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.

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.

Making Digsby Stealth

Update: Digsby should be considered spyware and running it under some kind of protection, as described below, is the only way it should be run at all. Real shame the developers of this fine software didn't try to make money in other ways.

----

When portable chat software misbehaves

[image source]

One of the great things about portable software is that it doesn't write a bunch of garbage to your computer -- part of the reason I started this site. However, there is some software out there that claims to be portable, but isn't "stealth" portable, meaning it writes all sorts of information locally. The amazing IM tool "Digsby" has been reviewed elsewhere and its greatness at unifying your social world is well known. Although the software will behave portably, its not there yet. I had to find a way to use this software without the pain.

Unfortunately, the only way I could find to do this was with a a non-portable program, Sandboxie. There may be a way to make it work with the portable API Guard (which would be much more portable), but that's for another time.

Get Digsby stealth:

1. Download and install Sandboxie
2. Download Digsby -- get the version at the bottom of the page that mentions installing to a USB.
3. Right-click the Digsby installer and select "Run Sandboxed"
4. Go through the install sequence normally but save the install to the Desktop (you can move it if you want but it will affect the following steps)
   
5. Close Digsby or just don't select "Start Program Now"
   
6. Expand the folder list by clicking the "+" symbol next to the directires until you get to your desktop. Right click on Digsby and select "Recover to Same Folder"
7. Right click "Sandbox Deault" and select "Delete Contents"
8. Open the Digsby folder on your desktop (delete the uninstall.exe file if you like -- its useless)
9. Right click on the desktop and select "Create Shortcut"
   
10. Create a shortcut and put this in the "Target" feild: "C:\Program Files\Sandboxie\Start.exe" C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\Digsby\digsby.exe
11. Right click "Digsby" and select "Run Sandboxed"
12. In the "Start In" feild, put: "C:\Program Files\Sandboxie"
13. Now you have an icon on your desktop that will always run Digsby portably.
14. Done!

The only negative is that the program won't save the username and password. Almost all of the software's settings apart from the window-docking trick are saved on Digsby's servers so you can log on using their software anywhere and get the same experience. For extra privacy, delete all contents of the sandbox (see in step 7) whenever you close Digsby.

Other advantages of this system:

1. If it turns out there are security flaws with Digsby, Sandboxie will prevent a security compromise from harming your computer.
   
2. Not writing system settings to your registry means that, over time, your computer will run faster and cleaner. Sandboxie blocks registry writes.
3. Of course, its not just Digsby -- other programs can be "Sandboxed".
   

Users interested in the other capabilities of Sandboxie may wish to look through the explanation on the site for more details. The software itself is not very elegant but if you're willing to work with it, you can do quite a bit.