HonestJohn

Software Reviews by HonestJohn

The reviews and opinions below are posted by SnapFiles visitors. They do not necessarily reflect our opinion, and they are solely based upon the experience of individual users.

Spybot Search and Destroy (Free)

Once great, now awful

Spybot was once a pioneer and staple, a "Must have" program. Not any more. Based on distant past use, I wanted to give it a go. It was a minor disaster. It is way, way too aggressive in removing things. It starts off wanting to remove everything (defaults to remove all), including Windows staple recent files, logs, and contents. There is a menu of sorts, but it is clumsy, disorganized, unclear, and hard to use. I thought I'd unchecked everything I wanted to keep, but within minutes of running Spybot, I had problems such as program's "recent file lists" being wiped out and other issues to broad to list. There is supposed to be an "undo quarantine" that I could not get to work, so I lost it all and spent a lot of time trying to restore lost data. It is a shame a once good program has fallen this far. Hard to use, bad results. Price: Free

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TakeOwnershipPro

Shocked how good this was

I had a huge list of files and folders with some permissions issues, and they could not be deleted, even with one of the reboot-delete programs. I also tried changing permissions myself via right click edit-> properties, CMD prompt, powershsell, and linux. No go (and these always worked before). So I was skeptical, but wow! This was easy to use, ran recursively in all the folders: The problem files and folders were all fixed in about 30 seconds. I am really impressed and will keep this around. "Good job!" to the program writers for a good interface and good program. Price: Free

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PDF-XChange Viewer

My default pdf now for years

Many others have reviewed this to death, so I'll only add that I've tried a few others and return to this free version. I liked it enough, I also bought one of their paid PDF editor versions. It isn't perfect, but it is very good and worth the 50 I spent. This free version has many good features, and I consider this indispensable for a new install. I recommend this to all. Price: Free

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Xara Web Designer 365

Decent, good, perhaps not the best.

I've used a number of Xara products in their web site creation products. This isn't bad, but it gets clumsy as the site grows, and as an occasional user, it can be awkward. The interface feels old and slow. I'm not doing anything complex and only use a fraction of Xara's features, yet, I am looking for something else. It is WYSIWYG, and it has good menus. I've had good luck with copy and paste of "very standard HTML" from my old sites into Xara program. I had to do some tweaks, and a few tables and such would not import, but over ok there. I'm having problems exporting this to any other program, thus my main gripe now is that once you use it, you are welded and stuck with it. It seems many web page creation programs are like that, so take care with them all. Being able to export to other editors in the future is a key issue here, and with other programs too. I think this is good to start and good for small sites. For a true bare bones beginner, try Kompozer or other older free product to learn. As I said, I'm looking for a replacement of Xara now. As a note, I've used far worse, so Xara may be a good choice for others, and if the needs are modest, this seems good. Try the trial first! Price: Free Trial ($49.00)

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Everything

New version, august 2014 is terrible

I used to recommended Everything to everyone. But the new version, update August 2014, is terrible. I was using "Everything-1.2.1.371" for years. Worked very well, once in awhile a minor problem or need to restart, but overall it was great. If they reverted, I'd "5 stars" it again. But the new version is buggy, near impossible for use on a multi-user system, and a big step backwards. I'm sure the authors were trying to do well, but it didn't turn out so good. This used to be one of my favorite, "most used daily" programs. Thankfully I had a copy of the old install, and reverted back. The old version is working great (again). Price: Free

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WinAlarm

No go - frooze after setting 3 alarms

I can't recall disliking and uninstalling a program this fast. I note that in the pop up after the install, it advertises for another, new version, but I would not try it after this flop. In short, I set 3 alarms and the program froze. I had to kill it in the task manager. I tried again with similar results, and setting alarms or events is not easy or repeatable as I expected. This is like having to set your bedside alarm clock every night. There is no "Close program" or exit - you have to kill it from the task manager. I can't recall giving a program such quick judgement, but it is a single focus program - I want to set reminder alarms and it did not work for me. I also found the interface awkward and ill thought out. There are tabs for different settings, but you have to press another key within a tab to see other functions. I am kind of astounded there are no better alternates for this. I usually have sympathy for software authors but I don't' have much here. Price: Free

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Image Composite Editor

Easiest photo sticher, ever

This is THE easiest program I've ever used (and I'm shocked this came from Microsoft, but there you have it). Not just easiest photo stitcher, but easiest of any, ever. You look for photos, preferably ones you shot with stitching in mind, drag them in, and the program takes over and outputs a stitched image; quite fast too. After that you can further crop and manipulate in the program, then output the results and also save the project. It is totally automatic and was very robust, but I could get bad results if the back ground changed a lot or I was sloppy in taking the pictures. Hint: pan and tilt only, don't move position at all, and a tripod is your tool to make this work like a champ every time. Overall a perfect product, and it has changed the way I shoot nature and other back grounds now. It even extracts panoramas from video! The only issue (very minor) is if I had poor fits between images, I could not blend or alter it. A very minor complaint. If everything worked like this it'd be a whole different world. Price: Free

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InfraRecorder

Too simple, didn't do dvd dl

This is really simple, perhaps limited is a better word, in terms of interface and functions. That by itself is neither praise nor complaint. Just a note that it may not have the features and obvious usage users will be used to; it did not for me. I'm all in favor of simplicity, but I prefer more direct familiar abilities. I could get it to burn a DL (dual-layer) DVD, so I can't recommend it. I like several other burners on Snapfiles and suggest you look at other top rated software. Price: Free

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Audacity

Best audio editor, does audio from video too

Amazingly powerful audio file editor. Supports input/output of nearly all audio formats such as WAV, Ogg, FLAC, MP3, MP2, AC3, and dozen others. I have yet to encounter an audio format it would not read. PLUS you can drag-drop video files and it will extract the audio (without any further steps in to the sound editor! Marvelous! Allows writing audio tags with each file as you save it. Excellent built in filters, and (free) expanded filter packs are available from the Audacity home page separately. Very powerful, easy-to-use, supports virtually unlimited number of tracks. Best, easiest audio editor I've seen! Price: Free

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dBpowerAMP Music Converter

Perfect for the job! modest price vs features

Review of V 13.4R reference/pro version for $36, NOT $24. Extremely powerful audio file manipulation software and CD ripper. Batch convert function uses ALL CPU cores = extremely fast. Huge, comprehensive choice of audio codecs. Modestly priced and amazingly bug free. I am an audiophile + power user. This is the best. Using the $36 ver with (free) add-on utility codecs and tools, I converted over 2000 CDs already on my hard drive to FLAC format, and wrote ID tags into each file based on file/folder set up; all in one gigantic, fully automatic batch operation. Totally flawless. Installation is a bit clumsy. You need to download, then install each codec separately, but you pick only those you want. Similarly, the interface require some learning. The home website has lots of help and a forum. Once set up and once you understand it, it's better than any other audio conversion software I've seen for any price. No audio editor. Get Audacity for that. Price: Free Trial ($39.00)

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Software Reviews by HonestJohn

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