Malwarebytes Review

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a great security tool that’s particularly effective against “potentially unwanted programs (PUPs)” and other nasty software traditional antivirus programs don’t deal with. But it’s intended to be used alongside an antivirus and doesn’t replace one entirely.

If you’re using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, you should be running it alongside a primary antivirus program to keep your computer in tip-top security shape. But traditional advice is not to run two anti-malware programs at once. Here’s how to thread that needle.

On-Demand Scans

The standard, free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware just functions as an on-demand scanner. In other words, it doesn’t run automatically in the background. Instead, it only does something when you launch it and click the Scan button.

This version of Malwarebytes shouldn’t interfere with your antivirus program at all. Just install it and occasionally launch it to perform a scan and check for the “potentially unwanted programs” almost no one actually wants. It will find and remove them. Using an anti-malware program as an on-demand scanner is a safe way to get a second opinion.

You shouldn’t have to do any extra configuration here. If Malwarebytes reports some sort of error removing a piece of malware it finds, you could potentially pause or disable real-time scanning in your main antivirus program to prevent it from interfering, and then reenable real-time scanning right after. But even this shouldn’t be necessary, and we’ve never heard of anyone encountering a problem like this one.

(This is the only way Malwarebytes works on a Mac, too. It can’t perform automatic, real-time scans — just on-demand scans. Malwarebytes shouldn’t interfere with other Mac antivirus applications, if you are actually running one.)

Real-Time Scanning

The paid version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium also contains real-time scanning features. Malwarebytes will run in the background, scanning your system and files you open for problems and preventing them from taking root on your system in the first place.

The problem is that your main antivirus program is already functioning in this way. The standard advice is that you shouldn’t have real-time scanning enabled for two antivirus programs enabled at once. They can interfere with each other in a variety of ways, slowing down your computer, causing crashes, or even preventing each other from working.

Malwarebytes is coded in a different way and is designed to run alongside other antivirus programs without interfering. It may even work without any further configuration. But, to make it work as well as it possibly can and improve performance, you should set up exclusions in both Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium and your standard antivirus program.

To do this in Malwarebytes, open Malwarebytes, click the Settings icon, select “Malware Exclusions,” and add the folder — typically under Program Files — containing your antivirus program’s files.

In your antivirus program, load the antivirus program, find “exclusions”, “ignored files”, or a similarly named section, and add the appropriate Malwarebytes files.

You should exclude these files on 64-bit versions of Windows:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamdor.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbampt.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamservice.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamscheduler.exe
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbam.sys

Exclude these files instead on 32-bit versions of Windows:

C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamdor.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbampt.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamservice.exe
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamscheduler.exe
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbam.sys

For more specific instructions, you might want to perform a web search for “Malwarebytes” and the name of your antivirus program. Or just perform a web search for the name of your antivirus program and “exclusions” to find out how to add those exclusions and exclude the files named on the Malwarebytes website.

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Malwarebytes is designed to run alongside a normal antivirus program so you shouldn’t have to worry about this most of the time — especially if you’re just using the free version. If you’re using the paid version, setting up exclusions can help you avoid problems and maximize your computer’s performance. But even that won’t be completely necessary most of the time.

HDR TVs explained

What comes after Ultra HD? Most people in the industry would say high dynamic range (HDR) and point out that it is a much bigger step forward in picture quality than Ultra HD resolution. But what is HDR exactly and why is it so important? We explain what HDR on TVs is all about, and explain why it about to lay a completely reimagined and important foundation for the future of displays.

You can think of HDR as the next step after 4K Ultra HD. At least that is how the industry is positioning it. 4K is “more pixels” – four times as many as HD – whereas HDR is “better pixels”. There is obviously much more to it than that.

HDR is short for high dynamic range, which implies that you are currently watching standard dynamic range. It is impossible to show you what it looks like – your monitor is not capable of HDR – but consider the simulated photo below (from Dolby). HDR on the right side.

In essence, HDR is about brighter whites and deeper blacks, and more details in each end. HDR is about reproducing the world around us on a display. Current displays are not capable of reproducing the world as it really is because the world is more than just pixels. Light is just as important. That might sound confusing but we will get back to that.

Imagine being able to see bright sunlight reflections on metallic surfaces or all the stars in the sky on a perfect black canvas, even have your TV reproduce the colors of the worlds around you such as Coca Cola red (your current TV cannot reproduce this color).

There is quite a bit of confusion around HDR and for good reason. There are several players in the industry that are trying to make HDR happen, and you might already have heard about Dolby Vision. There is also an open HDR standard that has been adopted by Blu-ray and other distribution channels. TV manufacturers have come up with even more names.

For example, Samsung calls its HDR-capable TVs “SUHD” and refer to the system that enables it “Peak illuminator”. Panasonic refers to it simply as HDR but calls a panel that supports it “Super Bright Panel”. Sony refers to it as HDR and to be sure you should look for “X-tended Dynamic Range” in the specifications sheet. All of this is just marketing. Other players such as Dolby are talking about Dolby Vision, which actually has more elements to it than just HDR.

However, the standards are almost in place and we can now start talking about how the market will approach HDR.

Let’s take a few steps back and look at HDR from a more fundamental level. The next section is quite technical but you don’t have to understand every nuance. We will repeat the important things later.

A completely new foundation – a technical look

The subject of gamma and light is beyond the scope of this article but to fully comprehend HDR it is important to understand that most of the picture standards for today’s TVs were developed based on CRT (cathode ray tube) displays. We have yet to define fundamental standards for digital displays.

Today’s TVs use an EOTF (Electro-optical Transfer Function) method to convert an input signal into visible light (and subsequently an image), and this system still relies on the characteristics of analog CRT displays, the so-called gamma curve. This is why displays use a gamma function (typically 2.2 or 2.4). We often refer to this gamma curve in our reviews.

However, today’s LCD and OLED display technologies are capable of more than CRT, and with HDR it looks like we will finally develop display standards that are based on the characteristics of the human eye instead of the limitations of an old analog display technology.

Before we get to that consider the following. Movies and TV shows are created and graded based on these principles that assume a maximum brightness level (white) of around 80-120 nits (or cd/m2) and a minimum (black depth) of around 0.05 cd/m2 for living room TVs (around maximum 48 nits for cinema). Absolute black is zero and the best consumer displays such as OLED can reach that. Modern TVs can also go way beyond 80-120 nits for maximum brightness, which means that most TV manufacturers have tried to “enhance” the picture in numerous ways, not unlike how TV manufacturers try to “enhance” motion. The content creators hate it but the point is that our displays are capable of more than the standards allow.

Unfortunately, most people associate “high brightness” on displays with bad things due to how TV manufacturers have approached it in the past. We often hear questions like “is HDR kind of like the dynamic mode on my TV”? Forget those thoughts for now and consider that a typical day with thin clouds equals something like 4000-7000 nits and a sunny day has an ambient light level of over 30,000 nits. Direct sunlight is even more extreme. We obviously don’t want to have to wear sunglasses in front of our TV but if we want to recreate the real world on a display there is no other way; we need higher brightness. Also, remember that the human eye dynamically adapts to light in our environment by closing and opening the pupil. That is how the human vision dynamically adjusts to daytime and night time.

So how much brightness do we need? That is a subject for debate. Dolby believes that we need a dynamic range of 0 to 10,000 nits, even though its Dolby Vision format usually has a lower maximum. The Blu-ray association recommends that “over 1000 nits should be limited to specular highlights”. Below you see the results of Dolby’s research.

The challenge is that our current EOTF gamma method cannot accommodate that. We need a new EOTF method, a new way of converting a digital signal into visible light, a method that takes the dynamic nature of the human vision into account. This method has been dubbed “Perceptual Quantizer” or PQ by Dolby. It is a completely new way of defining light in a digital display, and it allows us to finally leave the analog legacy behind. It is necessary for high dynamic range, which again is necessary if we want to improve picture quality.

These principles have been adopted in the “SMPTE 2048” standard, which sometimes refer to the format as HDR EOTF or PQ EOTF. Another standard called “SMPTE 2086” describes how to input HDR signals into HDR and non-HDR TVs. It obviously follows that a HDR TV needs to support the PQ format. The content/distribution system needs to support it, too.

To make it possible we also need more options to define “steps”, or grey tones. Dolby says that we need 12-bit per channel (36 bit total) whereas the rest of the industry seems to think that 10-bit per channel (30-bit) is enough for now. As you probably know, today’s TVs typically use 8-bit per channel. If we really, really wanted to use the old EOTF gamma, developed for analog CRTs, we would need something like 14 or even 16-bit for HDR. That is impossible and unpractical. HDR EOTF makes better use of the available bits.

If you want to learn more see SMPTE’s video on YouTube.

HDR is helping to lay a new foundation for digital video systems. That alone should be enough to love it, right?

There is more to “HDR”

As discussed in the previous sections, HDR requires higher brightness levels, deeper bit rates for colors, and a new PQ format. An interesting thing to observe is that the industry intends to do more. With higher brightness come better colors. Or to be precise; the possibility of a wider color gamut. A wider color gamut is not an element of “HDR” per se but when most people in the industry say “HDR” they typically mean better colors, too. 

Today’s TVs use the so-called BT.709 color gamut, which can reproduce only around 35% of the colors that the human eye can perceive. The first HDR-enabled TVs are capable of reproducing most of the DCI P3 color space that cinemas use. DCI P3 covers approximately 54% of the colors we can see. But the industry has proposed a new far more ambitious BT.2020 color gamut that covers almost 76%!

The same can be said for 4K Ultra HD resolution. HDR works with HD resolution, sure, but no one seems interested in making it happen, so usually when you hear “HDR” it will imply HDR in 4K resolution. 

As said, these things are not actually part of “HDR” but the industry seems to be taking the step to first DCI P3 and later BT.2020 with the introduction of HDR. And that is amazing! Full BT.2020 coverage will likely take some years to fulfill and as the name suggests it is actually a recommendation for year 2020. But the industry is moving forward and it looks like we could see the first high-end TVs with full support quite soon.

 Read our backgrounder on Ultra HD & color spaces

Below you see a “normal HD Blu-ray” (on top with pause logo) vs. “HDR + wider color gamut (DCI)” (on bottom without pause logo) on Samsung’s “SUHD” JS9500 TV. Your current display cannot reproduce DCI or HDR so the examples are not representative but it should give you an idea. Click on the photos to zoom.

So that was the technical side of things. Let us get back to the real world again.

HDR in the real world – you need a new TV

First of all, HDR is not a gimmick. It is a real improvement so the industry has a responsibility. You will surely see some manufacturers try to take advantage of the hype and “upscale” normal content to HDR. Heck, it is even happening today to some degree with “Dynamic” or “Vivid” modes on TVs.

In order to get real HDR the industry needs to implement it in every link of the chain. The camera needs to capture HDR, studio grading needs to be done in HDR, the distribution channels need to support HDR, and your TV needs to support HDR (not just imitate it). We will focus on the last two links.

TVs obviously need to be able to output a higher brightness level but also a very low black level. Plasma TVs were not able to do that but LCDs and OLEDs are. On a LCD you will need a “local dimming” system to be able to control brightness locally in zones. The more zones the better. We have already seen edge LED based LCD TVs claim HDR support but in our opinion this is stretching it. Ideally you would want to be able to control light output from 0 nit to a maximum brightness level of 800-1000 nits (or much higher for Dolby Vision, typically 4,000-10,000) in every single pixel. Does that sound familiar? Yes that is how OLED displays work.

You will not be able to experience HDR on your current TV. You need a TV that is able to output a higher brightness level. The TV also needs to support the new PQ format, as discussed above.

TVs that claim HDR support:

Samsung JS9500, JS9000 (edge LED) and JS8500 (edge LED)

Sony 94C and X93C (edge LED)

Panasonic CX850, CX800 and CR850

LG’s 2015 OLED TVs (HDR software update coming later this year)

Vizio Reference (Dolby Vision)

These are all high-end TVs and 2015 is the first year of HDR. As always, you can expect the high-end features to appear in mid-range TVs after a year or two. There are still many issues to overcome going forward and companies such as Technicolor are trying to bring HDR to set-top boxes and TV broadcasters. As said, there are several approaches to HDR right now and besides Dolby Vision and the “open” version that is mandatory on Ultra HD Blu-ray (other formats such as Dolby Vision are optional for BD player manufacturers), Philips and Sony have been looking into it, too.

The UHD Alliance (link 1, 2) is currently trying to bring order to the industry so everyone moves in the same direction. That does not necessarily mean a single HDR specification but the UHD Alliance wants to unite efforts. Great initiative by the way.

You might be wondering what will happen if you try to play a HDR movie on a non-HDR TV. Well, the industry has actually come up with a great solution. In that case you will just get the regular SDR (standard definition range) picture. HDR is layered on top of the signal as an extra package and signaled to the TV with metadata (requires HDMI 2.0b). If the TV does not support HDR it will simply ignore the extra package.

Hollywood studios have started preparing several titles for release in 4K HDR, and the new Ultra HD Blu-ray format will obviously support it.

How to get watch HDR content:

Ultra HD Blu-ray players – starting late 2015

Netflix – will start streaming in 4K HDR later this year with a bit rate of 18 Mb/s (HEVC), possibly in more than one HDR format

Amazon Instant Video – will start streaming in 4K HDR later this year

M-Go – will offer movies in 4K HDR as a download to a secure hard drive soon, Samsung-exclusive right now

Vudu – will offer HDR movies in Dolby Vision later this year

Dolby Cinema – a new kind of cinema with Dolby Vision (HDR + more) and Dolby Atmos sound. Tomorrowland was the first title to debut on May 22.

 Learn more in our 4K / HDR section

HDR is a more important development than most people realize so we suggest that you consider it for your next TV purchase. So, there you have it. Excited yet?

Hostgator Discount codes

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Hostgator is well-known for it’s excellent customer support, and their server are well optimized for WordPress blogs.  I have almost five sites hosted on Hostgator at this moment. Here I’m sharing Hostgator Discount Coupons which don’t expire and you can grab huge discount when you buy hosting from Hostgator.I’m sharing two Hostgator discount code and depending upon your requirement and billing cycle you can use any of them.

Also, remember this coupon code is valid for all shared hosting plans like Hatchling, Baby and business hosting plans.

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We will soon update this page with Hostgator VPS and Hostgator reseller hosting discount coupons.

OS X El Capitan vs Yosemite

The updates in El Capitan compared to last year’s Yosemite release must count amongst the most minor of any update of OS X, stretching right back to when OS X was introduced in 2000. In fact, you’ll often have to look closely to see much difference. However, the new features are there and some of them are extremely welcome, as we discover in this comparison of the beta of El Capitan and Yosemite.
READ: How to get on the OS X 10.11 El Capitan public beta | Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan launch date | Mac OS X El Capitan preview | Mac OS X Yosemite review | Read our comparison of Windows 10 and Yosemite here

Performance in El Capitan vs Yosemite

Spotting performance improvements between versions of OS X is increasingly difficult now that Apple almost universally utilises solid state storage across its Mac range. Tasks like launching apps occur near-instantly.
Despite this Apple says that apps in El Capitan will load apps up to 1.4 times faster and switching between apps will be twice as fast. Our tests were inconclusive – BlackMagic’s Disk Test and GeekBench produced identical results on both operating systems – but we strongly suspect Apple’s achieving the claimed speed-ups by disk cache optimisation, and benchmarking apps are specifically designed to avoid taking this into account. We’re also aware that El Capitan a beta, so our results are unscientific at best, and the benchmarking apps haven’t yet been optimised for El Capitan either.

Our brief and very unscientific benchmark tests showed absolutely no performance difference between Yosemite and El Capitan, which is of course only a beta right now.
On a subjective level it felt like El Capitan ran like greased lightning on our 2015 MacBook Pro. Compare that to Yosemite: Since its introduction many Mac users have been painfully aware of lags and slowdowns, such as stuttering animations and network connectivity issues. We experienced nothing like this in El Capitan.

Look and feel in El Capitan vs Yosemite

OS X El Captain’s user interface uses a variation of the San Francisco font (and there are indeed several variations — see this fascinating video) that was introduced with the Apple Watch and also features in iOS 9. San Francisco is much more Retina-friendly compared to both Yosemite’s use of Helvetica Neue, or the use of Lucida Grande in earlier releases of OS X.

The new San Francisco system font look terrific, especially on Retina screens where Helvetica Neue/Lucida Grande always looked a bit ropey
Incidentally, San Francisco is not available to use as a font in your documents – you won’t find it via the Font Book app or even in the system Fonts folder. Apple’s hidden access to it (and will continue to hide it) because San Francisco simply wasn’t designed for print/DTP use. It exists solely to define the look and feel of Apple products.
The colour pinwheel cursor that occasionally (cough, cough) appears to indicate OS X is too busy to interact with the user has been overhauled and given the same flatter yet colourful appearance as the new OS X look introduced with Yosemite. It’s a small but welcome tweak and – combined with the new system font – underscores the fresher, contemporary feel introduced with Yosemite. The new cursor is also a lot easier to spot on a busy desktop.
Force Touch trackpad support was introduced with Yosemite and in El Capitan there’s an additional setting within the Trackpad pane of System Preferences to deactivate the click noise. Referred to as Silent Clicking, this somehow doesn’t compromise the degree of feedback, which is still handled via the Click slider.

Silent Clicking is a new feature on El Capitan when it’s used on a MacBook with Force Touch, and magically makes clicking virtually silent – but without compromising feedback
The El Capitan menu bar can now autohide via a setting in the General pane of System Preferences, in the same way that that the Dock can dive out of the bottom of the screen in Yosemite and earlier releases of OS X. If you’ve used Full Screen mode in Yosemite then you’ll already have experienced this feature but now it can be used all the time to gain a precious few centimetres of desktop space.

Mission Control and full screen tweaks in El Capitan

Mission Control is very much Apple’s pet project for the desktop and every recent release of OS X has seen some degree of improvement. In El Capitan, Mission Control features a bar at the top of the screen that shows the names of the existing desktops/full-screen apps. This replaces the thumbnail view in Yosemite although placing the mouse cursor in this area will still reveal the thumbnails.

Mission Control is vastly improved in El Capitan and apps can be switched to fullscreen by dragging them to a bar at the top of the screen
Any window shown in Mission Control can be dragged up to this new menu bar to instantly turn it into a full-screen app. The same action in Yosemite merely creates an additional desktop space.

In fact, you can perform this trick in El Capitan even if Mission Control isn’t active – just grab a window and bump it into the menu bar at the top of the screen to instantly activate Mission Control and switch an app to fullscreen. It’s pretty intuitive.
Fullscreen mode can now feature two apps side-by-side, in a feature Apple calls Split View. Split View is activated by dropping a second app onto an existing fullscreen app’s thumbnail within Mission Control.

Yosemite’s fullscreen mode is enhanced in El Capitan by the ability to run two apps side-by-side
This lets you run the likes of Safari and Calendar side-by-side in full-screen mode, for example, and each app is separated by a black bar that you can drag to adjust which app gets more screen space. If you’ve embraced fullscreen working in Yosemite then this is clearly a useful addition but we doubt it’s going to tempt most people away from the traditional way of working with regular program windows.
In both Yosemite and El Capitan some windows can’t be set to fullscreen, such as System Preferences. Nevertheless banging the System Preferences window into the top of the screen will activate Mission Control in El Capitan, and this provides a neat little power user shortcut. Interestingly, some apps that aren’t compatible with fullscreen mode, such as Calculator, can be split-screened in El Capitan. Curious!

Core tools in OS X El Capitan vs OS X Yosemite

You’ll need to look hard to see changes in Safari although this is perhaps no bad thing considering Safari has nowadays matured into a solid browser. Safari in El Cap borrows the pinned tab feature introduced by Google Chrome but, typically for Apple, implements it more sensibly by opening links you click in fresh tabs and thereby locking pinned tabs to the URL you choose. You can also mute tabs that are producing noise, such as playing a video.
The Develop menu of Safari, accessible via the Advanced pane within Safari’s Preferences, now features a cool Responsive Design mode that lets you switch the web page to dimensions used on various Apple devices.

Amongst other new features in El Capitan’s Safari, web developers can test websites against a variety of screen sizes
As with Safari, feature additions in Mail within El Capitan are subtle compared to Yosemite. If your Mac has a trackpad you can swipe left or right on a message to Trash or Delete the message, as in third-party apps like Mailbox. Annoyingly, Gmail users can’t swipe to archive a message, and there’s no configuration option to control the swipe feature. You can’t even turn it off. Nor can you click and drag with a traditional mouse to swipe in this way, which is again a little infuriating. 
In full screen mode new messages can be minimised to the bottom of the screen, and several new messages can be arranged as tabs in a feature very reminiscent of the tabbed browsing feature that arrived with Finder in OS X Mavericks.

If your Mac has a trackpad you can swipe left or right on individual messages to bin a message, or mark it as unread
Notes in El Capitan is essentially a whole new app compared to Yosemite, featuring much more control over text formatting. The app is also now a share destination from within other apps, so you can send a map location straight to a new note, for example, or even a file from Finder/the desktop. The Reminders app can also receive items in this way via its own new entry on the share menu.
Alas, to gain access to the all-new Notes features you’ll need to upgrade your Notes iCloud database. The chance to do so appears when you first run Notes on El Cap, but doing so makes your existing notes instantly incompatible with earlier versions of Apple’s operating systems.
Maps gains a new Transit button alongside standard and satellite views that shows buses, trains and other public transport routes overlaid on the standard 2D map. Unfortunately you can’t switch to 3D/satellite mode and also view transit lines, something which would be frankly very cool. Still, you’re able to see the tube lines in London mapped geographically, which is lots of fun, and can ask Maps for the best way to get from Tooting to Canary Wharf via public transport, for example. Read: Apple Maps versus Google Maps
Maps can now give directions via public transport and display transit routes geographically

Alas, in the UK it appears that only London has transit directions right now. Every other UK city we examined in the app showed an error message if the Transit button was clicked. Maps has always been a work in progress and we’re sure this situation will improve as time goes on –possibly even in time for El Capitan’s launch later this year.

Alas, the new Transit feature in Maps only works for Londoners – or at least right now
Calendar has a new option in the list of calendars that will show “events found in Mail”. We’re not entirely sure if this means Calendar picks-up events within emails even if you haven’t specifically added them. In our tests it failed to pick-up on appointments within existing messages but, again, we mustn’t forget we’re reviewing beta software.
Messages is one app arguably in desperate need of a complete overhaul but that sadly hasn’t arrived in El Capitan. Recent feature additions like tying in your iPhone’s SMS via Handoff have essentially been bolted on to an app that’s a decade old. In El Capitan there’s signs of some refinement – the preferences dialog box is now less cluttered, for example, but this is to the detriment of the ability to add a messaging status icon to the menu bar. Why would Apple take this away?

System tools in OS X El Capitan vs OS X Yosemite

With the core system tools most of use everyday without noticing Apple appears to have taken the approach of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Finder seems to be functionally and visually identical to Yosemite, for example.
A true relic of the Jobsian era, Dashboard lives on in El Capitan but, as with Yosemite, it’s deactivated by default within the Mission Control pane of System Preferences. It’s hard to Dashboard surviving into OS X 10.12 next year, especially considering that it still hasn’t been updated for Retina-equipped screens.
The new Spotlight window introduced in Yosemite can be moved around in El Capitan by clicking and dragging. It can also – thank ye Gods! – be resized to show more than a handful of results. There’s a slightly annoying caveat in that you can only make the window taller and not wider. However, the window does remember the resizing choice you make, and the position you leave it on screen.
Spotlight in El Capitan also responds to Siri-like queries, such as “photos from last November in Germany”. Quite why Apple hasn’t gone the whole hog and ported Siri to OS X is a little baffling but this is a very welcome step in that direction.

The Spotlight window in El Capitan can be resized, but only vertically
Disk Utility has been given a visual overhaul compared to Yosemite and now features a bar graph showing how full a partition is, and what kind of files are taking up the space. Strangely, the age-old ability to repair permissions has vanished. In Yosemite this tool had started to return false errors (no doubt leading to non-essential calls to Apple Care) so its removal is perhaps understandable. However, it could fix some problems on misbehaving systems. You can still scan a disk for errors via a First Aid toolbar button, though.
Disk repartitioning within Disk Utility is now handled via a more common sense pie chart representing the entire disk, with a handle on its border that can be dragged to resize individual partitions. Showing that Apple is ever ready for the future, you can set unit sizes with Disk Utility of exabytes (EB) and zettabytes (ZB). It’s unimaginable that storage will ever get that big but once upon a time 100GB of storage seemed insanely large…
Disk Utility features a much-improved partitioning tool plus the ability to set exabytes and zettabytes as size units

Little things in El Capitan

You can now set the App Store to not require a password for free downloads, or purchases/in-app purchases once the password has already been entered for that session.
The Photos app introduced with Yosemite gets a handful of minor updates, and we’ll be looking at them in detail soon, but perhaps the most significant is the ability to expand its editing abilities via third-party plugins. The folks from Pixelmator already provide a Repair Tool extension for use anywhere in OS X Yosemite, for example, so it’s not hard to imagine what kind of extensions we might see.

The editing component of Photos can be expanded in El Capitan with third-party extensions, which could make it an extremely powerful image tweaking app
One of the little things we noticed, but sadly don’t have space to mention, is that the Voice Over accessibility feature sadly doesn’t get the pleasant British English Siri voice found in iOS 8 and later. Instead, you’re stuck with the voice that’s sampled from the same somewhat brusque guy who provided the voiceovers for The Weakest Link.
We also have a comparison preview of El Capitan and Windows 10 here

Wix vs Weebly

If you want something done right, do it yourself. Thanks to Weebly and Wix, this also applies to websites. Both website builders are incredibly easy-to-use and feature-rich publishing platforms that have become synonyms for DIY website creation.

Because the two builders are extremely popular and seem very similar in their offerings (at first glance), many potential users face the dilemma of choosing the right one. To help them make an informed decision, I have tested the two platforms, analyzed user feedback and looked through dozens of Wix- andWeebly-powered websites. I was trying to make this comparison as practical and unbiased as possible. If your opinion differs from mine, please leave your valuable remarks in the comments.

#1 Ease of Use

Wix. Wix has always been one of the easiest website builders. It looks cool and gives you the power to completely rebuild your site without writing a single HTML tag. Nearly every button is accompanied with helpful tips and prompts. If you have a rudimentary knowledge of web applications, you’re more than capable of building a website with Wix.

After the release of a new dashboard a few months ago, Wix has become even more convenient. The new dashboard lets you easily access and manage such important aspects of your site as SEO, newsletters, contacts and other apps.

Weebly. Weebly is also very intuitive. Its interface is less flashy, yet highly effective. The editor is well organized. Similar to Wix, Weebly has a very well structured dashboard. From changing your account password to sending invitations* to your friends, everything can be done with just a few clicks.

*For each friend who signs up and publishes a website on Weebly, they’ll give you both $10.

Wix vs Weebly. Both website builders are a joy to behold. Their control panels are divided into two logical areas: Dashboard and Editor. This makes it easy to effectively manage multiple websites from one account.

It’s important to note that Wix supports full drag-and-drop, meaning you can drop the chosen object anywhere on the canvas. Weebly also offers drag-and-drop, yet it is somewhat restricted – all elements fall to specific containers (that make up your Weebly template), and you can’t move draggable objects around the page with pixel accuracy, like in Wix.

Wix’s approach is called ‘absolute positioning’ and what seems to be a benefit at first glance, in the long run can cause many inconveniences. For instance, Wix users can’t switch templates. Weebly’s approach is known as a ‘box model’. It’s more restrictive, yet it allows users to change templates in the future.

On one hand, Wix seems to give more creative freedom, on the other hand – Weebly tries to keep everything (including the generated code) cleaner. By restricting the drag-and-drop areas they prevent user errors.

So which one is more convenient: Wix or Weebly? It depends on what you expect to get: the full visual control over the site’s layout or the ability to switch templates in the future. Note: What can’t be done via Weebly’s visual interface, can be implemented through its advanced HTML/CSS editor.

#2 Feature Set and Flexibility

Wix. Wix has a decent set of in-house features and a collection of third-party applications that you can integrate into your website to extend your site functionality. The built-in features include a blogging platform, an eCommerce system, several business-specific solutions like Wix Hotels, and various widgets such as restaurant menu, gift card, event calendar, countdown clock, contact form and more.

For more widgets, browse the official Wix App Market. The Market offers both free and paid applications, developed either by Wix or third-party providers, like Ecwid, MailChimp, or 123FormBuilder.

But even if you can’t find the desired extension in the library of approved apps, nothing stops you from injecting your own code snippet, luckily this feature (custom HTML) is present in the Wix editor. Simply copy the required piece of code and paste it into the appropriate field.

Wix eCommerce features: multiple payment options, the ability to generate promotional coupons, customizable tax and shipping rules, mobile commerce and more. Check out real Wix-based stores: Wix commerce examples.

Wix Blog features: the ability to schedule posts and add authors, multiple commenting systems, password-protected blog posts, the blog archive and more. See what real Wix blogs look like: Wix blog examples.

Mobile optimization. Wix offers a built-in mobile editor that allows users to fine tune the mobile look of their sites using the same drag-and-drop tools. You can resize, relocate, hide and show any elements. You can re-show hidden elements anytime. Editing your mobile view does not affect your desktop site. Additionally, you can configure the Mobile Action Bar.

Weebly. Similar to Wix, Weebly also has an eCommerce platform and a blogging engine. Most Weebly features are native tools that don’t require creating new accounts with third-party web services. Weebly has its own solution for creating forums and surveys, while for bookings and polls they partner with third-party developers.

Weebly eCommerce features: mobile checkout, filtered product search, the ability to sell digital downloads and physical goods, inventory management, and coupon codes, among other features. Take a look at functioning Weebly stores:Weebly store examples.

Weebly Blog features: scheduled posts, multiple commenting systems, the ability to add custom header and footer code for individual posts. Here are some Weebly-powered blogs: Weebly blogs examples.

With Weebly you can add multiple contributors to your website (Account admin, Author, Dashboard only). The latter two types are available for Pro users only. Wix doesn’t support this feature. In other words, if you decide to provide access to your Wix site’s control panel, the only way to do that is to share your own credentials.

Weebly partners with IFTTT to help you automate many actions related to your website. You can choose a ready ‘recipe’ or create your own to automate a custom action. Example: uploading a new video to your YouTube account will automatically create and publish a blog post on your Weebly site.

Mobile optimization. Weebly also provides a mobile optimization solution. However, it only works with old, non-responsive templates that require manual mobile optimization. For my test website I chose a new, responsive template, and when I entered the Mobile Editor, I couldn’t change the mobile view. For responsive themes, Weebly provides ready mobile solutions.

Weebly vs Wix. Both website builders offer impressive feature sets, and it’s really difficult to compare them, because it seems both offer more than enough to build a decent website. My advice is to focus on the native features of the builders. For example, if my site’s core functionality can only be implemented with a third-party application in Wix, I will choose Weebly, if it offers this feature within its native platform. Why? Because third-party providers can stop updating their apps one day. If something goes wrong with the app, you’ll have to contact the app’s developer, not your site builder’s support.

Both Wix and Weebly offer user management systems and member areas.

#3 Designs

Wix. Wix has a richer collection. Their templates are all modern and memorable. However, you can’t change them. Once you have selected a theme, it’s forever. You can fully rebuild it, but there’s no way back to the template library. Another drawback is the inability to import your own theme or tweak the site’s source code.

Weebly. Weebly templates appear to be more flexible in terms of design customization. First, users can switch them. Second, users can use third-party templates for Weebly (there are many designers who create themes for this particular site builder). Third, there’s an advanced HTML/CSS editor that lets you tweak the site’s code.

Wix vs Weebly. Wix has a better choice of templates. However, they offer no value to those who want to get under the hood.

#4 Customer Support

Wix. Wix support center is comprised of training videos, how-to articles and Wix Forum. You may also submit a ticket. Their Knowledge Center is huge. I had so many questions about the platform and it was very easy to find the answers there.

Weebly. Weebly has a Support Center, Inspiration Center, free phone and live chat support. You can also contact one of their experts via email.

Weebly vs Wix. Both offer enough support resources. Weebly gets higher scores for its livechat and phone support.

#5 Pricing Policy

Wix. For $0 you get a website with a pretty noticeable ad and a long URL. The lowest price version of Wix is $4.08/month. For that price you can connect a custom domain. The most expensive plan is eCommerce – $16.17 (yearly plan) or 19.90 (monthly plan). For more details please go to their Pricing page.

Weebly. Weebly’s pricing is simpler. There’s a free and three paid plans: Starter, Pro and Business. For $4 you can remove the ad and connect your own domain. The priciest plan is $25/mo.

Wix vs Weebly. Personally, I prefer web services that offer simple price tags. Weebly is the clear winner here. First, its advert is located in the footer and is very elegant (you don’t see it until you scroll down to the bottom of the page), while Wix places a huge screen-wide ad on your free website and what’s more, duplicates it in the right corner of the page. I don’t blame Wix for that – they’re free to place their ads anywhere. But compared to Weebly, that’s a bummer.

Second, free Wix websites have very long URLs (yourlogin.wix.com/sitename), saying nothing about the URLs’ look – open any Wix-powered website and check its inner links. You’ll see something like this: #!design/c1he7 or #!logo_52.jpg/zoom/c1he7/image1epw. I failed to change the look of my test site’s URLs.

Wix vs Weebly: Conclusion

As there are dog and cat people, there are Wix and Weebly fans  . Those who want an eye-catching website, full creative freedom and aren’t concerned about the inability to switch templates in the future are likely to choose Wix. Those who expect a robust, reliable system will certainly benefit from the Weebly editor. You know what, take them both for a test drive:

TOP 25 free hosting companies

Each and every year we’re trying to up our game at Blogging.org by helping people learn about the top free hosting companies. Last year we brought you the State of Blogging 2012and the Top Hosting Companies in the world for Bloggers. This year we put together the Top 25 Free Hosting Companies for 2013 so that everyone out there can get free hosting for their websites.

This year we’ve been using Facebook to get some answers and additional stats for our customers. We managed to poll over 43,000 business owners about their web sites. We asked them “Who is the Top Free Hosting Provider” in the World? We’ve received many responses and below are your stats. (see bottom for all polling stats)

We would like to put in a special thanks to the 43,647 people that participated in out Free Hosting contest where we gave away free hosting and domain for life to one lucky winner. We also put together a few interesting hosting stats that we thought you’d like!

2013 Hosting Statistics

How many active websites are registered as of 2013?

• Estimated 726 Million Active Websites on the web to date

How many domains are registered as of 2013?

• 243 million domain names registered

How many website pages are on the internet?

• 11.27 billion pages published on the Internet to date

How many websites are created every day?

• Estimated 270k new websites created every day

How many servers are there?

• 45 million server (8.2 million sold yearly/5 year lifespan average per server)

Here are the results from our “Top Free Hosting Companies” survey, enjoy!

Honorable Mention after infographic: Hostt – 100% free hosting, all you have to do is maintain a domain with them for $13.95/year and you have free hosting for life.

#1. Wix – This is a pretty sweet website. I first used Wix back when they first launched and have loved them ever since. You can get a stunning website hosted for free with Wix. Wix has 26+ Million websites hosted using its platform. 30K+ new users sign up daily. Started in TelAviv.

#2. Weebly – Weebly is a free website builder that offers free website hosting to all users. 12+ million people use this platform and are able to host their business using Weebly. Powerful drag and drop website builder with 100’s of professional website themes to help your business grow online. Weebly was named one of TIME’s 50 Best Websites of 2007.

#3. 000webhost – With 000webhost they have zero hidden costs, zero adverts, and zero restrictive terms when using the hosting. 1.5 GB disk space, 100 GB traffic included with all free accounts. They have a 99% uptime on all their zero cost hosting accounts. Most of their servers have maintained 99.9% uptime over the past 5+ years.

#4. Yola – Yola is a hip new space where you can create a professional business website in a matter of minutes at the low cost of free99. No technical experience required. They have over 7 million customers and some of the top customers and business partners online. Started in Cape Town, South Africa in 2007.

#5. EDUBlogs – This one is awesome. This is mainly a free hosting platform for students and teachers. It’s recognized as the top free website hosting platform in the .edu space. They have 1.6 million blogs that they are currently hosting for free. Customers seem to love them. They offer 32 gig free storage with ad free and student safe storage. Work with tons of Universities including Stanford, Cornell and many more. Been in business since 2005.

#6. Freehostia – Has been in the free hosting space for 5+ years. They are located in their Peer1 hosting facility in Freemont California. They have a 99.9% uptime guarantee with a 24/7 customer care team. Freehostia gives you 250 MB disk space and 6gb monthly bandwidth with every account.

#7. Webs – Webs.com is a very easy to use free hosting system with a small ad located on your site. Come with hundreds of free drag and drop website templates for your business to grow. They offer both live chat and free website service. Signup takes around 30 seconds and you can have a decent site setup within about an hour.

#8. 5GBfree – 5gbfree offers 20GB of free disk space along with 3 MySQL databases and PHP scripting. It’s 100% commitment free meaning you can quit at anytime. I really like that they offer free c-panel to all their free hosting customers with no ads left on your website.

#9. Jimdo – Founded in 2007, Jimdo has become one of the top basic free hosting websites out there with more that 7 million sites using their system. Just signup, confirm your email, pick a template and you’re good to go!

#10. FreeHosting.com – Offering 100% free hosting for all the sites out there. They offer no hassle and no purchase required. They offer free web tools and easy to use website services to get your site looking pretty online. They also offer FTP, CGI, PHP5, MySQL, PYTHON, ROR, CRON and File Manager with their web hosting accounts.

#11. SnapPages – With a slick drag and drop website creator, easy to use website service Snappages helps online businesses with free hosting of up to 5 different pages on a fully customizable website. You can literally have your free web site up and running in a matter of a few clicks.

#12. xtreemhost – Provides cheap and unlimited hosting. Comes with both Php and MySQL support as well as domain name support. Their platform is ad free which makes it nice for small to medium sized businesses that are looking for free online website hosting. Gives you 5.5 GB disk space with 200 GB monthly data transfer.

#13. Zymic – 10MB disk space, 2GB bandwidth transfer with your free website hosting account. Each site is limited to 10 visitors to your site a month. They pride themselves with being one of the biggest and best no cost hosting companies on the planet.

#14. Byethost – Ad-free load balanced zero web hosting service including PHP, MySQL, FTP, Vista-panel (Bythost personal built hosting control platform). You get 1000 MB of free storage. They have their own proprietary load balancing software that they manage and have built. You can install many popular scripts such as PHPbb2 and PHPbb3, WordPress, Zen-Cart, osCommerce, MyBB, UseBB, MyLittle Forum, 4images, Coppermine, SMF, Joomla, e107, XOOPS, PHP Wind, CuteNews, Mambo, WikiWig and many more!

#15. 110MB – Their basic free web hosting plan includes 110 MB disk space with 100 GB Bandwidth data transfer. Each account has footer links but includes a free site builder. Community only support forum. Focuses around

#16. AwardSpace – Offering a whopping 250mb disk space and 5gb traffic for each free hosting account. 1 domain and 3 subdomains with 100% no ads included as well. 1 Email account with 1 MySQL database per free account. There are over 1.5 million customers currently using their service.

#17. 1FreeHosting – Zero ads and c-panel provided at no cost with SSH. 100GB bandwidth, unlimited add-on domains, 5 free email accounts and 10gb free disk space since 2001. They have a partnership with Web Hosting Geeks to make this possible.

#18. FreeHostingEU – Free professional hosting with reliable cluster servers. FreeHostingEU offers each free customer 200mb free storage and 4000mb of data bandwidth transfer. Comes with easy WordPress and Joomla hosting integration.

#19. Uhostfull – Professional free website hosting service Uhostfull gives users 20 GB data space and 200 GB data transfer to host their website. Zero forced ads with instant activation. Interesting to not that all servers utilize 1 Gbps Internet connections.

#20. FreeHostingNoAds – 20gb of free hard drive space and 200gb free bandwidth with no ads on every regular free hosting account. They have free hosting for html 5 sites and for regular websites. Something cool is you get free pop email accounts included with every free website hosting account created.

#21. 50 Webs – This is another Peer 1 free hosting brand that is located in Freemont California offering 500mb free disk space and 5gb bandwidth with each account. You are able to have FTP access and up to 10 domains with each account. 24/7 customer support included as well.

#22. AgilityHoster – Quick WordPress and Joomla install with guide. You get 1000 mb free data storage and 5gb data transfer with each account created. You get 1 domain with 3 sub domains included with all free accounts. 100% free FTP access and file manager.

#23. Biz.nf – Recognized in Norfolk for being one of the best free web hosting plans on the Web Biznf offers 250mb web space and 5000mb free data transfer. I really like their 1 click website transfer but it’s not allowed on the free sites!

#24. ZettaHost – Offering 1000mb free data storage and 5gb bandwidth transfer per free hosting account. Each account comes with 1 domain with PHP, MySQL and Perl integration. Zettahost offers instant access to your free hosting account the second you signup.

#25. x10hosting – This is a free website hosting service provided by SingleHop with more than 400K community members. This free hosting includes PHP 5, MySQL, with an auto install script that you can easily use.

Social Impact of Hosting

People are passionate about hosting. Here are our Facebook ads marketing that we did. We reached 2.2 million people by targeting a variety of hosting niches, clients, and companies. Through that we got a 1.5% click through rate that resulted in 36k clicks to our questionnaire. 28,586 actions were performed as a result of the $1500 that we spent. Not to mention we receive over 29.4k additional likes, 1897 shares and 9256 comments through our promotions! People want to be heard and love voicing their opinion online. Thanks again to the 43k+ people that participated in our contest!

What’s new in Windows 10

Enter Windows 10, which brings a lot of backpedaling to the UI for those who just didn’t get Windows 8’s interface (of which there were many), but at the same time adds a “tablet mode” which retains many of the touch-friendly interface features of Windows 8. So where Windows 8 had a duality of metro apps running full screen versus desktop apps that had a completely separate environment, Windows 10 has a duality of tablet mode or non-tablet mode (we’ll call it desktop mode). The big advantage here is that you can choose the one you want to use now and all programs behave accordingly whether they’re modern universal apps you can get in the Windows Store or the regular Windows compatible programs that have been around for many decades.  You can even make it so your PC switches modes automatically if/when a keyboard is attached, but if you don’t want to learn the nice new touch-friendly UI, don’t bother… you can still work the way you’re used to.  And better yet, Windows 10 is a free upgrade for Windows 8.x and Windows 7 users starting July 29, 2015 through July 29, 2016.

Should I install it right now?

The free upgrade and the new interface sound great. Should you stop reading right now and install it?  Slow down!  Not so fast!  We’ve been testing the final build of Windows 10 for about a week before its release (and previous preview builds since they first became available) and there are still some driver problems with certain hardware… mainly graphics cards.  Our Surface Pro 2 didn’t support Open CL until an update was released July 27th and one of our desktop workstations has NVIDIA GPU driver blue-screen-of-death crashes every 15 minutes (though an NVIDIA driver update was released on July 28th, too).  So if you want to be on the safe side, give some of your hardware manufacturers a little extra time to update their drivers. Also, be warned that if you install Windows 10, you’ll lose the awesome Windows Media Center TV recording features as well as DVD/BR video playback capabilities. You’ll have to look for 3rd party software to replace that kind of functionality if it’s important to you. We highly recommend doing a full system image backup and at least creating a recovery disk before you move forward with the install.  Windows 8.1 removed the GUI for creating system image backups, but you can still do it using PowerShell and easily restore your PC using your recovery boot disk to its previous fully functional state should something go wrong.  Go ahead and start that backup right now and keep reading while it runs.

Desktop Mode

If you choose to keep Windows 10 in desktop mode, all programs have resizable overlapping windows just like the Windows operating system has had since the dawn of time. You can have that taskbar on the bottom, pin your programs to it, Alt-Tab to switch between them, and resize windows to your heart’s content. It’s very familiar and great for the desktop users.

The start menu in desktop mode, by default only appears in the corner as a small rectangle just like you’ve been used to from Windows 95 through Windows 7.  It now shows a few “Most used” application icons in the upper left, and in the right column you can pin and arrange whatever custom live tiles you would like to be there and some of them can be very useful. It’s really great to be able to hit the Windows key on your keyboard and instantly see things like weather, new emails, twitter updates, news headlines, and stock updates.

Apps that show up in the left column also have the same awesome jump lists from Windows 7, which of course also show up in the task bar when right clicking the icons.  “All Apps” gets you an alphabetical listing of all of the programs installed. You can no longer sort these by date installed or category like you could in Windows 8.1, but you can click a letter to show an alphabet grid to help you quickly navigate to a different section of the grid. Recently added apps will usually show up at the top for some period of time as well.

By default the taskbar has a couple of extra buttons to the right of the familiar Windows logo “Start” button. The first one is looks like a circle or magnifying glass depending on which icon you’ve got with a big “Ask me anything” search field and a microphone icon. That’s the Search or “Cortana” feature. We’ll get into that more below, but if that takes up too much taskbar space for you, you can right click an empty part of the task bar and choose to collapse it into just a single icon or remove it all together (since you can get the same thing by simply starting to type after hitting the Windows key on the keyboard).

The next one is a square with two small rectangles next to it. That’s the “Task View” button and it’s got some especially nice new features in the desktop mode. Basically, pressing the task view button will show all of your open programs as small thumbnail images similar to how the Alt-Tab task switching shortcut has always worked. If you don’t have any programs open, the button is completely unresponsive and does nothing (not good.) The Windows key+Tab will also get you to the “Task View”.  Interestingly, if you activate the “Task View” with your finger using a touch screen, X shaped close buttons appear over each application thumbnail. If you use a mouse, the close buttons only show when you mouse-over them.

In the bottom right area of the task view is a “New Desktop” button. This creates a new “Virtual Desktop” which is kind of like having a separate monitor where you can arrange all of your windows how you’d like and switch between multiple window layouts as you see fit. Once you’ve got multiple virtual desktops set up, the task view button shows their thumbnails in a separate row at the bottom. You can also drag application windows in the task view and drop them into different virtual desktops. This type of thing has been around on Windows for many decades as third party apps or graphics card features, but with Windows 10 it’s finally built into the operating system. Power users with tons of RAM and multiple projects will love this feature.

Somewhat unfortunately, the “four-corners” screen interface elements are no longer as useful as they were in Windows 8. Most people don’t realize that the 4 corners of the screen are the easiest places to click with your mouse. Windows 8 took advantage of that by adding interface elements in the corners or along the edges that made building motor memory for things like instantly switching between apps with a single click very efficient. For example, blindly throwing your mouse into the upper left corner and clicking would switch apps in Windows 8, but Microsoft has removed those kinds of innovations for the sake of making it more familiar.

Tablet Mode

If you’ve got Windows 10 on a tablet, you’ll probably see the tablet mode version right away. Or if you’ve got a tablet PC convertible, Windows 10 will ask you if you want to switch to tablet mode when you remove the keyboard. You can also choose to switch to tablet mode manually at any time by swiping the right edge of the screen and pressing the “Tablet Mode” quick action button there at the bottom of the action center.

The action center replaces Windows 8’s charms that were once behind the right edge swipe gesture and it isn’t nearly as ergonomic as the charms once were.  We really miss being able to flick my thumb on the side and have the start button right beneath the thumb.  In the middle to top area of the action center you’ve got a list of recent notifications. It’s very similar to the notifications center on Windows 10 Mobile except it’s accessed from the right edge of the screen instead of the top edge. Oh, those notifications should sync between both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile as well.  Then at the bottom you’ve got some quick actions. Not all quick actions will be available depending on your hardware, but what’s strange is that on the Surface Pro 2 there are 13 buttons… 3 rows of 4 buttons and 1 row with 1 button. What’s with the blank spaces? Are more buttons going to be there someday? We don’t know!  You can collapse it down to just one row of 4 if you want, and you can choose those 4 in the “Notifications & Actions” section of the settings window.

The first thing you’ll notice when switching to tablet mode is that the start menu becomes full screen.  It’s a lot different than it was in Windows 8, but the general idea is the same.  Instead of scrolling through tiles horizontally, they scroll vertically now just like in Windows Phone. There’s a lot more space between groups of tiles now too.  Rearranging tiles is now the same as on Windows Phone; touch and hold until all the other tiles fade out a bit. That activates customization mode and you can then un-pin the tile, move it, or change its size. Selecting other tiles is a matter of tapping a different one, but you can’t organize tiles into folders like on Windows Phone and you can no longer select more than one at a time like you could with Windows 8.1. You can still organize them into groups however and those groups can be rearranged as well by dragging the two lined “grilled cheese” button that appears next to the group names in customization mode.

Along the edges of the start screen are some new mystery meat buttons that you probably won’t understand. This is a major issue especially for tablet users since there’s no way of hovering your mouse pointer over the button for a few seconds to get a tool tip to appear that explains what the button does. I actually asked a friend if she could understand those buttons and she said, “Can’t I hover my finger over it to make a label appear?”  She tried that and nothing happened.

Anyway, in the top left is a hamburger button that shows “Most used” apps with their jump lists intact, your logged-in profile name, File Explorer, Settings, Power and “All Apps”.  The power and “All apps” icons also appear at the bottom left when the hamburger button is closed.

The Windows Taskbar also persists at the bottom edge of the screen in tablet mode, except by default it’s simplified a bit. Only 4 system tray icons appear in the bottom right (you can customize this), and on the left side is the Start button, back button, Cortana, and Task View buttons.  The back button sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t (just like in Android).  It’s supposed to navigate backwards within apps and between apps, but that’s not always the case and some apps have their own back buttons placed somewhere else.  The task view button does the same thing it does in desktop mode except the virtual desktops feature is not available. At first I wondered why that was, but then I realized that in tablet mode there is no desktop. There’s no reason for it.  The whole screen is occupied at all times by either apps or the start screen.  The rest of the taskbar between those system buttons on the left and the system tray icons on the right is completely empty. It’s kind of a waste of space, although the lack of distracting icons is kind of nice.  Luckily, should you want to make better use of that space, you can touch and hold on the empty area until a square appears beneath your finger. Then let go and a menu will appear that will let you turn on “Show app icons”. Then that taskbar will be filled with all the apps you’ve pinned to the taskbar as well as all the apps that are currently running.

In tablet mode every app runs full screen when you launch it.  Universal apps have their title bars hidden while regular Win32 programs still show their title bars along with minimize, restore, and close buttons in the upper right corner.  The restore button doesn’t do anything in tablet mode, since you are forced to run these programs in full screen.  But… and this is pretty nice… Win32 programs now behave the same as “Modern” or “Universal” apps.  They no longer have to run in a separate “desktop” environment like in Windows 8.

I can load Photoshop CC 2015, then drag my finger down from the top edge of the screen… the Photoshop window will get smaller and then you can drag it to the left or right edges of the screen to snap it. You could also drag it to the bottom edge to close it.  After snapping any app to the left or right side, the empty side shows a small Task View with thumbnail graphics of all of your other open programs.  Tap the one you want to fill that space and you’ve got two programs running side by side.  It’s really nicely done.

Launching a new program ignores any previous snapping and loads full screen. This is a lot better than the Windows 8.1 method which showed a blank colored rectangle straddling the snapping seam and tilting back and forth until you chose which side to let it load into. The seam between multiple snapped program windows in tablet mode is still nicely adjustable by the way.

Some have found it strange that the “desktop” does not exist in Tablet mode. You don’t have a Recycle Bin icon anywhere and you might not know how to find all those files and folders you might have placed there. Don’t worry, all of that is totally accessible from the File Explorer even in tablet mode.

Cortana

One awesome new feature that’s now in Windows 10 is the Cortana speech interface. First of all you can turn on an option that makes your Windows 10 PC, laptop or tablet always listen for the words “Hey Cortana” followed by whatever commands or questions you want to tell her.  You’ll go through a few training phrases to let the computer learn how you normally say “Hey Cortana” so that it will know what to look for. You might want to turn that feature off if you’re not plugged in, since it can reduce battery life significantly. I kind of wish it had a setting to stop always listening when on battery power, but if you’ve got a laptop or desktop that’s always sitting plugged into the wall, it’s a pretty amazing feature. If you’re more of the keyboard shortcut kind of person, a quick tap of the Windows key + C will start Cortana listening for commands, or Windows key + S will open the full search window.

The Cortana window always appears in the bottom left corner in a similar way to the Start menu. If you’re in tablet mode, it appears over the left side of the screen. The window loads some information and interests related to what you may have specified in Cortana’s Notebook which is accessible from the Cortana hamburger button in the upper left corner.  These interests that the window displays can be things like how long it will take you to get home given the current “heavy traffic”… or the current weather, upcoming appointments, stock quotes, news, etc.

It’s not immediately clear as to what types of voice commands Cortana is capable of understanding, but when you first run it there are a few tips.  You can say, “Hey Cortana, what am I doing this weekend?” to check your calendar.  You can say, “Hey Cortana, remind me to go grocery shopping when I leave work.”  You can say, “Hey Cortana, open Adobe AfterEffects.”  You can say “Hey Cortana, send an email” and she’ll ask you for more information that you can subsequently dictate in order to write an email to someone without touching the keyboard or looking at the screen. You can add appointments to your calendar that way too. What would be really great is if Windows 10’s Cortana had the same APIs that Windows 10 Mobile has for allowing 3rd party apps to add commands to Cortana’s speech interface. And of course, both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile are in desperate need of Cortana being able to read notifications out loud when they arrive.

Of course, you can also type commands and searches into Cortana. She’ll even activate if you simply start typing something while the Start screen or Start menu is active.  One big problem with this new search interface compared to the Windows 8.1 search interface is that it doesn’t support multi-tasking. For example, if I type a search term into Cortana and it’s taking a little too long so I switch to another app while I wait… the searching stops completely and disappears.  There’s no way to get back to those search results without starting over. The same is true when trying to create a new appointment or email via Cortana… switching focus loses everything.

Universal Apps

Another big thing about Windows 10 is the new Universal Apps development structure and SDK.  The idea with Universal Apps is that they’re designed to run on a wide variety of devices.  They should all be fully functional whether you’re using a tablet, desktop PC, mobile phone, Xbox, HoloLens, etc.  Microsoft has attempted to make it very easy to develop Universal Apps and has even added support for Android and iOS code, as well as HTML websites that can be turned into Universal Apps. This should make developing apps for the Windows Store much easier and cost effective for all of the software developers out there.

Outlook Mail, Calendar, and People

There are new Mail, Calendar, and People apps in Windows 10. Mail and Calendar are labeled as Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar for some reason even though People or contact lists should really be a part of Outlook. As should tasks!  Where are my Outlook tasks?  They’re nowhere to be found. You need to install the desktop version of Outlook to get your task management, notes, journals, public calendars, global address books, etc.

The Mail app works pretty well and is a bit better than the Mail app on Windows 8.1. For some reason, about 60% of the app is covered by a picture of clouds when you launch it. When you select an email in the listing, it will appear in the area originally covered by a clouds photo. Why can’t the email app just go straight to displaying my email? Who knows?  In terms of accounts support, we had no trouble adding Gmail, IMAP, Exchange 2013, and Outlook.com accounts. Yahoo, iCloud, and POP are supported as well. The message list supports custom horizontal swiping actions if that’s your thing. You can set the left swipe to one action and the right swipe to another. There’s also a conversation view for the email listing, and it can no longer be turned off which is absolutely horrible. Grouping emails with the same subject line makes seeing and reading the emails so much more difficult. I want to see my emails in order and I don’t need to see sent emails in my inbox. That’s what the “Sent Items” folder is for.

If you expand the folder listing for an email account, you’ll see pin icons next to some folders. Tapping them doesn’t actually do anything though. You have to tap and hold to show the context sensitive menu, and then choose “Pin to Start” to show the folder on your start screen. The ability to pin subfolders is a great feature inherited from Windows Phone. Unfortunately, Outlook Mail has also inherited Windows Phone’s inability to sync Draft email folders with servers. So you’ll still be unable to pick up where you left off on that long email you may have started somewhere else.

The calendar works well enough. It shows weather icons and offers color options for all of your different calendars. It even shows different shading for busy, tentative, and free appointment types. Gmail, Exchange, Outlook.com, and iCloud calendars are all supported, but public Exchange calendars are not. If you want to add a custom CalDAV server, you can do that by customizing a fake iCloud account. I kind of wish CalDAV was an option in the Advanced setup section instead.

The People app is a pretty major downgrade from the people app in Windows 8. It doesn’t have a live tile that shows Twitter mentions or social network updates from your favorite people. It doesn’t have a live tile at all. There is a button for adding Social network apps that would presumably add those contacts at least, but the button doesn’t do anything at this time. Yes, you can see and edit your contacts info, but that’s about it. No Skype integration, no contact groups, no categories, and you can’t even select more than one contact at a time.

Phone Companion app

If you thought the Windows Phone app for Windows 8 was lazy, wait until you see the Phone Companion app that comes with Windows 10. It basically gives you a link to File Explorer.  Gone are the days of syncing 3rd party content, auto-syncing media over WiFi when your phone was charging on the same network… there isn’t even an offline backup/restore option.  If you need something with way more control over syncing and encoding content for your phone, Windows Media Player 12 is still included in Windows 10 and that’s probably the best way to sync music to your phone in an organized manner with smart playlists or manual playlists.

Photos app

If you thought the Photos app on Windows 8.1 was a massive downgrade from Windows 8 which was a massive downgrade from the Windows Live Photo Gallery app on Windows 7, then you’ll probably see a pattern in the Photos app that comes with Windows 10. That’s right, it’s a massive downgrade. You can’t even navigate sub-folders!!  Seriously!  Instead of letting you browse sub-folders that you’ve already organized, the Windows 10 Photos app attempts to organize your photos libraries into “Albums”. Usually these are sorted by day, but often it doesn’t even see photos in my photo libraries.  Yes, we still miss Windows 8’s ability to show Facebook photo albums, Flickr photo albums, and even remote fetch photo albums from other OneDrive connected PCs. Those awesome features are not likely to return any time soon. Still if you want a photo management program that’s actually useful, Microsoft’s free Windows Live Photo Gallery that was made for Windows 7 still works beautifully on Windows 10.

Edge Browser

There’s a new web browser in town on Windows 10 and it’s called Edge. It’s a completely new browser from Microsoft with no ties to Internet Explorer of old. Unfortunately interface-wise it’s not as great as the “Modern” version of Internet Explorer 11 that came with Windows 8.1.  Edge is mostly designed for the desktop UI.  It has browser controls that stay visible all the time and tabs at the top for switching between web pages. After you have about 15 tabs open, they become ridiculously small and difficult to read or even switch between.  Internet Explorer’s tab UI was much better since you could hide it at any time and when you did choose to show it, you could pan through large thumbnail images of your open web pages no matter how many you had open. You could also use swipe gestures to navigate backwards and forwards between web pages in IE 11. For now, that feature is disappointingly gone in Edge 1.0 as are live tiles for websites that you pin to the start screen.

On the other hand, Edge has a couple new tricks. There’s a note-taking feature that lets you draw on web pages, add comments, and annotations then save that to OneNote or share it with others. Previously to do this, I would have to use OneNote’s clipping tool and then draw the comments on in OneNote, but this saves a step.

Cortana has some integration in the Edge browser too. It’s not terribly discoverable though. Cortana is supposed to show up in the address bar when she has more information about particular websites. For example, if you visithttp://cuoco-seattle.com/, a blue Cortana icon will appear and if you tap that, a sidebar will open up with more information related to that restaurant.  Optionally, you can select content within a web page, tap & hold to open the context sensitive menu and choose “Ask Cortana” in order to get Cortana to give you more information about the selected text.

Groove Music, TV & Movies, Xbox

Xbox Music has been renamed to Groove Music. It’s nowhere near as good as Zune desktop 4.8 or even Windows Media Player when it comes to music management, but at least it supports the Groove Music pass (AKA Zune Pass AKA Xbox Music Pass). There’s still no “Picks for me” section that Zune had done so nicely, but the “Smart DJ” feature is still there with a new name of simply “Radio”.  The TV & Movies app is a re-brand of the Xbox Video app that was in Windows 8. It supports DRM protected videos from the Windows Store and loads Movies/TV Shows that you may have bought using your Microsoft Account via Xbox Video or Zune. Of course it also plays videos that you have stored on your hard drive.

The new Xbox app is pretty nice. It’s kind of a replacement to the “Games” app in previous versions of Windows, but it’s got a lot more features. You can even stream games from an Xbox One to a Windows 10 PC!

Office Mobile

There are new Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and OneNote Mobile apps available for Windows 10 and they have been rebuilt for feature parity with the iOS and Android versions of Office Mobile. They’re all free to download except if you use Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile on a tablet with a 10″ screen or larger, the apps will run in “read only” mode until you sign in with an Office 365 subscription.  OneNote Mobile is still free for everything though, and if you have an Office 365 subscription, you’ll probably be better off installing the full version of Office 2016 since that has far more features and is still pretty touch friendly.  The Office Mobile apps will be fantastic on small inexpensive tablets with limited storage and limited RAM though.

Interface-wise, they all have a consistent ribbon at the top similar to the full version of Office except with a smaller toolbar and far less commands. Feature-wise they’re very stripped down and missing a lot of stuff that’s even available in the free Office Online. For example, Word supports listing custom styles but does not support modifying them (and if you’ve ever done any word processing, you need to know how to use styles). At least it doesn’t strip out custom styles completely like Google Docs does.

MSN Apps

Some of the cool MSN apps have been updated for Windows 10 while others have been discontinued. On Windows 10, you’ve got great new MSN News, MSN Weather, MSN Sports, and MSN Money apps while the MSN Food & Drink, MSN Health & Fitness, and MSN Travel apps are being discontinued.  It’s sad to see some of these apps go away, especially the Food & Drink one with it’s awesome hands-free page flipping feature.  The new MSN apps are Universal Apps and have a completely new layout. They adjust to multiple window sizes very nicely, but there are usually a column of cryptic icons along the left edge of the window. Nobody is going to be able to understand those, but pressing the hamburger button at the top will expand the left column and show labels for the weird icons.  Throughout Windows 10, the hamburger button is kind of a catch-all do-whatever button that often behaves differently from app to app. It’s inconsistent, confusing, and bad for usability.

Pros

• + All of the great Windows 7 desktop interface features are back
• + All apps and programs behave the same way depending on if you’re in desktop or tablet mode
• + If you’re upgrading from Windows 7, you’ll notice a huge speed boost
• + Universal Apps will be flexible enough to run on any kind of Windows 10 device from smartphones, tablets, traditional PCs, Xbox One, and HoloLens
• + Cortana virtual assistant lets you speak commands to your PC for hands-free interaction
• + System interface is VERY customizable; make it work and look the way you want
• + Theme features can apply your chosen accent colors to 3rd party apps if the developers enable it
• + Xbox integration and Direct X 12 make Windows 10 great for gaming
• + Windows Hello biometric log-in features that can recognize your face and/or fingerprints

Cons

• – Cortana can’t control 3rd party apps like in Windows Phone (yet)
• – Tablet mode may have a learning curve (but you don’t have to use it)
• – Some older programs designed for desktop Windows don’t work quite as well in Tablet mode
• – Many Universal apps are not on feature parity with older equivalents

Conclusion

Some are saying that Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows. I don’t really buy that though. Things need to grow and evolve.  Really, Windows 10 will simply receive new updates (aka new versions) more frequently as part of Windows Update.  We might not see a “Windows 11″ any time soon or ever, but we will definitely see new versions of Windows as time goes by.

As for the current state of Windows 10, as long as your hardware manufacturers have released proper drivers (most of them should be ready by now), everything is quite nice. Having a tablet mode and a desktop mode might be confusing to some, but it’s necessary to modify the interface depending on what type of hardware you’re using. There will also be a smartphone mode, holographic mode, and Xbox/TV mode coming to those types of devices.  Having one operating system that flexes to accommodate everything really simplifies things both for Microsoft and for all of the 3rd party developers wanting to create software for the operating system.  The beauty of Windows 10 is that you don’t have to use the other interface elements if you don’t want to.  If you’ve got a desktop or a laptop and you want to use Windows the same way you’ve been using it since 1995, that’s totally possible. Ignore the new features, and you’ll do just fine.

If you’ve got a tablet or a 2-in-1 convertible, it’s certainly worth it to learn the new touch-friendly interface. The jarring contrast that everyone hated between running desktop programs and “metro” apps on Windows 8 is almost completely gone.  Sure, the tablet mode is a bit different, but it’s absolutely usable and totally an acceptable compromise for running all of your programs on smaller touch screen tablets.  We can’t wait to see what kind of UI modifications will appear when using Xbox or HoloLens hardware.

You’re definitely going to want to install that free Windows 10 upgrade this year.

Which voice calling app uses the least data

Free voice call apps, which use data to place calls, can offer a cheaper way to keep in contact with friends abroad and come to the rescue when you’ve used up your monthly minute quota. However, with multi-gigabyte data plans still often coming at a premium price, the busiest chatters out there could soon eat into their monthly allowance using voice over data calls.

To shed some light on the issue, we’ve gone back over our list of 10 free call apps to investigate just how much data these apps end up consuming. In the list you’ll find popular apps such as Hangouts, Skype, WhatApp and Viber, as well as regional favourites including Line and Nimbuzz.

The test method

For our test, we subjected each of these 10 apps to three separate one minute calls and recorded the amount of data used by the app after each call. These three totals were then averaged together to produce the result.

Both sides spoke for 30 seconds each during the one minute call, to simulate a two way conversation. All of the test runs were conducted over a 4G network on both ends, with both phones running the latest versions of each app from the Play Store and the same Android operating system version, just to be extra safe.

The results

We can instantly spot a huge difference between the leanest and the heaviest data consuming applications. Interestingly, many of the most well-known apps, such as Hangouts, Skype and WhatsApp, consume by far the most data, while KakaoTalk, Nimbuzz and Line all consume comparatively smaller amounts of data. Facebook Messenger also makes a bit of a surprise appearance as one of the most data efficient ways of placing a voice call.

Perhaps a little worryingly for Skype users, the app consumes over 2.7 times the amount of data per minute than the most economical apps. WhatsApp consumers 2.3 times the data of KakaoTalk, while Hangounts and Tango consume around twice the data each minute. Over the course of an hour’s worth of calls, the difference between Skype and KakaoTalk works out to around 33.4MB, which might be a point worth considering if you’re on a more limited data plan and like to talk.

Skype consumes over 2.7 times the amount of data per minute than the most economical apps

Magic Jack and Viber both consume a little more data than others, but are still much economical choices than the more established apps. These may be the best choice if you’re looking for a balance between call quality and data usage.

To be fair to the big brands, we do know that Skype implements a rather intelligent codec that is capable of various sample and bit rates. We went back to see if switching down to a 3G network, with more limited bandwidth, would make any difference to the data consumed, but the results came back well within the margin for error. We can conclude that a 3G connection is more than good enough for the best voice call quality that Skype and the other apps have to offer on Android, so you’ll probably always find that these apps consume around this amount of data, regardless of a 3G, 4G or WiFi connection type.

While the big companies may be able to spend some cash on extra bandwidth and servers, Kakao, Nimbuzz and Line most likely make use of a lower quality communication to save on expensive server bandwidth, which has the added benefit of saving us data usage too.

Of course, data usage is just a small aspect of a voice call app. If you would like a closer look at the features available with these apps, be sure to check out our list of to 10 free voice call apps.

LG’s 4K OLED crowned the best TV

For the second year in a row, LG’s OLED display has received the “King of TV” honor at the annual Value Electronics TV shootout. The audience and experts agreed that the 65” 65EG9600 4K OLED outperformed the LCD models.

LG’s 4K OLED beats the LCDs

For many of us it should come as no surprise that the OLED TV won. Here at FlatpanelsHD we have an OLED as our reference TV, and LG continues to push the amazing technology forward. Last year, LG entered the shootout with a HD OLED and this year it entered with a curved 65” 4K OLED.

The following TVs were included in the 2015 TV shootout:

LG’s 65EG9600 (4K OLED)

Panasonic’s 65C850U (4K LCD with backlit LED)

Samsung’s 78JS9500 (4k LCD with backlit LED)

Sony’s 75X940C (4K LCD with backlit LED)

– “This is the second consecutive year that LG OLED has taken the crown, beating its LED counterparts in an intense side-by-side comparison,” said TV Shootout organizer Robert Zohn, owner of Value Electronics, a leading specialty retailer based in Scarsdale, N.Y. 
“The experts and CE Week attendees have spoken: OLED TVs deliver superior picture quality compared to contemporary TV technologies.”

The results of the shootout are as follows.




Later this year, LG will update the EG9600 with HDR capabilities. LG is also planning to add more 4K OLED TVs to its line-up, including flat and larger models. Look forward to a full review of LG’s 4K OLED TV here on FlatpanelsHD soon, too.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10

We compare OS X 10.11 El Capitan with Windows 10. Which is the best operating system, Windows or Mac? Read our OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison to find out more. OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 for features, security, performance and… stupidest name.

Price

• RRP: FREE upgrade for Windows users

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison preview

Here at Macworld UK it won’t surprise you to learn that we are OS X users. As a consequence we are mighty excited about the upcoming release of OS X 10.11 El Capitan. But that isn’t to say that we don’t like to keep an eye on rival platforms, such as the also all-new Windows 10. Windows 10 is set to release next month, and like El Capitan the latest version of Windows is free to existing users. So we compared what we now know about both Windows 10 and OS X 10.11.

Disagree? Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments below. Or simply enjoy OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 for features, security, performance and… stupidest name. (We’ve got plenty more of this stuff, at Latest OS X news, reviews and features from the Apple experts.)

Here are our top ten features coming in OS X El Capitan

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison: UK release date

If the most important thing to you is when you can get your hands on an operating system, then you need to change to Windows, friend. (We expect this is not the case). However, Windows 10 – which is already available as a beta – will be launched on to a largely unsuspecting public on July 29 2015.

We know only that the next generation of OS X – OS X 10.11 El Capitan – will launch the ‘The Fall’. Like Windows 10 it will launch once, globally. We expect a late September or early October release (the last one came out on October 16). Find out more in our OS X 10.11 El Capitan release date story.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison: UK price

The good news is that both OS X 10.11 El Capitan and Windows 10 will be free to existing users. So if you have a relatively recent Mac, or Windows PC or laptop, you will be able to upgrade to the new OS. In fact, you will be nagged to death until you do so.

That doesn’t mean that either OS is completely free. In the Windows world systems builders will have to pay to licence Windows 10 for new PCs and laptops, and it is possible that you will be able to buy Windows media. Possible. (You can get OS X 10.11 now, BTW. Check out How to download OS X El Capitan, how to update to the new Mac OS.)

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison: availability

Hardware gets more powerful, and software grows less resource hungry. So it should be no surprise that both OS X 10.11 El Capitan and Windows 10 will be able to run on lots of existing computers. This is Macworld, so we will deal with OS X 10.11 first. We don’t entirely know the system requirements, but the requirements for Yosemite are the same as those for OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the previous operating system for Mac, so we think most if not all of the Macs listed below will be able to run OS X 10.11. (You can find out more about Windows 10 from our colleagues at PC Advisor in our story Windows 10 UK release date, price, features UK.)

Yosemite can run on the following Macs:

iMac (Mid-2007 or later)

MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)

MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)

Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)

Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)

Xserve (Early 2009)

It is a similar story with Windows 10. We know that Windows 10 will be able to run on any system that can run on Windows 8 and Windows 7. but as Windows 7 can be run fine on Windows XP hardware, we can’t imagine many currently working X86 computers can’t run Windows 10 – and that includes your Mac, of course.

Where Windows 10 does have the whip hand, in theory at least, is that Windows 10 will also run on mobile phones and tablets. Full Windows 10. Just how meaningful that is remains to be seen, and we suspect that you are not desperate to trade in your iPad and iPhone for a Surface and a Windows Phone. But the existance of what Microsoft calls ‘continous apps’ is a potentially exciting development. Being able to log in to the same app on all of your devices, and find the same data, could be a game changer. Could be. Find out if your Mac can run OS X 10.11 at Will your Macrun OS X 10.11?

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison: stupidness of name

You may think that ‘El Capitan’ is hard to top in terms of sheer stupidness, but consider this: Windows 7 was not the seventh version of Windows. Windows 8 followed Windows 7, and was itself superceded by Windows 8.1. And Windows 10 follows Windows 8.1. If you can work that out you are a better man than I.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison: performance

It is impossible to make any sort of judgment on the relative performance of Windows 10 and OS X 10.11. We will of course install and test both on a variety of Macs just as soon as we can – and for final code that is going to be the late Autumn. For now we should say that we expect both to add a relatively minor speed- and stability boost to their respective hardware. But don’t expect a new OS to make an older computer feel like new.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison: software support

Now we are getting into it. The one stick with which Windows users feel impunity to beat their Mac-using cousins. It is a simple fact there is a greater volume of third-party software available to Windows users than to those of OS X. And the nature of the Windows 10 upgrade means that it is likely that virtually all Windows programs will continue to work after the new OS launches.

But that isn’t a problem for OS X. We doubt very much that there is any software program that you really want to use that isn’t available on your Mac, and that will continue to be the case when OS X 10.11 launches. Indeed, the fact that you can install only software pre-approved by Apple is a real bonus: it frees you from the tyranny of having to choose from myriad me-too products. And it means that any software you install will work well.

There is, however, one area in which Windows 10 will have the edge. And that is games.

Again, we doubt that there are many great games available for Windows that you can’t get on OS X 10.11. But it is possible there will be some. And on OS X 10.11 you won’t have the sheer volume of games to choose from that you will on Windows 10. So if sheer volume of games is your thing, head to the Windows World.

Or head to our story outlining the 65 best Mac games you should play today.

Mac vs PC: poll

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison: security

And as we are rehashing traditional Mac/PC arguments, let’s take a look at another hoary old saw: security. Windows 10 will be the most secure version of Windows ever, but that still makes it less secure than OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

The same old truths apply. Because OS X is built on a Unix system, it is naturally sandboxed. Any infection that does get in can do little damage. Because this makes OS X harder to attack – and because the exclusive nature of the Mac market makes it a smaller target to hit – few criminals write viruses for OS X. And it is much safer than is Windows.

Which is not to say that Windows 10 is the leaky old Windows OS we used to see. For one thing like Windows 8 it comes with built-in AV – this is important because it boosts the immunity of the whole herd. It is much more difficult for criminals to write software to attack the newer version of Windows, and so it is XP users and earlier who bear the brunt. It is likely that Windows 10 will also be pretty secure: after all the biggest threat vector today is user behaviour, rather than drive-by attack.

But because Microsoft will push out automatic free upgrades to Windows 10, it is likely to create an even bigger target for cybercriminals. And for the reasons outlined above we would say that OS X 10.11 will remain the more secure platform. (See also:Apple steps up security with native two-factor and 6-digit passcodes.)

OS X 10.11 El Capitan vs Windows 10 comparison: new features

Okay. So far so ‘what we already know’. For one final point, Mac fans, let’s take a look at some of the new features in both OS X 10.11 El Capitan, and in Windows 10.

New features in OS X 10.11 include a redesigned and slightly toned-down interface. As well as other interface improvements we are hopeful for the full inclusion of Siri (this to combat the admittedly excellent Cortana in Windows 10). Although there is no word yet, the inclusion of semantic ‘Spotlight’ search hints at Siri for OS X. Apple is promising improved Wi-Fi features, social app discovery, and App Store search, as well as QuickType-style predictive text.

There is also better iOS- and OS X integration, including the ability to log into your Mac using an iPhone, another feature that can only match a Microsoft equivalent.

This is relevant as in Windows 10 we are promised Universal Apps, as well as the on-the-fly Continium. The idea being that all Windows devices will speak unto other Windows devices. A well as the exciting Virtual Desktops feature, the Start Menu makes a return (personally I think that is a retrograde step), and Action Center notifications get a revamp. There is another redesign of the already useful Task Manager, too.

We’re intrigued by the all-new web browser, previously known as ‘Project Spartan’ and now renamed Microsoft Edge. This replaces Internet Explorer, which can only be a good thing. Perhaps Apple could do something about Safari at the same time.

OUR VERDICT

We are confident in saying that with the next upgrades of both Windows and OS X Apple’s software remains the best choice. Because Apple makes both Macs and the OS X on which they run, they simply work better. More secure, a more curated experience, and a better performance experience. But Macs aren’t cheap, and for those who wish to spend less on their computers Windows 10 looks like a very strong version of Microsoft’s OS. We will of course update this piece as we spend more time with both El Capitan and Windows 10.