Activity for May 10

Review - Trillian
5.0.0.32 (May 10, 2011)

Less bloated than previous version and also more efficient with system resources. GUI seems cleaned up and efficient, more developed towards usage with social networks.

Compared to previous beta versions, the Pro membership model has changed: Almost all Pro features are now in the free version. However, the free version has ads (!) and no chat logs. Pro users are ad-free and can use logs, but Pro membership needs to be renewed after one year. Anyone who bought Trillian 5 Pro during the beta stage will be able to use the Pro features indefinitely as long as he/she sticks to 5.x releases.

I am sure not everyone will like that, especially not the ads. However, many people complained the free version was lacking too many features which were exclusive to Pro users, so I guess you couldn't have it any other way. I upgraded to Pro before that, so I don't have that issue. Anyway, only 4 stars because of the increased adware aspect - and also keep in mind that it tries to install some unneeded crap during the setup process (be sure to uncheck it).
Review - Mozilla Firefox (v4) for Windows
4.0 (Mar 21, 2011)

Finally, Firefox also catches up with the recently updated Chrome and IE. It's definitely faster than before, by much actually, and gives you much more space for website viewing (just like Chrome already did ages ago).

What I like much about this new version is how addons are handled. While I preferred to keep copies of the addons on my hard drive in case I needed to reinstall, now you just go to the addons tab, type in the name of your addon and you have it right away, no need to browse through the website any more. This is as easy as it can get. Also, the ability to sync settings is a huge help if you are working at more than one workstation throughout the day/week.

I was a little disappointed that the download manager really did not change at all, it is still a separate window popping up when you download something and not as well integrated into the GUI as you have it in Chrome. Still, if you install the "Download Statusbar" addon, you get this problem fixed easily (if it bothers you).

The only REAL bummer is the poor font rendering when using hardware acceleration. While you could turn it off to get back the sharpness you know from 3.6.x releases, you would lose the main advantage of the new version. Actually, IE9 has the same issue since it has something to do with Direct2D. While this problem already got addressed with some recent Windows update, it seemingly didn't help much since it still exists. Something Microsoft has to fix, so you can't blame Mozilla for this.

Max rating for this still. With the font rendering fixed, it will finally be fully enjoyable.
Review - SUMo
2.8.0.88 (Jun 2, 2010)

I don't know about the other versions available, I only use the portable version and I can confirm that this one at least is definitely spyware-free.

It's a compact, quite helpful program, and its advantage over most other update checkers is that you can manually select files for surveillance. This way, you can also keep track of new versions for portable programs.

So if you want to try SUMo, maybe you should check out the portable release here:
ftp://ftp2.kcsoftwares.com/kcsoftwa/files/sumo.zip
Review - Defraggler
1.19.192 (May 24, 2010)

It is still missing a real optimization function like other defrag programs like MyDefrag have, and the automated scheduler could use some tweaking (especially selecting multiple drives at once, not only one at a time).

Otherwise, the GUI is pretty appealing, especially for a freeware program. Usage is straightforward and easy. Defrag process seems to be fast and efficient, so if you can live with missing optimization options (-1 star for that), this is a good choice.
Review - Driver Sweeper
2.0.5 (Jul 23, 2009)

Loading speed for v2.0.5 has been improved significantly compared to v2.0.0.

The tool itself is great, I am using it for cleaning nvidia Forceware driver remains after driver uninstall. What would be not so nice for many users is probably that it requires .NET 3.5 which is unpopular due to some stuff it installs (e.g. an addon for Firefox you will never need and you can get rid off only with help info from the net). One star less for this requirement.

If you can live with that, it is a reliable helper, even if you only need it when you uninstall drivers (which should not happen too often).
Comment - Is web browser development moving too fast?
2.0.5 (Apr 16, 2011 - 3:43 PM)

I just don't see the requirement to bump version numbers. With such a tight schedule, I think it will be less likely to see minor updates happening within the same version range. Maybe we will see a Firefox 4.0.1 or 4.0.2, but that will be it, then we have version 5 already. Still, v5 might not feel much different than a version 4.0.3 or 4.1 at the best.

In the end however, versioning is not what really matters. Give us browsers we can use, make them fast, reliable and safe, then you can label them with any number you like. :)
Comment - Can Mozilla shame Firefox developers to do better?
2.0.5 (Apr 8, 2011 - 4:46 AM)

I used to have four addons in Firefox: Adblock Plus, NoScript, Download Statusbar and Password Hasher. After checking that site, I got rid of the Statusbar and NoScript addons. While the first one was for making the download manager look nicer only, the other one provided an additional layer of security. However, adding up with Adblock, startup was delayed considerably and also seemed to consume much more RAM that way, especially when many tabs were opened.

I can say that FF starts up faster now, even though not by that much (especially if you are launching it from an SSD drive). Still can't live without Adblock, and Password Hasher is a really small addon which probably does not make any difference. I don't need NoScript so much since I usually stay on my common websites I check every day, and it just makes browsing more complicated when you have to "unlock" contents first so everything works correctly.

It is probably worth experimenting around with deactivating some addons if you don't really need them. Hopefully, this will wake up the addon developers so they put more attention to speed and a more efficient usage of resources. I am expecting to see changed in the most popular addons reflecting that soon.