CNET Editors' review
We love the sounds of nature, whether we're hiking in the woods or just listening from our kitchen window. Aura is a simple program that can bring nature sounds to wherever you are, whether that's your urban apartment or a windowless cube farm.
The program appears as an icon in the system tray, and right-clicking on it gives people access to the program's control board. This is where users can customize the sounds that Aura produces. We were quite impressed with the array of options that Aura offers; there are two profiles, the woods during the day and at night, and each one offers unique sounds. During the day, users can select woodpeckers, rooks and crows, grasshoppers, cuckoos, the near flight of both birds and insects, brooks, rain, storms, and wind. At night, users can choose from a bonfire, bitterns and owls, beasts (scary!), nightingales, and some of the other daytime sounds. The music option can play guitar, flute, and/or accordion. For most of these sounds, users can select how frequently they want to hear them, letting users create soundscapes that are uniquely theirs. Users can have Aura switch between day and night sounds automatically at particular times, or they can select day or night manually at any time. The program can also be used as an alarm clock, as long as you have enough faith in nature sounds to get you out of bed. The program doesn't have a Help file per se, but it does have a list of facts that more or less explains its features. Overall, we thought that Aura was a nice addition to our desktop, and nature lovers should check it out.
Aura comes as a ZIP file. It installs and uninstalls without issues.
Publisher's Description
From A's Software:
Ambient sounds of virgin forest in daytime and at night. The program plays real delectable sounds, shows its icon near system watches to provide one-click sound control, mute or sounding, auto-change of Auras option, scheduled computer mute, sleep, or shutdown option, alarm-clock, chimes, user's sounds option, hotkeys assignment, Live update, multilingual user interface.
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All versions:
4.1 starsout of 13 votes
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Current version:
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Results 1-10 of 10
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"like ambient sound outdrs pers.'s white noise gen"
Version: Aura 2.6.5.113
Pros
ease of use clean appearance and setup a no brainer
Cons
can't do it ..... i like it
Summary
my one line says it and my pro bit explains it ........ a keeper
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"Had Heur (?) virus attached to file"
Version: Aura 2.6.5.113
Pros
None quickly began to malfunction had to shred it and run virus/disk utilities to scrub it.
Cons
AVG alerted that file was infected and was unable to contain. Unable to stop program. Shredded with Glary, ran AVG and various utilities to scrub it.
Summary
How does an infected file get on CNET?
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"Beware, stopped my PC sound working. Had to contact my PC manufacturer to restore it. No response from developer support."
Version: Aura 2.6.2.111
Cons
Stopped my PC sound working. No support given from developer.
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"Wonderful"
Version: Aura 2.5.4.93
Pros
Another Vista compatible program! Yay!! I turn Aura on every day for my budgie - he loves it.
Cons
Sometimes, the musical instruments come in quite loudly; maybe if all the music was at an even volume.
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"Great! I love the sounds."
Version: Aura 2.5.4.93
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"Great."
Version: Aura 2.5.4.93
Pros
Great.
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"Very realistic"
Version: Aura 2.5.2
Pros
It's very native, sounds are realistics and I can say that I didn't meet any other soft like this.
Cons
it doesn't matter!
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"Very cool!"
Version: Aura 2.3.1
Pros
I love the customization and the birds are great!
Cons
The only thing that I wish it could do is play music files with the sounds.
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"Absolutely beautiful"
Version: Aura 2.3.1
Pros
This program adds a calming effect to one's computer. With an icon in the bottom task-bar, it is easy (one click) to turn this feature on or off. A very nice enhancement!
Cons
Haven't run into any.
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"This is an Excellent additon to Windows XP's ambiance"
Version: Aura 2.3.1
Pros
Once you install and run the autoupdates (which is a very nice touch in itself), the application runs very smoothly. Sounds are extremely crisp and customizable - The guitar by the Bonfire is a clever touch, especially Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" intro. The interface is simple to use. No Spyware installed with it that I could detect. I would highly recommend this app to anyone looking to add a bit of soothing ambiance to an otherwise stressful environment - great for the office (if you're allowed to install it).
As freeware goes.. it's a no-brainer. Kudos to A's Software.
Cons
Utilizes a bit of resources (about 6MB or so of RAM) because of the sounds, but this has to be expected for an application of this tyoe. The user interface uses color schemes that are not so pleasant to the eye. It might be nicer if the OS defaults were used for the interface (making it look more at home as part of the OS).
Results 1-10 of 10
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