The most recent articles from Computeract!ve

Review: Apple Safari 3 browser

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-09-05T10:00:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Friday 5 September 2008 at 10:00:00

A fast browser, now available to Windows users

Safari is Apple's browser that, until recently, was restricted to Mac users.

The company has recently released a version for Windows users as well, though, and it can be easily downloaded using the Apple Updater if you have iTunes or Quicktime installed (otherwise it's a free download from the Apple website).

It looks almost identical to the Mac edition, to the point that Windows users will feel a little disorientated at first – there's no status bar, for instance (page loading progress is shown in the address bar) and no borders on the sides of the browser window.

It's quite stripped down compared with Firefox and even Internet Explorer 7 – while it does tabbed browsing and ad-blocking and has a search box, there are no add-ons so those who like to customise their browsers will be disappointed.

That aside, Safari does some things very well – the RSS feed reader is much better than the one in Firefox, for instance, and there are some clever touches such as spell-checking in all text-entry fields. It's fast, too, and text in pages looks good thanks to Apple's font-smoothing technology.

Gallery: Surf safe with Internet Explorer 7

Matt Andrews — 2008-03-21T00:00:00.000Z

Matt Andrews, Computeract!ve, Friday 21 March 2008 at 00:00:00

Gallery: Create short links for long website addresses

Matt Andrews — 2007-04-16T00:00:00.000Z

Matt Andrews, Computeract!ve, Monday 16 April 2007 at 00:00:00

SurfSafe

Anthony Dhanendran — 2005-11-11T00:00:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Friday 11 November 2005 at 00:00:00

Control which internet sites your children can access

The problem with giving children access to the internet is how to protect them from the unregulated world, in which it is just as easy to access pornography, accidentally or on purpose, as it is to get hold of the news headlines.

It is possible to block websites using a firewall but this involves the tedious process of identifying individual sites. SurfSafe's answer is to install a piece of software that will block access to certain sites, as defined in a list held by the company.

The user - a family member who sets up the software - sets an age rating, along the lines of film and video certification. The 18 rating is unrestricted, so no sites are locked, while 15, 12 and PG block progressively more sites. The U rating is the highest. The company suggests setting the age to that of the youngest person to use the PC.

Setting it up is very easy. It works with Internet Explorer, Netscape and Mozilla Firefox. On the U setting, it was extremely over-zealous, blocking even the most innocuous of sites, instant messaging programs and email.

The PG setting was more useful, allowing several news and entertainment sites, but obviously still blocking the adult ones. It allowed email and instant messaging software.

Obviously the system is dependent on the list being kept up to date, and many sites are not on the list at all; there are so many websites out there that it is impossible to list them all.

It is possible to manually add sites that will be allowed at any time and block specific sites that slip through the net.

To change settings it’s necessary to log in to a web page; it is not possible to change settings on the PC, which adds a layer of security. One annoyance is that any changes to the filtering require logging in and logging out.

We couldn't find an easy way round the filter, but it is always possible that a technically minded child could bypass it, although it would take a lot of work, from what we have seen.

At roughly £36 a year it is not particularly cheap, but it is an effective way of blocking sites.

Opera 8

Tim Smith — 2005-07-14T00:00:00.000Z

Tim Smith, Computeract!ve, Thursday 14 July 2005 at 00:00:00

An excellent alternative to Internet Explorer

Opera 8 is a replacement internet browser and email application for both Internet Explorer and Outlook Express that is much easier to use and offers good protection from internet nasties such as spyware.

Even better, it's free of charge if you don't mind a few adverts at the top of the screen. A fee of £21 removes these ads.

It's clear that a lot of effort has been made to keep the menus uncluttered. You can browse multiple websites within tabs and there's the option to save a selection of tabs to open several websites at the same time.

Opera displays web pages quickly and has several useful additions to standard web browsing. You can change the look of pages to a style that suits you, which is extremely useful if you find text hard to read.

Another clever trick is the ability to automatically scale pictures and web pages down so that everything fits on screen, which means you don't need to scroll to see the site's full content.

Opera also offers several alternative ways to navigate websites, such as holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse to the left to go back a page which is a great way to speed up surfing.

Voice-activated browsing is now included, which is very useful for anyone who finds it hard to use a mouse, although a headset with a microphone is required.

Opera also has a built-in email client that can access any number of standard POP3 email accounts. A spam filter stops most nuisance emails and there are plenty of ways to label and organise your emails. Opera can also read RSS feeds, which is great for news fans.

The only downside is that a small minority of websites won't load in Opera.

While the free version comes with advertising, it isn't intrusive and provides a great way to try Opera without parting with any money.

Opera can be downloaded by clicking here.

Ad Muncher

Rory Reid — 2005-02-24T16:14:28.000Z

Rory Reid, Computeract!ve, Thursday 24 February 2005 at 16:14:28

Block ads in any browser

Ad Muncher is an application that blocks pop-up adverts from websites. What sets it apart from similar software is its support for multiple internet browsers and for blocking adware found in file-sharing applications.

We were impressed by the clear instructions on how to get started. Configuring is less easy, however, as the menus are heavy with a host of options that may be confusing.

We tested Ad Muncher on Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. It blocked around 50 per cent of pop-ups in both, which did not impress us. Some functions, such as blocking adult content, failed entirely, but its performance against adware embedded in software was better.

Ad Muncher is a cheap and fairly effective utility but, overall, we prefer the multitude of free alternatives that are available.

Contact:

Ad Muncher (no UK number)

www.admuncher.com

Mozilla Firefox 1.0

Anthony Dhanendran — 2005-01-25T10:37:49.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Computeract!ve, Tuesday 25 January 2005 at 10:37:49

An alternative browser to the all-conquering Internet Explorer

For most people, 'web browser' means one thing: Internet Explorer. The Microsoft browser has been so successful that the vast majority of internet users browse with it without even thinking, or knowing, that there are alternatives.

For years, since Internet Explorer overtook Netscape Navigator, there hasn't been much to choose from. Now Netscape is back, but in a radically different form.

Firefox, the free browser from the not-for-profit organisation Mozilla, is based on the core of the old Netscape software but has been adapted and improved and now presents a serious rival to Internet Explorer.

It is fast and it looks the part. By and large, pages display exactly the same as they do in Internet Explorer. There is the odd problem, but these are largely due to pages designed primarily for Microsoft's browser. Some secure sites also refuse to work with Firefox.

Where Firefox really shines is in its expandability. It accepts plug-ins, of which there are several available for free over the web. These range from extensions to Google to RSS newsreaders and clever book marking programs. Considering it's free, Firefox is certainly worth a try.

You can download Mozilla Firefox here.

Contact: Mozilla (no UK number)

www.mozilla.org

Onspeed

Tim Smith — 2004-09-30T11:46:44.000Z

Tim Smith, Computeract!ve, Thursday 30 September 2004 at 11:46:44

Give your dial-up internet connection a boost.

We thought very highly of Onspeed when we first reviewed it in issue 158. Using clever software that compresses text and images, Onspeed makes browsing much faster for dial-up internet users.

The new version adds several new features, including the ability to compress animated images and compatibility with Netscape Communicator and the Safari browser on the Macintosh. The program's size has also been reduced to a dial-up friendly 1Mb.

Installation is easy and once your user name and password are entered, Onspeed goes to work. Like the previous version, we found a vast speed improvement to web browsing and emailing. It won't make any difference to file downloading but it will speed up web surfing for broadband users.

A pop-up blocker also helps to accelerate browsing by stopping unwanted websites from appearing. Onspeed claim to also block banner advertisements that appear on web pages and slow them down, but our tests found this feature to work only intermittently.

The issue of security still applies and Onspeed won't be able to load secure web pages, such as internet banking sites, any faster than normal. Set against the backdrop of broadband rates, we found £25 per year a small price to pay for such a good service.

Contact: Onspeed 08707 585859

www.onspeed.com

Price:

£25 per year.

NetAway

Chris Cain — 2004-09-03T09:31:09.000Z

Chris Cain, Computeract!ve, Friday 3 September 2004 at 09:31:09

Save on costly international calls by using your own dial-up internet connection abroad.

While more affordable notebooks have made it easier for people to work on the move, getting online during your travels can still be an expensive business. Even if your ISP offers dial-up internet access at local call rates across the UK, using the same number when abroad will mean big telephone bills. With this in mind, Netaway has launched a pay-as-you-go service that claims to provide easy net access at a reasonable rate in over 104 countries.

NetAway's software boasts 15,000 access numbers that cover just about everywhere, from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Once it's installed you simply select the country you're in, choose the nearest town and hit dial to connect to the net. Even better, the service lets you send and receive POP3 emails using your existing accounts. You only need to change the name of your outgoing mail server - there's no real need to change it back later.

The initial package price includes five hours of online credit, which can then be topped up either online or over the phone at a cost of 8p per minute - the minimum top-up package is 150 minutes for £12. The credit remains in your account until you use it, provided you log onto the system at least once every nine months. You do, of course, still have to pay the cost of local phone calls.

What sounds simple in theory may work out quite differently in practice, but despite a few hiccups with busy signals in Belgium and the odd connection break in France, everything worked as advertised and the service proved extremely handy.

The question remains, though: is it worth the money? After all, wireless internet hotspots offer a faster connection and you can always set up a webmail email service and access it at an internet cafe. However, both can be difficult to find and often expensive. We'd like to see cheaper access and a bundle containing the more common phone adapters, but the sheer convenience of NetAway makes it a winner. The service can also be used with a handheld PC or a Mac.

Contact: Net2Roam 08707 511111

www.netaway.com

OnSpeed

Tim Smith — 2004-03-29T13:51:44.000Z

Tim Smith, Computeract!ve, Monday 29 March 2004 at 13:51:44

Give your dial-up modem a speed boost with this clever software application.

We know that many of you still use a dial-up modem to access the internet, so you may be pleased to hear that OnSpeed is a new (and greatly hyped) service that accelerates web browsing and email on dial-up internet connections.

The basic principle behind OnSpeed is that if you can't increase the amount of data going through a modem, why not reduce the amount you have to transfer? To this end, the text, animations and images found on websites are sent to OnSpeed's computers, which compress the information before sending it on to you.

The most important setting to worry about is the level of image compression that should be applied. The compression effect is much like that used for the JPEG images. As the level of compression increases some of the definition in the picture is lost, so you have to find an acceptable balance between image quality and how quickly you want to browse websites. Having said that, we set the compression level quite high and found little change in image quality.

In our tests, OnSpeed had quite a dramatic effect. It was five times quicker to load the BBC's image-heavy news site when OnSpeed was enabled, which is excellent. It also speeds up the process of downloading emails, which can be a very frustrating experience via dial-up.

However, there are a couple of drawbacks. Presently, it only works with Internet Explorer, Outlook and Outlook Express but this is a minor issue.

There are also limits to how much compression can be applied to a single file and, in most cases, these have been highly compressed already. The other potential disappointment is that OnSpeed cannot help with downloading individual files.

The benefit of OnSpeed depends largely on what you use the internet for. But as you are unlikely to doing anything other than surf and email with a dial-up modem, we think it is an excellent investment.

Contact: OnSpeed 0870 758 5859

www.onspeed.com

Price details:

£25 per year.

AvantBrowser 8

Andrew Zarkesh — 2004-02-09T12:52:38.000Z

Andrew Zarkesh, Computeract!ve, Monday 9 February 2004 at 12:52:38

A freeware Internet browser but can it compete with Internet Explorer?

As you read this, millions of people are using Internet Explorer to browse. the web. Just as new PCs are designed for Windows XP, so websites are designed for Internet Explorer. It's as familiar as the Start menu to most of us, which is partly the reason we use it. That's not to say it couldn't be improved, but what other choice do web users have? Enter AvantBrowser.

Available as a free download, AvantBrowser is based on Internet Explorer, so it looks and operates in a similar way. However, it has many extra features, including a pop-up ad blocker and 'Mouse Gestures' that allow you to navigate pages by simply moving the mouse. Users of AOL will be familiar with the ability to open new windows within the program and to browse these simultaneously.

Clicking a link with the middle mouse button opens it in the background, which is useful for 'earmarking' pages obtained from the built-in Googlesearch toolbar. If desired, a 'Records Cleaner' clears evidence of your surfing behaviour on closing the program, or you can retain the pages you had open.

This is an Internet Explorer upgrade rather than an alternative, but AvantBrowser offers a truly streamlined, productive and enjoyable way of surfing.

Contact: AvantBrowser

www.avantbrowser.com

Macromedia Contribute

Cliff Joseph — 2003-11-24T13:06:11.000Z

Cliff Joseph, Computeract!ve, Monday 24 November 2003 at 13:06:11

Even a total beginner can maintain a website easily with this simple piece of software that does all the hard work for you.

Running your own website sounds like a great idea but in practice it can be quite tricky to start from scratch, especially if you're a novice web designer. With Macromedia's Contribute, the process is made a lot easier.

The idea behind the software is to initially get someone who knows how to build a website to create your first few pages and then you use Contribute to update the site, editing pages or adding new ones whenever necessary.

This is a great approach, as you don't have to know anything about how the site was originally created to start putting your own copy up and the experience helps you build confidence in web design.

You may be thinking that there are other applications that achieve a similar goal, such as Macromedia's Dreamweaver and Adobe's GoLive. But these applications cost more than £350 each and are really aimed at the professional web developer. Contribute is a lot easier to use and only costs £69.

When you start Contribute, there's a tutorial that allows you to practice with a sample website or you can jump straight in and do some work updating your own website. Initially, it looks rather like a conventional web browser, with a toolbar that allows you to navigate to different web pages. In this mode, you can browse the website just as if you were using Internet Explorer. This lets you find the pages that you need to update easily, so you can click on the Edit button and start the update process.

When you switch into editing mode, the program's interface changes and becomes more like that of a simple word processor, with options for formatting text, creating tables and inserting graphics. This lets you edit a web page just as if you were typing a simple document, while Contribute hides all the complexity from you.

Contribute also lets you take an existing web page and turn it into a template. Using this method ensures that a website is created with the same consistent design across all of its pages. If you need to add content to a site, rather than simply update information, there's an option to create new, blank web pages, so you can also use Contribute to design a new website from scratch. It's fairly easy to use when designing individual pages although it lacks the wider range of features of applications such as Dreamweaver or GoLive, but it isn't really designed to compete with these programs.

That's not to say that Contribute is a crude piece of software. It contains some nice features, such as the ability to drag-and-drop Word and Excel documents straight onto a web page so the content of these documents is automatically added to your page. For budding entrepreneurs there's a payment option, which allows you to use the PayPal system to accept credit card payments. You can add a simple 'Buy Now' button to a page, allowing people to instantly buy individual items, or create a 'shopping cart' that contains multiple items.

Features such as these make Contribute a very useful tool. It won't replace big design applications such as its big brother Dreamweaver, but it's an effective complement that allows non-technical users to get involved in web work with minimal effort.

Contact: Macromedia 0800 169 8216

www.macromedia.com/uk

Pow Distribution Cybersitter 2000

Sheila Hill — 2000-08-23T23:00:00.000Z

Sheila Hill, Computeract!ve, Wednesday 23 August 2000 at 23:00:00

If you're worried about the content your children might encounter as they venture out on to the web, Cybersitter could protect them.

If you have children, a computer and a modem in the house, you might think twice before leaving them alone in a room together. Of course, you want to encourage your children's independence in exploring the internet for homework and fun, but you don't want them to accidentally come across obscene, upsetting or otherwise unsuitable material.

Nor do you wish to imply that you don't trust them by looking over their shoulder all the time to check they're not deliberately hunting out such sites. The solution is to get a discreet filtering program like Cybersitter 2000. Cybersitter is incredibly easy to set up - you choose all your settings from straightforward dialogue boxes that are all easily accessed from the Cybersitter Control Panel.

Setting the filters to block out unsuitable websites is simplicity itself. A long list of filters will be put in place automatically, but you can reset any of these. The list contains obvious topics such as pornography, violence, cults, gambling, the occult and so forth. Other net nasties that you may wish your child to avoid - including personal ads, hacker sites, online chat and even Pokemon - can also be excluded.

There are also a few other handy little features. You could, for instance, limit internet access to certain days and times, whether this is for the sake of your phone bill or your child's health. You can have the program log any attempted violations of the security settings and you can even set the System Snooper to check over the PC for dubious material.

It can get things wrong, however. For example, it could block a site that you feel is acceptable or it may allow an unacceptable site. But you can tackle this with the custom filter settings which let you ban or allow particular sites.

The proof of the program is in the browsing, however. Of course, you'd need to try out a program like this over a lengthy period to get a true picture of its abilities, and it should not be seen as a catch-all solution to a particular problem.

Data Becker Web Magnet 1.20b

David Ludlow — 2000-01-27T24:00:00.000Z

David Ludlow, Computeract!ve, Thursday 27 January 2000 at 00:00:00

Web Magnet is a handy tool for finding media files, but the results can be hit and miss.

Looking for what you want on the web is not always as simple as it could be. Search engines don't always throw up exactly what you need and you have to look at all the results online. Web Magnet will automatically scour the web, looking for pictures, videos and sounds related to a given search topic and store the results offline so you can view them at your leisure.

Installation is relatively simple, but before you can use the software you have to do a bit of manual configuration. The software asks you to specify where downloaded files should be stored and which types of file you would like it to look for. For example, you can tell it you want to see AVI video files but not Quicktime movies. However, to tell it what to look for and what to ignore you have to know the file extensions - the bit after the full stop in the file name.

The main program is easy to use. A toolbar sits across the top of the screen to give you access to the main features of the program, while the space below is used to display the windows that match up to the feature you've chosen to use. The most likely starting point is doing a web search.

If you pick this option, you have to type in a keyword to define your search then click on the Start button. It didn't take long before we started getting results, which are displayed in the log window. This displays the name of the web page, which search engine found it, and its URL. Shortly after this thumbnail graphics will begin to appear in new windows, as Web Magnet patiently begins to download them.

The results are hit and miss because what you get depends on what the search engine can find. You can customise the program by adding more search engines, but it's no guarantee of quality. However, if you find the web fails to turn up what you need, you can always turn to the news groups instead as Web Magnet can search these as well.

Contact Data Becker 01420 22707