Windows software

Google's decision to kill its Google Reader service has caused some collateral damage: the end of a related Chrome extension that let the browser handle RSS feeds.

RSS and the similar Atom technology make it easier for people to subscribe to regular updates published on Web sites, and Google Reader was a popular way for people to read that content. Google announced that it's scrapping Google Reader on July 1, but it's already gone ahead and withdrawn the feed-finding Chrome extension.

The extension would detect Web sites' feeds then let people use a variety of RSS reader … Read more

It's no surprise to Google obsessives that the company announced yesterday that it will draw the curtains on its popular RSS-managing Reader service. So what are you supposed to do with your 60 bazillion feeds?

First off, you can export them using Google Takeout. That's an important step to take so you don't lose track of any of the sites you're following. It lets you download your feeds output, called OPML, as a ZIP. Then you extract it all to a folder, and upload them to your prefered Reader replacement service. But which one do you … Read more

How do you kill a FeedDemon? Apparently, all it takes is a decision from Google.

In a blog post, Nick Bradbury, the founder of the popular RSS feed manager FeedDemon, cites Google's call to shutter Google Reader on July 1 as the final "nail in the coffin" for his desktop and laptop app. Bradbury mentions numerous serious concerns, such as spending time with his family and recently being forced to take a day job, but he also talks about the inner workings of FeedDemon.

The software, he explains, relies on Reader for synchronization, "and there's … Read more

We Dropbox users have gotten very accustomed to our boring yet reliable Dropbox desktop clients (download for Windows, Mac, Linux 32-bit, and Linux 64-bit) chugging along tirelessly, syncing files and folders between computers and devices with no muss or fuss, that it was with some trepidation yesterday that I updated to version 2.0, the brand-new release from the online-hosting service. The new update gives the system-tray-based app a slight cosmetic makeover--the utilitarian menu as been supplanted with a more modern UI that includes links to your Dropbox folder, the Dropbox Web site, three "recently changed" files, and … Read more

Google has begun putting flesh on the bones of a skeleton it's been building to add Google Now to Chrome and Chrome OS.

The latest raw builds of the browser have an option in the about:flags panel to enable the Google Now system. "Sadly, we still can't play with it yet because the Google Now server URL still remains secret," commented Chrome watcher Francois Beaufort, who spotted the change.

The infrastructure dovetails with a new rich notification system being built into Chrome and Chrome OS, a mechanism that will let developers use HTML-formatted pop-ups. That … Read more

An about-face in Internet Explorer 10 shows Microsoft is not merely backing off from its hostility toward Flash Player, but actually warming up to the Adobe Systems browser plug-in for competitive reasons.

In September 2011, Microsoft declared that browser plug-ins are a relic from the Internet's early days, calling them bad for battery life, security, reliability, and privacy, and said that it would ban them when IE10 was running with Windows 8's Metro user interface, now called the "immersive UI."

But Microsoft gave Flash a reprieve in May 2012 by building a special version of Adobe'… Read more

I am a PC user and a Mac user. My PC is an Alienware that allows me to play my MMORPGs for whenever time permits me to do so and the graphics on that little powerful machine makes me sing. My Mac, on the other hand, is primarily for work and is used on a daily basis for simple tasks. Luckily for me, my semi-new PC is well-maintained and doesn't give me a lot of problems anymore, but until this one, I have had my share of slow, problematic PCs that used to keep me up at night, literally. … Read more

Have you ever wanted to watch the latest movie trailers and music videos or stream shows in the background while you work? Now you can with a little homegrown program called VideoGhost from Greedy Glutton Software.

How does it work? VideoGhost can be installed on your computer or run as a standalone product. After launching, you will see that it is a third-party browser with a controllable opacity setting and options to stay fixed on your desktop. The process is relatively simple with these hot keys:

Taking a page from Opera and Amazon playbooks, then writing on it some more, Google is using its own servers to speed up page loading on its mobile version of Chrome.

The feature, called proxy browsing, is enabled in the Chrome 26 beta for Android, though it must be manually activated through the chrome://flags interface by selecting "Enable Data Compression Proxy." With proxy browsing, a server with a fast Internet connection and more processing horsepower than a mobile device loads the Web page on behalf of that mobile device.

The chief advantage of the approach is that … Read more