, it can contain only alphanumeric characters--no exclamation points allowed. Clicking on the link automatically enters the credential. The transition from administrator setup to end-user e-mail was not only a smooth experience, but it involved a minimal number of steps.

What an end-user sees when they receive a link to a Unite media player.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

File Sharing and Photo Sharing are redundant services. They look the same, except that Photo Sharing presents files in a large-icon thumbnail format, and File Sharing shows a file tree with tiny, non-thumbnailed icons. The way that an administrator can adjust the access level granted doesn't vary from app to app, making for a consistent experience that potentially takes some of the edge off of the learning curve. Hopefully, this will remain as third-party developers build their own Unite apps.

The most useful of the apps is the Media Player, which lets you share music from your hard drive in a stripped-down but effective interface. Click on an artist's name to be taken to the album name, which requires another click to get to the songs. One final click will get the song playing. Not surprisingly, it's very much like a slightly visual file browser. However, like many of the apps, it doesn't work perfectly or at all, all of the time. Several of my CNET colleagues tested it with me, with decidedly mixed results.

I was able to stream music from one computer to a second one at my desk. Single-song playback worked well, but the row of buttons at the top--Autoplay, Shuffle, Repeat, Sort A-Z, and the search box--never functioned. The song playback doesn't automatically play songs in order--users will only get songs served up once, and then the player stops. One colleague could only view songs--playback never worked.

A broken image on the Unite landing page in Chrome.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Browser compatibility was inconsistent, as well. The media player wouldn't work in Google Chrome but functioned fine in Firefox 3.5 pre. The Fridge wouldn't work in Firefox, but did in Google Chrome.

The promise of user-shared content melded to Web 2.0 socialization is an interesting step to take, given the current development climate. The strongest point behind Unite is that it provides a socialization-ready widget platform, without forcing Opera to completely reinvent its browser. In today's blog post, Eng cited the potential for game development, and hinted that Unite will play a large role in the browser's future.

Unite tended to use a bit less than double the memory of the regular Opera 10 beta, about 140 MB compared with 88 MB.

For now, Unite is available only in a separate build from the main Opera 10 beta, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but there are plans to eventually integrate the two. Whether Opera can motivate developers to take to it as Firefox developers have taken to that platform remains to be seen.

CrossLoop is a smooth, free, and lightweight screen- and file-sharing program, formerly available only for Windows users. Earlier this month, a Mac beta version debuted offering the same features. Besides extending the feature set to Macs, the PC and Mac versions can talk to each other and share across platforms.

For those unfamiliar with the program, which uses 128-bit encryption, you're given a unique and random 12-digit access code each time you start the program. You can then share your username and code to allow somebody else to access your computer, or input another user's info to access his computer. Guests can use any app and save files on your computer, as if they were sitting in front of the machines. No router configuration is required, either. CrossLoop bases its business model on connecting freelancing tech support with those in need of assistance. It doesn't support multiple users, so it's not a good platform for group presentations.

In testing the Mac beta with CrossLoop co-founder Mrinal Desai, I noticed a virtually identical experience to the stable PC version. There were some resolution and image quality issues, which Desai assured me had more to do with bandwidth than the program itself. Although CrossLoop defaults to autodetect your pipeline, you can force it to use faster connection speeds, resulting in lower resolution, or slower speeds for higher quality images.

Although I didn't encounter any bugs when testing the beta on my own, Desai pointed out to me one major problem: dragging and dropping files to share causes CrossLoop Mac to crash. Browsing directly to the files through the program to share them causes no problems.

If you've used CrossLoop for Mac or Windows, please share your opinions in the comments below.

FiRe brings professional recording features to the iPhone and iPod Touch.

(Credit: Audiofile Engineering)

There are dozens of voice memo applications available for the iPhone and iPod Touch that do a decent enough job for dictating your grocery list. Professional recording applications, however, are much harder to come by.

Audiofile Engineering's FiRe application ($5.99) is by far the most advanced stereo audio recording application we've seen for the iPhone and iPod Touch, going far beyond the limitations of previous go-to apps, such as BIAS' iProRecorder. To get stereo audio into FiRe, you'll need to use compatible microphone accessories, such as the Alesis ProTrack, or our current fave, the Blue Microphones Mikey. You could get away with mono recordings using the iPhone's internal mic or headset mic, but that's certainly not the point.

Advanced features such as location tagging, overdubbing, waveform editing, and Broadcast WAVE metadata make FiRe a powerful tool for journalists and musicians. One of FiRe's coolest tricks, though, is its capability to upload recordings directly to the online audio hosting service SoundCloud. Once a recording is uploaded, you can publicly share and embed the audio just like any other SoundCloud recording, or download the original file to your computer at a later time. It's a nifty trick, and the FiRe application is the first to pull it off.

For screenshots of FiRe in action, check out our photo gallery.

FiRe audio recording app

For users of Amazon's S3 service, freeware CloudBerry Explorer is a utility that connects you with your account and makes managing the files you've stored online as easy as dragging and dropping.

CloudBerry's main interface

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

The interface is set up in FTP-style, with a split screen allowing file navigation on your computer and in your S3 account. Modeled as breadcrumbs and not absolute file locations, users can quickly jump between sub-folders and their parent directories. A pane on the bottom shows the file transfer progress, but there's a stand-out feature that makes this a serious tool for S3 obsessives.

The source drop-down menu is all-powerful here. It lets you create a new S3 account, and you can conduct transfers between S3 accounts. From that same drop-down menu, you can decide which location will be displayed on which side of the split-screen. This means that you can have your local hard drive on the right or the left, and the same for any S3 accounts.

CloudBerry's context menu for files stored on S3

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

One other killer feature is that the interface supports tabs, so you can set up one tab as your computer to your S3 account, and a second or even third tab as S3 to S3. Right-click on a file or folder in a bucket and you can quickly create a download link, encrypt it, view properties, and adjust distribution settings.

Buckets can be switched on the fly from the US to the EU, and there's a proxy pane under Options for those trapped behind firewalls. Users can initiate registration from within CloudBerry Explorer, and the general layout of the interface in fact mimics Windows Vista's Explorer--a gentle learning curve. In fact, the only problem I noticed was that the F1 Help hot key didn't work.

Keep in mind that not only is the program free, but you're only paying file transfer and storage charges to Amazon. This is different from other S3 third-party services such as JungleDisk that charge you their fees on top of Amazon's. So whether you use S3 for business or personal use, CloudBerry Explorer streamlines getting your files to where you want them to be.

Back in July 2008, torrent tracker The Pirate Bay announced plans to encrypt the Internet. That hasn't happened yet, but they plan to offer a VPN tunneling service to the public starting April 1.

Dubbing the service IPREDator after the controversial Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that takes effect the same day. IPRED's main goal is to make it easier for copyright holders to acquire the personal data of suspected illegal file sharers.

By offering a VPN service that doesn't log its traffic, IPREDator is simultaneously setting itself apart from other Web-based VPN services and offering what looks like a way to legally evade IPRED. Without logs, users will be able to exchange data without worrying about a subpoena revealing to whom the data packets were going, or what their contents were.

Other details about the new VPN service are thin, except that users will be asked to pay a small premium, approximately $6.77 or 5 euros, for the service. It's also not clear if the service will be compatible with other non-file sharing uses, or if it will try to compete with other encrypted tunneling services like LogMeIn or GoToMyPC.

The current beta is free and can be signed up for at the IPREDator site, although it's taking only 500 testers. If anybody does get a chance to use the beta service, please post about it below.

Vuze 4.2 offers users a drag-and-drop video conversion option.

(Credit: Vuze)

Continuing to stake out a different approach to torrents, the latest version of Vuze integrates an auto-conversion feature for both portable screens and your television. Available for Windows and Mac, Vuze 4.2 offers a device drag-and-drop feature that automatically converts a video torrent from its native format to an appropriate one for iTunes, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, and then pushes it to your device.

Still in beta, the new Devices tab on the left nav will ask you to install a transcoder and a plug-in. Devices then detects iTunes or any of the devices when they're connected to your computer. When you choose iTunes, Vuze will push the video without user input. From there, you can sync the video to your iPod or iPhone. Xbox and PlayStation users will see the video streamed directly from their PC or Mac to their game console.

Two weeks ago, when Vuze asked in a poll on its Web site which devices users most wanted this feature for, the iPhone and iPod won by a long shot. With more than 25,000 respondents, the only major system that wasn't included in this update was the Wii--so you shouldn't be surprised if Wii support is in the works. There's no word on automatic support for other popular portable video players.

The conversion process is not particularly speedy, so if you're more concerned with speed than convenience you might not find the update useful. However, Vuze is certainly giving users who are looking for something between the basic uTorrent and the robust Miro an interesting and feature-rich third option.

Amidst the crowd of peer-to-peer file-sharing options comes an attempt to return file-sharing to its utilitarian roots and away from legal quagmires by emphasizing file-publishing. Free and open-source, LittleShoot is the brainchild of Adam Fisk, a LimeWire developer who wants LittleShoot to be "like Google for files instead of Web pages."

LittleShoot manages torrents as well as scouring the Web for most major file formats.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Where most P2P programs are standalone clients, LittleShoot is a browser plug-in like QuickTime or Shockwave that should work with all major browsers. It utilizes an AJAX-based interface at LittleShoot.org to search, publish, and download files. Once you've downloaded and installed the plug-in, it will take you to the LittleShoot.org search page unless you opt out. From there, entering any search term will return results with hits from YouTube, IsoHunt, Flickr, Yahoo, and LimeWire. A SafeSearch option attempts to restrict inappropriate content.

The most recent version introduces torrent-handling abilities. Check out any torrent site, download the torrent, and LittleShoot will automatically start downloading it. LittleShoot lacks advanced features like throttling, but for a basic set-it-and-forget-it torrent client, it's not too shabby. Helpful links on the side make it easy to Twitter or Facebook the torrent, and a drop-down menu gives you access to dozens more sharing options.

Non-torrent files found by LittleShoot will open in a new window, but can't be downloaded directly.

Unfortunately, the publishing option wasn't working when I tested it. When you click "Browse," you can search your hard drive for files to share. Once you've chosen a file, you can tag it--however, the JPG and WMV files I tried to upload didn't work. Even with these drawbacks, LittleShoot looks like an interesting attempt to demystify file-sharing by making it more accessible than it's been so far.