QtWeb Portable Review

Your web browser (and no one else's)

This lightweight browser based on the same technologies as Google Chrome and Safari isn't innovative, but its the one browser that puts the controls back in the hands of the user. Those who have used a variety of web browsers will recognize all its features, but they're at least present instead of trying to hide everything behind ease-of-use tricks. What it lacks in advanced web technologies and compatibility, QtWeb makes up for in privacy, simplicity, control, and speed. This is the browser I would have developed.



Privacy, Privacy, Privacy

Front and center is your confidentiality, in direct contrast to many issues with Google's Chrome browser. First, there's a privacy button of a cloaked figure right on the tool bar (frequently called in other browsers the "porn mode") that will not log your activities in the cache or in the browser history while on. Second, a "user agent" changer that allows you to pretend (from the server's viewpoint at least) to be any browser you want. This probably is more for logging into websites that only allow certain browsers than the secrecy-minded, but its a nice touch. Finally, there's a great reset tool where you can start over from scratch. You'll find it under the Privacy Menu: "Reset QtWeb." This can also be made into a toolbar icon under "Settings" on the "Appearance" tab (the big red X).


Turning off the bells and whistles

The Privacy menu also allows users to turn off all sorts of great "features" they don't currently want. For example, when reading an article, you may not want pictures. Simply turn them off. Websites with extra features may not want javascript or cookies. And if you want to appear to be someone else, you can enable a proxy.



Built in basic Adblock tools

The new popup blocker. Enable them through the Settings Menu: Select the "Adblock" tab and click both "Block Most Ads" and "Block Most Counters." This is very refreshing to see made available.



Other features

• Changeable Interface - Very smooth animated tab and toolbar rearrangement (click and drag). Can move them anywhere on the screen you like, including the bottom and sides. This isn't perfect yet (moving the main bar to the sides is awkward), but its the best I've seen.
• Mouse Gestures built right in - love it!
• PDF - Save web pages as PDF files
• Bookmarks - Import bookmarks from every other major browser (and export to them)
• Full screen viewer - open up your whole screen save the address bar and buttons.
• Virtual keyboard - great for mouse-only terminals
• Search - All the major engines included in search bar (Google as default)
• Skins to mimic different operating systems and formats
• Great home web site has lots of information and is well designed. From experience, this is pretty remarkable.
  

Other features on the official site.

Interestingly, the "reload" or "refresh" key is not CTRL+R like most browsers, but instead F5, just like Windows. This was disorienting, but also made a lot of sense (although not very cross-platform), which brings me to ...

Issues

• Cross Platform? Doesn't appear to be a program that will be moving off Windows. I could be wrong about this.
• "Check for updates" did about the same thing as the "Help - About" did. This should actually check if there's an update, not tell you to go to the website.
  
• Security: Its unknown if security problems affecting Safari and Google Chrome will affect QtWeb.
• Shortcuts: Closing a tab is CTRL+F4, which I find awkward (other shortcuts)
• Incompatible: Rendering of some very common websites was a little off. This isn't necessarily QtWeb's fault -- I've had similar issues with Safari and Chrome.

Download:

• Official home page (recommended)
• Portablefreeware's listing

Version: 3.1 (build 011)
Size: 5.1 megs
RAM Usage: 56 megs
License: GPL - Given the way the program puts the user in control, its not surprising that its also the only modern browser besides K-Meleon to be licensed exclusively under the GPL. This is important because you can't, for example, distribute your own version of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome unless you rename it totally (like IceCat and Iron).
Score: 7 out of 10 - Missing so many features of other browsers, while at the same time ducking so many problems (ads, slowness, bad privacy)
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Still on the fence about this. Although it provides some great features, Iron is still my browser of choice behind FireFox.

YahElite Review

Neither "lite" nor "elite"

Billed as a lightweight Yahoo client, the software is surprisingly feature rich and fast while using (by default) the one-window format, it much more accurately draws design elements from mIRC to enhance Yahoo's experience. As an instant messaing client for Yahoo, its a formidable addition and worth checking out. However, as I was unable to test much of its functionality, many of the other features will go unreviewed.

At startup, YahElite provides a "Normal Chat" and "Pager" setting. Respectively, this is an IRC and Instant Messaging client format; a focus on chat "rooms" against a specific list of people you know. Based on problems with the "Normal Chat" in testing, I strongly recommend "Pager." This setting closer mimics the official client.

Even with this limitation, other chat clients out there have a lot to learn from YahElite.


User Interface

The look and feel is very much out of date in a sort of late 90's design style, which makes sense as development started in '98. Still, reinventing the wheel often means a learning curve, which YahElite doesn't have. For power users, the dearth of features won't hurt any feelings and may easily replace Yahoo's official client, which by contrast seems by comparison castrated in useful features bloated download size.

Above: Pager window that demonstrates something present throughout the program: primarily text buttons.

Privacy

One of the best parts about portable software is that its generally better for your privacy by its very nature as you take all your logs and settings with you. However, YahElite takes it a step further with the option to destroy all files and logs at program close. This feature forces the software to start as if it was just installed every time but protects user privacy from people looking at a computer after-the-fact.

Sadly, there is no feature for protecting conversations being eavesdropped over the network. This is a flaw with Yahoo's chat service protocol and not YahElite. Look to Jabber tools like Google Talk or others for encryption. For this, I recommend the portable and open source Pidgin.


Chat window awesomeness

Although the user inteface is a little noisy, there are some excellent controls that have been on my chat client wish-list for a long time. This is worth studying closely:

Left-to-right features

• Stay on top - just like it sounds -- don't let other windows focus cover up the YahElite window.
• Send colors - a great way to turn off frequently annoying color schemes.
• Send typing notifications - sometimes if you're chosing your words carefully, you can write and the rewrite something several times
• Voice features (untested)
• Play a sound (when message is received)
• Flash a window (when message is received)
• Number chat lines - a great feature that I've seen in no other client
• Decrease text size
• Default text size - sort of a reset button. Very welcome.
  
• Increase text size - for bigger screens
  
• Spellcheck - pretty much required if you ask me
  
• Smileys

Other features

• Excellent NOSPAM personal message filter feature, multiple spam filter settings. The official client could learn from this.
  
• Unique "Mamma Says" feature that helps track online chat usage:

• Astonishingly smart wallpaper system (maybe the best I've ever seen):

• E-mail checker
• Webcam system - untested in this review
  
• Voice chat - untested in this review
  
• Fullscreen capability - click the top bar to go back to normal settings
• And MANY more
  

Problems

Sadly, the program's failures are Yahoo's failures: it inability to use anything but the Yahoo chat protocol and several broken features killed its use. I wasn't able to log into chat rooms to find out whether YahElite fixed the problems with Yahoo's official chat rooms, which are spam-filled and won't allow you to effectively block users. The capsha (human test) program was offline during my test, so I quickly lost interest where YahElite might have restored my use of Yahoo as a chat service.

The program bills itself as a "no banners, no advertisements, no nags, no spyware" which certaily seems to be the case, but its unlikely you'll benefit from the spam blacking if you can't connect to chat rooms.


Final thoughts

Although this software definitely has its flaws, programs like this have me convinced that there is just a whole other world out there of people that works on obscure software. Where did something with this much packed into it come from and why have I never heard of it? Chat software developers everywhere should take note of YahElite.

Although it won't bother the average user, the homepage could use a little more information and not rely so much on the forums, which are usually a little too messy to provide more information. Release notes, a clear license, a roadmap for future additions, or even release date put on the download would really help out.


Download

• Instructions on how to make portable (recommended) or the official instructions from the website.
• Homepage
  

Version: 330.1
Size: 0.7 megs compressed, 0.8 megs uncompressed
RAM Usage: 0.7 megs
License: Freeware
CrossPlatform: Yes - claims to function under Linux with WINE
Score: 7 out of 10 - Exclusively for Yahoo IM (not chat room) users. For this narrow group, very feature-rich and a very worthy Yahoo IM replacement.
In Kitchen Sink Collection: No - Pidgin is a much better option for a wider portable freeware audience.

Update: Seems this was a timely post as the Yahoo Messenger 10 Beta just came out. It might also explain why several of the service didn't work, since Yahoo's updates are likely to have broken imitators both for obviously technical reasons, and just maybe in an effort to get people to try out the new stuff.

This is further suggested by fellow Yahoo chat network tool Pidgin's most recent 2.6.0 update, which has a lot of changes to the Yahoo protocol.

Hash Review

First, clearing up one confusion: Hash is both the name of the software and what it does: creates hashes.

Hash (the file output) - what are hashes?

Hashes (a.k.a. "digests") behave like a file fingerprint that help identify a file as authentic. This has many uses, such as when trying to determine that a file downloaded online is the one you're looking for and hasn't been corrupted. They are versatile, appearing as groups of numbers and letters that can be posted anywhere ("E55DA1922211").

Different file hashes have different advantages on a scale: security versus speed:

1. CRC32 - fastest
2. MD5 - seems to be the most popular
3. SHA1 - most accurate and longest
   

SHA1 might be thought to be taking ALL a person's fingerprints to verify with absolute certainty that the file is what its supposed to be. This is important if getting the right file is mission-critical. CRC32 meanwhile are usually used by internal programs such as DoubleKiller (also in the Kitchen Sink), to help discover files that are not just similar in name or size, but are identical. Torrents, meanwhile, automatically use the SHA1 protocol to verify downloaded data.

More on hashes from Wikipedia.

Hash (the software) - features

Provides a long list of file data about a given file or files by default -- all three hash types, as well as file version, size, and date. Can un-check boxes to gather less data.

Pros:

• Drag-and-drop friendly.
  
• Does multiple, even 100s of files automatically (if you do "Browse" hold CTRL or SHIFT to select multiple files)
  
• Progress bar to let you know how far along the process is and a "stop" button to cease progress.
• Absolutely tiny! Low footprint, low ram usage.
  

Cons

• No automatic file verification. To do this, I recommend creating a "torrent" using uTorrent or a similar program. Just ignore "tracker" information, since it won't be for sharing.
  

Download:

• Download
• PortableFreeware.com entry
  

Version: 1.04
Size: 28k megs
RAM Usage: 1.6 megs
License: Freeware (takes donations)
Score: 8 out of 10 - The best portable hash program I've yet found, but has no automatic checker. Who wants to read those long strings of text?
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Yes

Thunderbird Beta 3 Review

Thunderbird is already an excellent e-mail client that has steady yet slow improvement over the years. Its plugin structure has really made for a far better email client than many alternatives and its open nature makes it easy to plug into other email systems and of course for backing up. Integrated compression allows it to save lots of space, as text frequently compresses by 50% or more.

Great updates:

• Threads - A fix on the problem with Thunderbird 2.0 staying in the "thread" format (like Gmail's system) when you restart. Do this by selecting "View - Sort by - Threaded".
  

• Integration with Gmail. Allows you to get both POP and IMAP settings, which download all your email and download just the headings respectively. This was very welcome and seems to work beautifully.
  
• Activity Manager gives you a rundown of the actions Thunderbird has taken. A problem in the previous Thunderbird left me wondering if it was actually checking my e-mail every 5 minutes -- now I know.
• Message Summary View - extremely cool. From the release notes: "Selecting multiple messages will give you a summary view of the emails you have selected." Just try it -- its terrific.

• Similarity with Firefox
  

• Tabbed View - really slick -- I'm surprised this wasn't already present. Overall the interface is much smoother and cleaner.

• Back and Forward buttons -- awesome.
  

More updates are on their way and I look forward to the finished product. Notably, a global search and index tool will be included in the final version. (I'm assuming global means all Inboxes, not the rest of the computer.)


Wishlist:

• User Interface: the formatting of email for 2nd and 3rd layer quoted text is a big "loud" and cluttered. Should be grey rather than blue.
  

• Same for the progress bar: a light grey is more than enough.

• To get messages in Plain text only, you have to go to "Options - Format - Plain Text only" Doesn't appear to be an option to set this by default in the Preferences like there was in Thunderbird 2.0.
  
• Selecting "File" and "New" should allow you to add an RSS/Atom feed.
• "Import" should allow you to import from file, as well as directly from Outlook and other email clients. That way you can grab stuff from backups rather than having to reinstall apps.
  

Plugin options that should be standard:

• Calendar and TodoList integration, like Lightning. Should be something you check to enable at startup or in the options menu. Who wouldn't want that?
• Better security options such as easy PGP/GPG tools and integration or just an "add a password" option of some kind. I know there's Enigmail and its very robust, but I think its important to have something beyond the very inaccessible "certificate" security.
  
• Want a "delete duplicates" option somewhere in there to clean up inbox.
  

• Download

System Requirements: Win 98 or above and very basic hardware
Version: 3.0 Beta
Size: 30 megs
RAM Usage: 6 megs
License: GPL, MPL
Score: 8 of 10. Very voluntary about not being ready for prime time, but a real step up in mail readers. In some ways very superior to Outlook. Looking forward to using it daily when it gets out of beta.
In Kitchen Sink Collection? No, simply because their trademark won't let me redistribute it.

PicPick Review

Image freeware too good to be free

Gleefully bleeding across boundaries in software categories, this outstanding tool is much more than a color identifier or image capture software, beating out a number of other portable freeware titles in one unified package. The developer(s) clearly know something about writing good software.

Graphics editor

The Image Editor will find a home on many computers. While it lacks power features of many other titles, its fast, simple, and clean. The warmth and usability of this software is undeniable and its easily a match for advanced editors, fulfilling the vast majority of user needs. With rotation, color tools, sharpen, blur, frame effects, this basic editor would make PicPick worthwhile software all by itself. The tabbed format is very welcome and holds the various different images that come up as the user takes one or many screen shots:

Most of the remaining tools present are likely for a more narrow group mostly made up of web developers or technical writers:

• Screen Capture - Although the program is extremely flexible, the basic focus of the software seems to be its Screen Capture ability, which it does beautifully. Screens can be grabbed in many shapes and sizes, then handed off smoothly to the internal editor for more options, or further cleaning.
  

Alternately, users can skip the internal editor altogether by right-clicking the taskbar icon and selecting "Capture Settings" - "Output Format," allows captured files can be sent to an external editor like Photoshop or GIMP, auto-save, or "Save As" dialog, or simply put on the clipboard to be "pasted" elsewhere.

• Color Picker - Uses a small cross-hair window to help a user find the exact pixel whose color is needed. This is great for taking a logo and turning out a whole design based on its theme, or visa versa. One problem with this problem is that the Print Screen button (which saves the code for the color chosen) doesn't exist on some laptops. This cannot be changed under the settings.

• Pixel ruler - similar to the On-Screen Ruler program, a semi-transparent ruler that allows users to see in pixels how wide something is on screen. Mostly needed in web design, as in this example where its measuring a stone at Stone Henge.

• Protractor - helps you find angles on screen. Pick a center, then a location, then the angle in degrees away from the first. Can be used in a variety of photography, math, and graphics applications. Would like to see a function where those values are saved to clipboard or automatically in a screen capture. As it stands, users need to find a spare piece of paper or memorize the angle.

• Crosshair - place one mark and then move your cursor to see where the placement is relative to the first. This can be useful for example in developing HTML image maps. Just dragging the crosshair around shows you the number of pixels (starting at 0,0 in the top left). Negatively, as users near the left side of the screen, the coordinates could move to the opposite side of the X and Y axies as they just go off screen when you reach the bottom or right side.

• Whiteboard - works right over top of your current desktop, a sort of an interactive image capture tool. Use it in meetings where groups must have input on a given area. Works before a screen capture to help modify or highlight areas of importance on your screen.

Problems: missing an undo function -- if you make a mistake, you can only clear the screen and start over. A metered bar on the bar doesn't control transparency dynamically.

(Example of some over-image edit tools including arrow and draw tool.)

• Magnifier - Gives a closer look at small pixels on the screen, useful either for vision impairment or to see small pixels on very large screens. Integrated into many of the tools above. Other tools exist that do this, but PicPick's window can be enlarged and can zoomed in and out.

Simply put, PicPick has no competition. The only benefit that the out-of-date FS Capture has is a slightly cleaner drawing system that has a nice, friendly shadow on all of its drawing tools. Otherwise, this tool has swiftly replaced FS Capture in the Kitchen Sink.

Customization

• Space Saver Trick: Users can also delete all non English files from the "language" folder if drive space is an issue.
• Reset All Settings Back to Defaults - delete "picpick.ini"
  

Download

• PortableFreeware
  
• Official homepage

System Requirements: Windows 2000 / XP
Version: 1.8.1.0
Size: 1 meg (without non-English .ini files)
RAM Usage: 2.8 megs
License: Freeware (donate!)
Score: 10 of 10. The few bugs in the program and annoyances couldn't keep this software off the short list of oustanding Portable Freeware.
In Kitchen Sink Collection? Yes - will replace FS Capture in the next release as well as On-Screen Ruler.


Update: PortableFreeware user Yucca strongly disagrees with my 10 out of 10, pointing to issues discussed on this thread.

Edit: Further testing has found a few reasons FS Capture has yet to be replaced, including a delayed capture, capture options that don't lean on hotkeys, and demonstration tools. This would have brought the review probably down to a 9/10 but continued updates by an active developer may easily address these issues.

WinSplit Revolution Review

There's research on the productivity bonus of multiple monitors (estimated at 44%), but if you have a larger or wide-screen monitor, there are ways to leverage your screen real estate. Just dragging windows around can create a way to compare different information screens and more, but this process is tedious.

There's been a screen-sorting method in Windows for a long time where the user can right-click the taskbar and select "Tile Windows Vertically / Horizontally" (as below). However, windows never quite fit and always seem to overlap just a little bit. Resizing the windows in any format seems to constantly cause problems and right-clicking repeatedly becomes painful.

Window "pockets"

However, there's a better and much faster method to do this with windows that snap into predefined places. The excellent WinSplit does just that. Although there's supposed to be an interface system that does just that to be built into Windows 7, you can do it now with Windows XP and Vista.

You can move windows into different regions (left half, right half, lower quarter, upper quarter) while holding ctrl+alt and it will pop into place. If you scroll your mouse wheel during this process, it will rotate through several different available options. The smooth warmth of a clean window-snap isn't there yet but its more than good enough.

Problems

The only negative for this program is that most of the hotkey items require the number pad on standard keyboards, expecting that laptop users wouldn't be interested. However, many laptops have larger or wide-screens that can also use software like this (especially the note + window look below). Fortunately the ctrl+alt system described above is more than adequate and may be all you use anyway.

Another more minor concern for some users will be that, although there is a portable option during install, this program has not been accepted as truly portable by the PortableFreeware collection. See the forum on this topic.

• Download

Version: 9.02
Size: 4 megs
RAM Usage: 5.3 megs
License: Freeware
Score: 9 out of 10 - One of the reasons portable software exists and is so important. The minor flaws with key combinations don't prevent this from being absolutely essential.
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Waiting on acceptance to the portablefreeware collection.

Related:

• A somewhat rough video describing the program.
• Lifehacker and FreewareGenius have also reviewed this software.
• Another similar tool.
• Mac equivalents exist but either way behind or non-free.

SearchMyFiles Review

Find it for sure



Excellent file search software that leverages an extremely customizable find menu to help track down very specific information. Search using a long list of conditions:

• Contents (binary AND text)
• Size
• Multiple dates (last accessed, created, modified)
• File type (hidden, compressed, encrypted, read-only, etc.)
• Can fiind folders OR files

Often, if you know where your software ISN'T this software can save you lots of time and energy, especially with very large, dynamic databases.

These conditions make up the bulk of the program's interface but there is a "stop searching after ___ files" item at the bottom, which performs a great "parking brake"-type feature, preventing endless searching.

Non-Indexing

The program does not try to make an "index" or a breakdown of information included on a drive. This offers several advantages to this because "the quality of the index and search quality may be degraded due to the mixed content and improper word proximity" (wikipedia), a problem present in programs like the outstanding portable Everything software and non-portable DK Finder.

System Requirements

If you can run Windows 2000, you can run this software. Works with all versions of Windows after Win2K.

Download

• Portablefreeware's listing (recommended)
• Official Homepage

Version: 1.15
Size: 67 k
RAM Usage: 5.3 megs
License: Freeware
Score: 8 out of 10 - In testing, was able to find files other software wouldn't. Wish there were still more options to find files including an easy way to add drives and exempted folders. Also, may scare away non-technical people.
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Yes

See also: Lifehacker's comments