The Download Blog

If you're never exactly sure which words a singer screams, mumbles, or sighs throughout a song's stanza, a brand-new add-on released this week was meant for you. TuneWiki (review), a free plug-in for Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows Media Player, can stream lyrics in time to songs you play from your local library. You'll also be able to spool lyrics for the YouTube music videos you initiate within TuneWiki, watching them appear in a pane below the player.

The heart of the application is TuneWiki's lyrics Wiki, an online database whose contents are driven by community contributions, just like Wikipedia's now-iconic encyclopedia. Lyrics may not be available for every song, but registered users are able to create them, thus filling in gaps. TuneWiki breathes fresh life into Windows Media Player 10 and above. If you intend to translate lyrics into your mother tongue, version 11 will more proficiently handle the task.

In other music application news, Songbird (review), the Firefox-based jukebox browser, has received a second serving of feature upgrades. New automatic file organizing, iTunes compatibility, and a 10-band equalizer entice audiophiles to switch from Firefox proper to this very specialized build.

What do you think of these two tunes-centric apps? Leave a comment, or type out a short user review of TuneWiki 1.0 and Songbird 1.2.

Music and Web surfing mashup Songbird is out with an impressive number of features that were missing from the last major update. For Windows, Mac, and Linux, version 1.1.1 introduces album art downloading, MTP device support, watch folders, improved sorting, and numerous other performance enhancements and bug fixes.

Album art comes to browser/jukebox Songbird.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

This version continues to push the more iTunes-esque feel of the jukebox/browser, but that's a change users will just have to get used to. Grabbing context-menu album art worked quickly, although users should remember to highlight an entire album to get the art to apply to all tracks. If you only remember to do that after the fact, select all the tracks and run the album art finder again to apply the art to all of them.

The album art feature doesn't work perfectly, though. Although users can replace album art through a track's metadata pane, if you resize the art window in the main dashboard the art itself won't resize. A minor bug, but slightly annoying.

The MTP device support includes the ability to sync DRM-restricted songs between Songbird and your portable media player. Zunes, Sansas, Zens, and others can now be used in conjunction with Songbird. The entire list of support MTP devices and known issues can be read here.

Using Watch folders to monitor regularly changed folders is one way to monitor for new songs or removed albums, but it also makes managing a third-party podcast catcher significantly easier. Setting this up takes a bit of hunting and pecking, but it turns out that the option lives under Tools/Options/Media Importer; then click on the Watch Folders tab. Note that this is a fairly sophisticated watch folder system, and it will remove from your library what you delete, as well as making additions.

Watch folders make it easy to keep your library free from detritus.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Some of the other changes include replay gain normalization, so if the metadata includes that information, Songbird will now play back the song as you intended. 'Bird-watchers who've been frustated with the unicode and sorting support should find big improvements in handling indefinite and definite articles at the beginning of song, artist, and album names.

There's also support for the 7Digital online music store, which offers high-end MP3s up to 320Kbps. The Mac download size has been reduced by 45 percent, and the memory usage in large libraries has apparently been reduced significantly. I encountered no stability or playback problems running Firefox, Songbird, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, and other programs simultaneously.

If the first two programs you start up are your Web browser and your music jukebox, and not necessarily in that order, Songbird keeps getting better and is worth a look.

There were a lot of high-profile updates in 2008, and the line between traditional software downloads and Web applications blurred significantly. The browser especially has become, for some people, the only program they need.

There were several stand out new applications, though, and here are six of what I think are the best ones. They range from traditional Web browsers and browser hybrids to communication tools and utilities that should help you work faster and help maintain your system.

Google Chrome : The one application that probably going to be on everybody's Nice list this year, Google Chrome unexpectedly redefined the highly competitive browser market. While the summer months saw major updates to Firefox and Opera, Google showed in September that Steve Jobs isn't the only guy who knows how to make a big "boom."

Google Chrome has thrown the browser wars on its ear.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Google Chrome is notable on several fronts, even if browser traditionalists dislike the lack the extensibility. The capability to rip off tabs from the main window and drag them to your desktop to save as discrete Web applications goes a long way to blurring that between Web applications and traditional software. There's also the fact that Chrome is arguably the fastest browser on the market. If it's not, it's certainly tied with the second Firefox 3.1 beta.

Chrome's speed at starting up, at loading Web pages, and at returning URI bar search results have helped push the focus of browser development back onto performance. I still use Firefox as my default browser, because what I lose in performance, I gain in add-on tools that I consider essential for work. But if you haven't yet checked out Chrome, you're missing out on more than just the Google Kool-Aid.

KidZui: KidZui takes the tried-and-failed child-control methods of Web site blacklists and keylogging and abandons them in favor of something far more sensible: an extensive whitelist. First released back in March, KidZui looks and acts like a browser, but instead a closed system of editor-approved sites.

KidZui is the kids browser that's both a bit more and a bit less.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

These editors, made up of parents, teachers, and former teachers have compiled database of 800,000 Web sites the last time I saw KidZui's stats. At-home parents can approve specific Web sites, such as a family photo gallery, that KidZui users couldn't otherwise see. KidZui is more than just a safe browsing environment, though. It combines that most essential of computer tools with social networking features. Children can rate sites, videos, and images, and share those ratings with their KidZui friends. Parents get the peace of mind that comes from weekly browsing and logging updates, and can further block approved KidZui sites if they deem them inappropriate.

It's not a program for everybody, obviously. What it does do, though, is create a uniquely safe way to teach children about surfing the Web and the power of exploring information without worrying about sketchy shenanigans.

Songbird: Songbird was in beta development for more than a year, and finally reached a stable release just after Thanksgiving. Originally designed as a balanced mash-up between Firefox and iTunes, it's instead used Mozilla's Gecko engine to drive music content. You can still browse the Web with it, but it's no accident that Songbird opens up to your music library.

It's a browser! No, it's a jukebox! No, it's...

(Credit: Songbird)

Also taking a page from its Firefox roots, Songbird lets users create add-ons with ease. These aren't limited to skins--"Feathers" in the Songbird argot. Songbird's add-ons include a Cover Flow-styled album art browser, lyric windows, and Last.fm and mashTape support. As much as people love their MP3s, it's amazing to me that it's taken this long for a serious and slick cross-platform jukebox competitor to get onstage. And as much as I love MediaMonkey, it's starting to look like there might be a software-based "Battle of the Bands" on the horizon.

Secunia Personal Software Inspector: Secunia PSI seeks to address an often-overlooked software security issue: the out-of-date program. It makes sure that your applications are up-to-date, which is great not only for ensuring you've got the latest features, but it also takes care of any bug-fixes that might patch previously-unknown exploits. What's important about Secunia is that while it will notify you of updates, it only provides direct links. It won't automatically upgrade your software unless you tell it to.

Secunia PSI keeps track of program updates.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Based on the Web-based Secunia Software Inspector from 2006, and in development since late 2007, Secunia PSI should appeal to both casual computer users and those who think they know what they're doing. If you're the former, the Simple layout provides basic information about the installed program statuses, with a chart to gauge their security over time and a simplified listing of any errors. Clicking on an error leads you through the proprietary Easy-to-Patch program update process, which automatically excludes more challenging updates.

If you're a power user, Secunia's Advanced layout tab exposes more details and more updates. It also checks your Microsoft XML, your Adobe Flash player installation, and others programs, looking for mission-critical holes and their respective updates. Scanning wasn't like trying to use a 56k modem to stream video, but for a program that runs in the background, I expected it to be a bit faster. It didn't slow down my computer's overall performance, though, and the update process went smoothly. All that makes this a highly-recommended freeware.

Smart Defrag: Smart Defrag is another excellent program that left its beta training wheels behind in 2008. Yeah, there are a lot of defraggers out there. Some are free, some are trialware. Smart Defrag stands out for two reasons.

Speed demon Smart Defrag is much faster than you'd expect.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

It has the quick analysis and scan times that are practically required to be competitive in the field. Alongside those, it boasts an automated defragger that continually defrags the files that you use the most, and does it without becoming a persistent drag on your system resources. The program eats up a small amount of RAM when running in the background, so it's possible to run it smoothly on older machines. Throw in a scheduler you can set up to defrag whenever you want and some customization features like running a defrag when you boot up or shutdown Windows, and Smart Defrag makes a great tool for users of all experience levels.

Digsby: Digsby got off to a bit of a rocky start, a bit like the kid in school who you think would be a lot cooler if it just stopped trying so hard. The problem was that Digsby wasn't particularly stable, was pigging out on every user's RAM, and was offering something fairly unique at the time: a multiprotocol chat client that also pulled in Web mail, and access to MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts.

Digsby offers multiprotocol chat, social networking, e-mailing, and more skins than you can shake a stick at.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

About six month later, in late September, Digsby released a massive update that fixed most of the RAM-hogging issues. Firing up the program is still a bit wonky for me, but there's no doubt that once it's going it works better than it has before. Digsby should easily be the instant messaging freeware of choice for the super social set. It supports the major IM networks of Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber.

Updating Twitter is a breeze from the application's main interface, though users wishing to do anything more than read Facebook and MySpace news feeds will be redirected to their online accounts.

Users can initiate text, video, and audio chat from the conversation window, and transfer files, send SMS, and compose short e-mails. POP and IMAP accounts are supported alongside Web mail. The notification pop-ups for every activity can get distracting, though a deep preference options control nearly every aspect of the display, including a wide variety of skins and those pesky pop-ups. Although many people had written off the application as too cumbersome in the past, the current build is well-worth downloading and exploring.

Got a favorite brand-new program that you think we overlooked? Tell us about it in the comments.

Music and browsing mashup Songbird has kicked the remnants of its shell to the curb. With the release of version 1.0.0 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, the program's main emphasis as a music browser couldn't be more clear.

Songbird's familiar layout should make it easy for many to combine their browsing and music playback in one tool.

(Credit: Pioneers of the Inevitable)

If you looked at some of the earlier beta versions, Songbird's interface borrowed heavily from Firefox. More recent versions took their cue from iTunes, with Web browsing occurring in a second tab. Although toggling between your music library and the browser is as easy as switching tabs, since Songbird opens your library by default it's apparent where the publisher thinks users will want to focus.

This is arguably a smart strategy, too, given the attention that the latest round of browser battles has garnered. The music library layout feels intuitive, owing much to iTunes. Album art appears in the lower left corner with a navigation tree above it. A button at the bottom of the sidebar lets you toggle both. The music player controls can be configured to appear at the top or the bottom of the main window via the Views menu. Drag-and-drop would be a nice feature here, although not essential.

The Filter pane defaults to appear, and lives at the top of the interface above the browsing tabs. Again, it can be hidden in the Views menu. The Filter pane is included by default, but if you click on the dual-pane icon next to the Search box and click on Get more media views, you can install extensions that provide you with a Cover Flow facsimile, a tag cloud, and others.

The Library browsing tab is hard-coded to appear and the tab lives permanently above the left sidebar. Overall, though, the interface shouldn't be a drastic change if you're familiar with iTunes, and shares enough options with other media players that you won't feel like you're locked in to what Songbird's designers had in mind.

If you're into skins or Firefox themes, Songbird supports those as Feathers. A quick search through the feathers options on the Songbird Web site indicates that, just as with Firefox, black themes are in. Way in. Switching installed feathers works the same as in Firefox, although in Songbird the reboot happens so fast it appears as if it's doing it on the fly. A right-nav toggle reveals a pane for managing your display pane add-ons.

Songbird's not just about its plumage--it's got some meat on its bird-bones. Besides the rolled-in jukebox, there's the native support for Last.fm, and an included add-on for MashTape. Additional add-ons can provide a lyrics pane, music recommendations, and more. The audio engine is Gstreamer, which is used in all Songbird platforms, and an included plug-in provides device support that's otherwise still in beta. However, when syncing files with an iPod Classic, I ran into zero problems.

Songbird doesn't have all of the features that Firefox 3 does. The address bar lacks its "awesome" upgrade--some users will surely see that as an improvement. It appears that many of the Firefox 3 visual security improvements, such as the favicon color change and the unsafe site warning, haven't made it into Songbird.

There are other major features that are still in development. Album art fetching is not yet natively supported, nor is video playback, watch folders, or feed management. These drawbacks, though, shouldn't keep you from checking out Songbird.

Editors' note: Last.fm is owned by CNET's parent company, CBS Interactive.

For better or worse, buying an iPod also means committing to Apple's iTunes software. Apple's seamless combination of hardware, software, and online store has made it many fans, but for some folks, the iTunes way of doing things feels unbearably confining.

If you love your iPod, but can't stand being tied to iTunes, there are some compelling and capable Mac and PC iTunes alternatives that can sync with your iPod. Depending on your iPod model, you'll probably still need to keep iTunes around for firmware updates, video purchases, games, and some advanced features (calendar syncing, for instance), but there's no reason you can't sync your music and podcasts using a different program.

Each of the following media jukeboxes has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. This list isn't meant to be comprehensive (by all means, add your own suggestions in the comments section), I'm just taking an opportunity to highlight my personal favorites. Also, every application listed here is free, so there's no reason not to try them all and see what sticks.

Media Monkey is a control freak's dream come true.

Media Monkey
http://www.mediamonkey.com/
(Download Media Monkey from Download.com)

Ideal user: File hoarders, control freaks, meticulous taggers, boutique format users (FLAC, Ogg), people with messy collections.

Pros
• Ideal for large, scattered collections
• Advanced tagging features and auto tagging
• Supports iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G
• Copy songs from iPod to computer
• Album art lookup
• Skinnable
• Podcast catcher... Read more

Music jukebox and Web browser mash-up Songbird has begun to pull away from the beta gate. In its first release candidate for Windows, Mac, and Linux, the Gecko-powered browser aimed at audio junkies locks down a final list of features.

Songbird mimics the iTunes interface, but rolls in Firefox-powered Web surfing and Web-based music discovery.

(Credit: Songbird)

The improvements over the previous release, version 0.7, make changes both important and minor. Absolutely the most noticeable is that the program runs and feels faster. Responsiveness had been an issue, too, but this release candidate marks a strong improvement in that area as well.

The overall look of Songbird hasn't changed, but a lot of the must-have UI features are finally in place. Keyboard shortcuts have been added, as has a comprehensive list of them accessible from the Help menu. The right-click accessible Context menu and the File menu from the Menubar now allow users to open up the folder location of a track. Column headings properties are now easier to manage, too. New buttons control toggle individual panes, and smart playlists can be used as rules within other smart playlists.

With the exception of that playlist feature, which is unusual for jukebox playlist behavior, these changes make Songbird's interface as familiar-feeling as possible.

Audiophiles should appreciate that Songbird has switched over to Gstreamer as their playback engine across all platforms. This means that Songbird can play MP3, FLAC, and Vorbis files on all platforms, WMA tracks on Windows, and AAC on both Windows and Mac.

Also of note, the last official version of Songbird for PowerPC Macs was v0.6.1. According to the developers, this was done to save on developer resources.

I've been playing around with Songbird for about a year now, and it's great to see this innovative program come as far as it has. Although I'm curious to see how it adapts to being forever tied to Firefox improvements, that's also an ongoing concern for that other multi-use Firefox mash-up, Flock.

Throw in these drastically different Firefox-based browsers with the current browser battle going on between Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Firefox itself, and you're looking at a wide range of quality choices.

Deciding to recommend the cross-platform Songbird as a Featured Freeware required a bit of an internal struggle. On the one hand, it's the lovechild of a boozy Firefox-and-iTunes hookup, from the music jukebox interface to the browsing behavior. What's not to love about that mashup? However close it hops to the edge of its nest, though, the app is still in beta and buggier than an Alaskan summer. When considering that not-significant drawback against the music-management, music-discovery, and Web-browsing features that take wing along with broad MP3 player support, it's hard to deny that Songbird injects some long-missing fun into the online experience.

The left sidebar provides quick links to bookmarks, downloads, your music library in an iTunes-style interface, and several music discovery Web sites to get you started. When you're looking at any Web site with MP3s available for download, Songbird will open a new window at the bottom main browsing pane. Double-click on a song to play it, while links on the right let you purchase the track from Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, and Amie St. They also tell you the format of the track--MP3 or AAC, for example--and provide a blog link for more info.

Recent improvements have included iPod support, the ability to handle music collections larger than 10,000 songs, and more stability for various Firefox and Songbird extensions--including the Cover Flow-esque MediaFlow. Songbird works with ShoutCast Radio, too. It seems as if the major pieces are in place, and all that's left is some serious tweaking to make sure it works. Songbird could really take flight for the music-loving, Web-surfing fanatic in all of us.

Not mere freeware, but open-source alternatives are well-known for nearly every major category of software. Firefox and Linux are probably the most famous, but OpenOffice, GIMP, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Miro, and others have made themselves known in practically every genre. Heck, there's even an open-source firmware for your portable MP3 player--Rockbox.

One area that's been notably lacking some open-source love has been music jukeboxes. Competing with iTunes takes serious chops, even for programs that haven't opened their code like Winamp and MediaMonkey. However, there are a growing number of iTunes competitors that are gloriously open. Two that are definitely worthy of more attention are aTunes and Songbird.

aTunes surfaces both primary and secondary info about your music on its main page.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Right off the bat, aTunes was not instilling confidence. After a fast installation, the tree navigation that opens up when you run the program for the first time, to scan your media library, was shockingly sluggish. Then it scanned in my 7,500 music tracks in just a shade over 10 minutes, flawlessly. Quite the turnaround.

There are some nifty features in aTunes. First off, despite having a lot of options in the main window, the tabs keep the interface from getting too cluttered while keeping useful secondary features a click away. Second, although it may not appear to be modular, the icons just below the Menubar let users hide the AudioScrobbler, the navigator, or the song properties. Built-in links make it possible to discover similar songs and related videos on YouTube.

The AudioScrobbler pane is exceptionally useful. Unlike other jukeboxes that hide secondary information behind context-menu navigation, aTunes surfaces all of it--but keeps it behind tabs. This kind of one-click access makes it much easier to discover biographical details of the artist you're listening to, while the Album tab shows track listings, and the Song tab surfaces song lyrics automatically.

aTunes uses tabs to keep a multitude of information and options one click away.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In addition to the unique layout and presentation of information, aTunes comes with 27 skins, has built-in Last.fm and various other Internet radio station support, and has decent podcast-catching abilities. Through the Preferences, users can set the unified window to appear as multiple and separate panes. You can also determine how long the tooltips show up for, if at all, if Smart Sorting gets used, and whether the tabs are visible. Metatag editing and autotagging work well, and I liked the "favorites" feature which creates an automatic playlist of your songs tagged as such.

There are some big problems, though. At the top of the list is the unimpressive MP3 player support. It will work on portable devices if they behave like external hard drives, but once they start utilizing fancy firmware--like the iPod--aTunes just ignores it. According to an aTunes help forum post, there are no immediate plans to address this. Thankfully, aTunes didn't freeze or crash when I connected the iPod. Linux and Mac users might find the installation to be too much work, with various components not bundled into the executable. aTunes would benefit from search-as-you-type, as well.

Even with those problems, though, aTunes makes a compelling case for giving it a spin.

Songbird should feel the more familiar to iTunes users, and it stands a better chance of getting attention because of origin. Like Flock, it's based on Firefox, and attempts to merge a browser and a jukebox into a simple, elegant interface. I've written about Songbird before, and have been impressed with its features, if not its stability problems.

Songbird mashes up Firefox and iTunes.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The latest big update pushed Songbird a bit closer to the edge of its nest. It's still in beta and is still buggy. It has problems adding music files with non-English characters. Specifically, the import process hung repeatedly on various Japanese-, Chinese-, and Hebrew-labeled tracks in my collection. Still, Songbird now can handle Thankgiving turkey-sized music collections greater than 10,000 songs, something earlier versions couldn't do. The developers have also improved memory management, a big concern with such a massive mashup. There's a metadata editor, support for SHOUTcast, and improved portable player syncing including the iPod.

The code improvements have allowed for smoother scrolling, faster filtering, and just overall better management of music collections of any size. Songbird is well on its way to being a serious jukebox. Other fixes include the previously nonfunctional edit menu joining the land of the living and the introduction of in-page text searching.

One of its biggest draws might also be its biggest drawback. Songbird is shockingly similar to iTunes. Most other jukeboxes, whether open-source or not, have shied away from the tripartite top window and music library in the central pane. Songbird embraces them, and further pushes its homage to iTunes by copying player control default positioning, a rounded view screen, and a Mac-style tree.

Songbird also makes it easy to discover and download any music files embedded on a Web site.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The benefit, of course, of having your jukebox mashed into your Web browser is that music discover can potentially get a lot easier. Songbird does just that, by opening a pane at the bottom of the browser when you visit a site with music embedded. From there, you can either download the tracks, if the site supports that, or at the very least add them on the fly to your current playlist. The pane surfaces the track name, artist, blog links, and multiple purchase links, including Amazon, eMusic, and without a hint of irony, iTunes.

There are more than just two open-source music jukeboxes, of course. SnackAmp has been around since the beginning of the century, and there's Jukes, JlGui, and JaJuk. Banshee looks promising as a cross-platform jukebox, but is only available for Linux users so far. If you've got a favorite open-source jukebox, tell me about it in the comments below.

(Credit: Songbird)

As the Songbird-produced cartoon to the left shows, even though the browser is still in beta it's getting stronger all the time.

The latest update, version 0.6 for Windows, Power PC Macs, Intel Macs, and Linux, includes the ability to handle turkey-size music collections greater than 10,000 songs, improved memory management, a metadata editor, improved portable player syncing, support for SHOUTcast, and more.

The code improvements have allowed for smoother scrolling, faster filtering, and just overall better management of music collections of any size. Songbird is well on its way to being a serious jukebox. Other fixes include the previously nonfunctional edit menu joining the land of the living and the introduction of in-page text searching.

Some of the improvements are no-brainers, but it's good to know that they've been addressed.

With all the hoopla over Opera and the upcoming Firefox 3 final release, there's a good chance that Songbird's baby beta steps will get ignored, but this has been one of the most promising programs being developed, and v0.6 will only whet your appetite.