Friday is Free Day – FileHippo Update Checker

Updating third-party Windows applications is one tedious task for me since I’ve got lots of freewares installed. Running these apps one by one and clicking their update buttons or visiting their sites to see if there are new versions really is time consuming.

The Update Checker from FileHippo eases up this problem. Once installed, the Update Checker will scan your computer for installed softwares and their current versions and send the information to FileHippo to check for updates. Your browser will open with a list of detected updates, including betas, with download buttons for every app. Although FileHippo is one large app repository, not all applications are supported.

This freeware works on Windows XP to 7 (even Windows 98) but requires .Net Framework 2.0 to work. You may download the Update Checker from the FileHippo website.

Firefox 4 Beta 1 Is Already Out

Firefox 4 Beta 1 on Windows XP

Mozilla has released the beta 1 version of Firefox 4. I’ve already downloaded and installed the browser on my Intel P4 machine. It worked great. It loads sites faster compared to its previous versions. It has an almost similar look to Google’s Chrome except for the title bar that was retained. And it doesn’t freeze that much anymore. However, it’s now on top of my Task Manager’s processes list as it eats up more resources compared to the 3.6.x versions. I’ll further test the beta version for updates.

It also has a feedback button at the right side beside the search pane where you can send your feedback to make it better. And since it’s in beta stage, most of your add-ons won’t work.

Update:

I already installed the beta version on a Windows 7 machine. It also has the title bar but the menu bar is automatically hidden. Just press the ALT key to unhide it. It’s still on top of my processes list. well, it’s still fast. Here’s how it looks like:

Firefox 4 Beta 1 on Windows 7

Google Apps – Without the Beta

Google officially removed the “beta” label from its set of applications – GMail, Google Talk, Google Docs, etc. According to

Google Apps

the Google Blog, they’ve realized that the beta tag doesn’t fit large companies that run their Apps Suite.

In information technology, the term beta refers to a software released to users for testing before its official release for the purpose of evaluation. The software would contain all the features but may be buggy.

GMail, one of the Google Apps service, had the beta label for more than five years even though it was widely used and became an enterprise solution to eMails.

Google however assured that it would continue to innovate and improve Google Apps with or without the beta.