Digital Musings

Netscape Navigator - Rest In Peace.

After a long haul of 13 years, AOL has finally decided to discontinue any further development and technical support for Netscape Navigator, the first commercial browser on the internet. The support would be ON till 1st Feb ‘08. AOL, the owners of Netscape have decided to develop Netscape as an advertising business instead of the development and maintenance of the software. The software would be available for use, but there would be no further security or software updates. The small pool of users who still use Netscape are advised to download and use Mozilla FireFox instead.

“While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer,” Netscape Director Tom Drapeau wrote in a blog entry Friday.

The decline of Netscape navigator started in 2002, when Microsoft saw a huge potential in the Web Browser market and started giving out Internet Explore, as a bundled package with the Windows Operating System. Netscape initially developed on a platform called as Mosaic, the internet very first browser, that could display both images and text at the same time. It went through various updates, and the latest version was Netscape 9.0. However the present Netscape version was just a skin of Netscape on the Firefox platform. This showed that AOL had stopped working on development of the software further.

The Web Browser Usage statistics for November 2007 are:

Browser usage in Nov 2007

[Stats Source:W3Schools]

As we can see, Netscape isn’t mentioned in the list of browsers being used. The current approximate usage of Netscape Navigator is about 0.6%.

I would actually miss Netscape Navigator, as I currently use it to experiment with all the Firefox add-ons and various tool-bars. If I find them useful, I incorporate them in Firefox. But now that Netscape would stop any further security and software updates, many of the add-ons wouldn’t work with Netscape navigator.

However,AOL has decided to keep the archived version of Netscape Navigator online and Netscape website would continue as a online portal.

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Posted in Internet, News | 3 Comments »

Get AVG 7.5 Pro Version for free -Also the AVG Free and Pro versions compared.

Looking to get the AVG Professional 7.5 anti virus for free?…Read on…

Computer-Active along with Girsoft,the company behind the highly popular Anti-Virus AVG, is giving away free copy of AVG Anti- Virus 7.5 version, for free. AVG is one of the most popular and successful Anti-Virus softwares on the internet, largely because the free version of the AVG Anti-Virus has a very good track record of PC security.

The AVG Pro version costs $29.95 for a yearly subscription. This news got out on the internet quite soon and a lot of guys started the download. This has slowed down their servers almost to a stand still. The file size is 37 MB, so might take a bit of time as the servers have slowed down, due to multiple simultaneous downloads. Our friends at Ghacks, recommend using a download manager to download it, as if the download breaks in between, you would need to start all over again. They have also mentioned, if you are having a hard time downloading the file, some mirrors have been posted at Cybernet news which is a respected site. These download links however point to RapidShare and MegaUpload, so download it from these links if you are comfortable with these file sharing websites.

I have used AVG pro edition before and currently have the Free version, after the License expired. So now, I can move back to full version, hopefully for one full year or two, but they haven’t mentioned this in the promotion. However when I compared these two editions, I found the Free version quite competitive to the Full version.

A complete comparison between the Professional and Free edition is given below.

AVG Professional VS AVG Free Anti Virus:

When you look at these features carefully, you can see, there isn’t much missing in the Free version and hence its so popular.

Few features that can be deemed as missing are:

1)Technical Support: Free version doesn’t get tech support, but there is enough help in the Forums.

2)Update Servers: Updates for Pro version are though High speed servers, and Free version are left out to non-priority servers. But hey, thats not much of a problem huh!

3)Language Support: Language support for Free version is only in English, again not much of a problem!

4)Windows 64 Support: Support for Windows 64 bit isnt available - Well if you have Windows 64 bit, its better to get the Pro version, especially now that its free!

5)Intrusion detection: Detection of potentially unwanted Programs isn’t there…If we get AVG to do that too, What would the Anti Spyware and Firewalls do…again not much of a disadvantage.

6)Schedules: Scheduled Update and Scanning isnt flexible in free as its in Professional version. Not a big concern.

7) User Defined Tests: Well If you are good enough to understand User defined testing, you would go for the Pro version any way!

8)Resident Shields: AVG Resident shields absence is a bit of concern, but things can be managed, if you don’t frequently visit Warez and Crack sites.

9)Alternate update server: Well we can always update later in Free version. In Pro however, you have alternate download servers. useful in a Virus attack situation. Kinda rare though.

10)Tests results analysis: Professional gives advanced analysis, Free version just gives Basic reports.

I think after comparing and analyzing these features,one can say AVG Free Version is up to the task. The professional version, is for guys who are more in the favor of complete peace of mind.

So would you go for the Professional version, now that its free. Or stick to Good old AVG Free edition?

Posted in Internet, News, Popular, Software | 13 Comments »

Digg For Sale: $300 Million, Any buyers?

It was in November that I first read about Digg.com being put up for sale.However this rumor quickly died down. But now after about a month its come up in the open that Digg is has put up a price tag of $300 million and has hired Allen and Company which specializes in Media deals to find buyers.

Allen & Company traditionally uses an “event” to do what it terms “direct research” on potential buyers and sellers, then inserts itself as banker. You can read more about how they do it, here.

I found the news about Digg being on sale, quite amusing as recently I have read a lot of stuff about Digg, that tells me, lot of people, specially top diggers, are unhappy with Digg. I am a regular Digg user but haven’t been a very active member.Maybe I started using Digg, when it has passed its golden period.

There have been many strong reactions all over the blogosphere about this proposed sale. Some of the Top Diggers I know have actually opposed this sale and suggested anyone who might be interested not to buy Digg. Tamar of Techipedia.com, is one of the Top 40 Digg users. You can see the list of Top Digg users here.

On Digg community is everything:

Like any other social networking website, on Digg you can form your own community of fellow Diggers, who have similar taste as yours and share news and stories. This was the initial idea behind Digg. Although now a days, instead of a wide range of users opinion, some top users can drive a story to the front page where it gets maximum attention. So the reigns of a particular story or website and the consequent traffic generated is in hands of some Top Diggers.

From Democracy to Oligarchy to Autocracy?

Digg has always been seen as a reliable source of informative stories, mostly about technology, with the backing of user generated content. This was the “hit” formula which made Digg so popular. Its was all Democratic atmosphere. Later, as Digg became more and more popular, it was targeted by spammers to gain traffic. The quality of content went down. Also many of the Front Page stories were the ones submitted by a specific set of Top Diggers. A few guys started influencing the content which wasnt exactly “bad”, as most of these guys were hardcore Digg users, and mostly brought forward good posts. But not all, submitted quality content. As it is true or all social networks, popular Diggers got more friends and had a good following, due to which stories submitted by specific users got more exposure than others and some good stories were left behind. As some like to call it, It became an “Editors Playground”

Digg has some rules about how the content is submitted, and if a users submits a potential Front Page story, he should get the proper credit. Thats the reason for the Duplicate Story Filter. Now these rules are for all users new and old alike. But is the owner of the website exempt from them? Read on, to know How Kevin Rose is actually free from these rules!

Digg’s Popularity Decreasing?

Since I started using Digg seriously, I have seen its traffic decrease steadily and the traffic related ranks go down. Does this mean Digg is becoming less popular? Not necessarily, some may argue, but there has been a lot of discontent in the Digg community and lot of users have stopped using Digg. Some have taken refuge with other bookmarking sites like, Mixx and ShoutWire. Digg receives less traffic, as compared to same period last year. The graph from Alexa.com shows the trend.

I dont know if this is a technique to pacify the Digg users who have been banned, or a Publicity stunt, but the Mixx.com community has a section named Digg Refugees. TechCrunch has an interesting post about it here. This is also one of the reasons why Kevin Rose is having difficulty finding interested buyers at the price tag he has specified.

Kevin Rose: Where art thou?

I have always seen Kevin Rose as an idea guy. After all he came up with something as innovative as Digg. Kevin is considered as a poster boy for the Web 2.0 crowd with his name listed in the Forbes Top 25 Web Celebrities list. There has been a lot of account banning activity in the past few days, and a lot of people are not very happy about it. Is all this happening with your knowledge,Kevin? What happened to the community spirit?

As Tamar as quoted on her blog:
Just remember, Digg and Kevin Rose: you built the platform. We, however, built the success. You can turn your backs on us if you want to, but don’t expect to get things done the way you want it to be.

Tamar has written about how her friends who were hardcore Digg users got their accounts banned and why she is losing faith in this system? If you want o understand how healthy a website is, ask its users and they would tell you whats happening. At present they diagnose Digg not to be in healthy spirits.

Another interesting fact that she brought fore was, How the account of a 17 year old kid was banned because he created a Digg-FaceBook group saying its an attempt to launch an attack, and after a few days Kevin himself created a FaceBook group which got more than 1000 votes. The story with screen shots can be found here.

Digg, Auto Bury: Reality or Myth?

Now this is one scary feature on Digg. There exists a list on the Digg servers which has names of sites and their urls, which would get buried after submission. Digg has always denied about censoring content. They say its a user driven website and only other users can bury Digg stories. So is it your jealous competing blogger who is burying your stories or, its the system thats stealthily working against you?

Here are some interesting stories about Digg’s auto burying system . One of the most read blogs about Copywriting, Brian Clarks CopyBlogger is on the list. He has written about it saying Ding-Dong-Digg-Is-Dead.

Another famous Blog Pronet Advertising attests to this fact with evidence, that Digg is censoring content.

Dont get me wrong, I have been an active participant on Digg since last few months, but its now I understand the system properly and have started communicating with other Digg users. No wonder Digg is so addictive. Its a really cool concept, and if you get involved and give enough time to it, you would get hooked as well.

With all this going on would an interested party go for it and buy Digg or seeing all this commotion in the community that drives it, stay away?

So What is your opinion?

As a user driven website, Digg has really taken a path which leads to absolute Rule and only the content that they want would go to the Front Page. I think this would really suck as the whole democracy idea totally takes a backseat. Do you think this might change in the future or something can be done about it. After all we are also a part of the Digg community, would you see it deteriorate like this?
Please let everyone know whats your opinion in the comment section!

Digg is a phenomenal revolution is UGC, that has opened an entire dimension to the world. But the fact remains that there is just an inequity that haunts it.Reddit and Netscape as well had these problems.

Digg is great in that it is positive, but the bias towards top users and friends have left many great stories with just a few diggs because the submitter did not have many contacts. Do you think these are the problems plaguing Digg?

Posted in Internet, News, Social Networking | 8 Comments »

Start you own Youtube.com!

Whats this Video about?

Steven Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net, explains in this video how anyone who has a Website or wants to build one can have their own YouTube-like video channel almost overnight.

How does this work?

The Magnify.net platform searches video channels like YouTube looking for cool videos that match the keywords that you enter, and then posts them on your Website.

So whats in it for me?

Well, Isn’t it obvious,You get Great Video Content and also there is revenue sharing as Magnify.net and the Website owner then share Google Adsense revenues 50-50, each time the video/webpage is viewed.

If you wanna know more….just watch the video.

Posted in Innovation, Internet, Video | 1 Comment »

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) For Newbies.

Although many articles have been written about the importance of SEO, the information given below is aimed at helping a new guy gain a foothold in this Bad Bad SEO Battle!

According to recent study on search engines by Iprospect.com 57% of the internet users surveyed, reported that searching the internet has become more important for their use of the internet as opposed to last year.

According to others studies, 80% of the Internet users start their surfing for any topic by first searching for a relevant website.So its important for a newbie to understand that Search Engine Optimization is vital for him, if he wants to bring new and quality traffic to his website.

Now for a newbie to get into SEO can be a bit tough as there is a plethora of information and jargon one has to understand before one can really start doing something.This is a on going process as well, as Search Engines keep on updating their rules time and again.

When one has just started out on Search Engine Optimization, he/she just needs to follow these basic steps first and rest will follow:

1) Selecting the Correct Keywords (Keyword Optimization)

2) Optimizing your pages for your selected Keywords (Web page optimization)

3) Getting Quality Inbound Links (Off site Optimization)

The systematic approach to SEO is explained below:

(more…)

Posted in Internet, Popular, SEO | 5 Comments »

The Best of Mails: Gmail vs Yahoo vs Hotmail!

As far as the Internet statistics go Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail along with AOL mail, make up the vast majority of the 500 million or so webmail users around the world (see chart included in this post). Most of these users are still using the old, tedious, Ajax-free Yahoo Mail and Hotmail user interfaces, requiring entire page refresh for every click. The new applications, along with Gmail, offer a much richer experience, much like Outlook or Mac mail. When these webmail clients are performing well, their speed and ease of use is easily as good as a desktop client.

Overall I prefer Gmail over all other webmail applications because performance (speed) is consistently fast, and emails can be tagged making search much more effective. They also offer more storage and other features, and it.s free. However, Yahoo and Live Hotmail offer more mainstream Outlook-like user interfaces (although Live Hotmail does not allow you to access other email accounts from their application), whereas Gmail takes some time to get used to. (more…)

Posted in Google, Internet, Microsoft, Popular, Yahoo | 5 Comments »