essential

Although Apple has famously denounced Adobe's Flash technology as being obsolete, Google's actions suggest it begs to differ. The Google Chrome Web browser now offers a "flashier" Web experience by incorporating Adobe Flash into its arsenal of features.

On the Mozilla side of things, the app-maker most known for Firefox has just released Thunderbird 3.1. It's a minor update, but it is still an important one that fixes multiple bugs and adds features like a quick filter and migration assistant that imports your profile from Mozilla or Netscape automatically. This new version of the … Read more

A new Windows Live Essentials public beta will have deep hooks to multiple social networking, media-sharing, and Web mail services, as well as the new Office Web Apps, Microsoft announced Wednesday. The public beta will be available starting Thursday at the Windows Live site, although Microsoft has yet to say at what time.

The Live Essentials update focuses on making Windows more Web-friendly, without leaving users on the hook for uninstalling programs they don't want their computer to come with. The new betas of Windows Live Messenger, Writer, Mail, Movie Maker, and Photo Gallery will all connect to multiple … Read more

Microsoft is discontinuing its Windows Essential Business Server product, a bundle aimed at midsize businesses, the company said Friday.

The product combined Windows Server 2008, the Exchange e-mail server, and management tools into a single software package.

"We are streamlining our portfolio and will discontinue future development of EBS," Microsoft said in a note on its Web site. The company said it will stop selling the current version of the software as of June 30.

Though fairly new to the market, the product had been a long time in development. It was first announced in 2005 under the code-name Centro. … Read more

Windows Essentials Media Codec Pack provides a set of software codecs for viewing and listening to many forms of media in Windows Media Player. While this program merely enhances a media player, it does a fine job of accommodating many different and unusual types of videos and music.

The program's interface is simple to operate, since it maintains the classic media player layout. Its commands are easy to understand and navigate. This codec pack makes it a bit difficult to measure any improvements to Windows Media Player since it's not a player itself but rather a set of … Read more

Microsoft 's new Security Essentials software has passed at least one exam so far--a review by security testing firm AV-Test.org.

Using the latest version and definition updates of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSSE) downloaded from the Web, AV-Test ran the product through a series of tests on Sept. 29 and 30 to judge its effectiveness at fighting malware.

To check static known malware, AV-Test pitted Security Essentials against the most recent WildList, a sampling of 3,732 viruses and other threats compiled by the WildList Organization. Microsoft's product successfully detected and blocked all of the samples in both manual … Read more

Microsoft has released version 1.0 of Security Essentials, the successor to Live OneCare. Originally known as Morro, Security Essentials retains the core features of OneCare, but abandons the additional heft of a firewall, performance tuning, and backup and restore options in exchange for making the program free. Rather than taking aim at full-featured security suites made by Symantec or Eset, the features available in Security Essentials indicate that Microsoft is aiming to compete with basic-but-free security apps.

For the select 75,000 public beta testers who got their hands on the program when the limited public beta was offered … Read more

Microsoft plans to release the final version of its free antivirus software soon, according to a note sent to testers late Sunday.

"The final version of Microsoft Security Essentials will be released to the public in the coming weeks," Microsoft said in the note.

Microsoft first announced its plans for the product, then code-named Morro, last November, at the same time the company said it was scrapping its paid Windows Live OneCare product.

Public beta testing of Security Essentials started in June, with Microsoft reaching its goal of 75,000 testers just one day after it issued a call … Read more

Another day, another external hard drive. I thought by now, storage vendors had exhausted ideas for new external hard drives. I was wrong.

Western Digital announced on Thursday its new and refreshed lines of My Book external hard dives, including the My Book Essential and My Book for Mac. Both hard drives are for desktops, and most importantly, they come with the new WD SmartWare software that's designed to ease the job of backing up your data.

Both new external hard drives are available in capacities ranging from 500GB to 2TB and feature user-selected password protection combined with military-grade … Read more

Last week Redmond offered alert PC users a proposition: a limited beta test of its latest security application, called Microsoft Security Essentials to the first 75,000 fast-acting users in the United States, China, Israel, and Brazil. We hardly have to tell you that spots for the freeware antivirus tool that will replace Live OneCare were snapped up less than 24 hours after we posted our story.

If you weren't quick enough to join the testing herd, or if you live in one of the 191 other countries worldwide, Download.com Senior Associate Editor Seth Rosenblatt has all the … Read more