A while back, we showed you how to uninstall Windows Live Messenger 2011. However, if you are are still having problems uninstalling it or finding that components are left behind, there is another solution.

Here is a very simple step-by-step guide about how to completely uninstall Windows Live Messenger 2011 using Revo Uninstaller. Note that this method works for any version of Windows Live Messenger although older versions may not be listed on your system as "Windows Live Essentials".

Google has announced an update to its terms and conditions that means from 1st March, it will now track and collate user activity across all Google products including YouTube, Gmail and Google+. According to the company, the aim of this is to unify the privacy policies for different products as well as provide a more personalized service. Google said in its announcement:

We may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.

Specific benefits of this mean Google can deliver personalized results when you do a Google search, more relevant ads to your interests and even set reminders based on your activity.

However, if you'd rather Google didn't collate or track all your activities across the various Google products that you use, there are a few simple measures you can take to stop it.

• Sign-out of your Google account. This only works when using certain Google products. For some, such as YouTube, you can use the service without being signed-in. Obviously, this method isn't much good if you want to check your Gmail. If you want to see whether you are signed-in or not, check the top-right of your screen.

• Create multiple Google accounts. You could create one for each product that you use so that your activities or data are limited to one account at a time. You can then sign-in with multiple accounts in one browser although for some services, you can only sign-in to one Google account per browser at any one time which could become a bit messy and annoying.

• Customize your Google privacy settings. Google does offer a privacy customization page where you can tweak your settings for various apps. However, it isn't clear whether these will still work once the new privacy policy takes effect on March 1st.

It's worth adding that if you're not happy with the new privacy changes, you can close your Google account and take your data with you in accordance with Google's data liberation policy. To check the data that Google currently holds on you across different services, check the Google Dashboard.

The recent closure of Megaupload highlights the risks of using a cloud based service to backup and store data. Of course, backing-up your data to an external hard drive isn't without risks but there is one that's significantly reduced - the threat of losing access to your data due to sites being shutdown.

We've already compiled and compared a list of other cloud backup solutions so here are five of the best desktop backup alternatives for Windows and Mac:

TimeMachine

(Mac):

Apple's easy to use discreet backup solution. Constantly backsup your data without slowing down your Mac so that you can effectively "go back in time" and restore files and data. Note however that some people have found it unreliable at times - it may start-off well but may become erratic over time.

SuperDuper!

(Mac):

SuperDuper! creates exact clones of your Mac's hard drive so you have a full backup of all your data, including permissions, user profiles and private settings. Simply select the target and destination drives and start backing up. You can specify exactly which files you want to transfer and which you'd like to omit.

Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC)

(Mac):

Carbon Copy Cloner is free, simple to use and backsup only those files and folders that you want it to. Just connect your external hard drive to your Mac, CCC will automatically detect it and off you go. You can also schedule automatic backups at specific times and create disk images with it.

Norton Ghost

(PC)

Norton's Anti-Virus is a nightmare but its backup solution is a much better package. Norton Ghost is probably the closest thing to Time Machine on a PC and backs-up your entire hard drive – or just selected folders – to another partition, networked drive or an external storage device. Norton Ghost can also create an exact copy of your hard drive with all the existing files, programs and settings and provides restoration points.

USB Image Tool

(PC)

USB Image Tool is one of the simplest PC backup solutions you'll find. It's free, straightforward and automatically detects USB devices connected to your computer and scans them before asking you whether you'd like to create an image backup or restore a previously backed-up image. USB Image Tool can create images of USB memory sticks and MP3 players that are mounted as USB drives.

[Image courtesy of OnSoftware ES]

Yesterday's big announcement by Apple was the release of iBooks Author and iBooks 2. iBooks Author is a Mac application and Apple's attempt at revolutionizing educational books whether they be textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books and more for iPad. With it, you can create all of the above and more via a classically easy to use Apple interface. iBooks 2 is the application you need to view publications created in iBooks Author.

To get you started quickly, there are lots of Apple-designed templates that merely require you to add your own text and drag and drop images.

To add interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects and more, there are simple widgets which make things very easy indeed. The widgets are one of the outstanding features of iBooks Author. They enable you to add everything from a photo gallery to a Keynote (Keynote ’09 v5.1.1 or later) presentation and can be easily identified in your Table of Contents. You can also add a voice-over to make it easier for sight-impaired readers to read your books.

The recent news that Google was inadvertently promoting it's own browser Google Chrome to the top of Google rankings highlights concerning issues for software users, developers and the integrity of the blogosphere.

If you don't know the story, Google were employing PR firm Unruly Media to promote Google's own browser Chrome. Nothing wrong with that but unbeknown to Google, Unruly Media were paying bloggers to promote Google Chrome on blogs. To be fair to them, the posts did state "This post is sponsored by Google" in the search results but they helped rapidly improve Chrome's search engine rankings which is strictly against Google's code of ethics on paid links.

When search engine specialist sites SEO Book and Search Engine Land spotted what was going on, Google - to their credit - immediately took action and are now "punishing" the rankings of their own browser for the next 60 days.

The incident highlights three main points of concern.

1. Potential conflict of interest

This incident was largely out of Google's control and to some extent, it has simply become a victim of it's own success. Over the past ten years, it has gone from a simple search engine company to one that develops its own software. The battle for browser supremacy is so intense - and so incredibly lucrative to the winner - that it's perfectly understandable that Google employed a PR firm to try and help boost Chrome rankings in its own search engine. The problem is exactly that however - that the battle is taking place in its own search engine and Google is caught between a rock and a hard place in how to conduct the battle. The company have to tread a very difficult line between promoting their own product Chrome, but not unfairly "favoring" it in Google rankings through various means.

2.Pitfalls of outsourcing marketing

The problem is that once Google has relinquished some marketing control over its products, it's not as easy for it to check if is living up to its own code of ethics. Presumably, any company that enters into a marketing agreement with Google has to agree to abide by the company's ethics code. However, it's obviously not as easy for Google to keep tabs on absolutely every marketing campaign being used by PR firms it works with. The result may be an unfair playing field for developers trying to develop competing products and a bum deal for users who aren't necessarily getting the best product for their needs when they perform a Google search.

3. Reliability of the blogosphere

When blogs first appeared, they were an outlet for people to express their feelings and thoughts on whatever issue took their fancy without any commercial influences and as such, have built up a highly trustworthy reputation. Today, blogs that look highly personalized may be heavily tainted by advertisers or corporate funding making it hard for users to know whether the information they are reading is trustworthy. The result is "personalized" blog posts that don't reflect the user's opinion - exactly what happened in this case as is amply highlighted here. This kind of problem has been brewing for some time and Frederic Filloux wrote one of the most thoughtful articles about it in "The Blogosphere's Soft Corruption" following the TechCruch-Arrington saga.

Of course, you can always rely on us here at OnSoftware to bring you our honest opinions and thoughts on software, and check out our reviews of Google Chrome for Windows and Mac.

[Image courtesy of Search Engine Land]

Mozilla has released the latest Alpha version of Firefox - Firefox 11 Aurora. Most of the major changes in Firefox 11 Aurora are in the Android version, which now finally supports Adobe Flash and has a native Android interface. Syncing has been temporarily removed, however.

For Windows and Mac users the User Account Control panel has been withdrawn after installation and you can now import bookmarks from Chrome.

Other changes are mainly under the hood, including more support for HTML5 and Google's SPDY protocol for faster site loading can now be tested. In addition, there's support for 3D web page visualization and HTML5 video controls have been redesigned. There are no major changes to the appearance.

Note that Firefox 11 Aurora is an developmental release and therefore can be unstable and may not work with many add-ons. If you want the stable version (version 9), you can download it here for Windows and Mac.

Download Firefox 11 Aurora for Windows or Mac.

Facebook has launched a beta version of Facebook Messenger for Windows which allows you to chat with your contacts from your desktop. At the moment, it is only available to a small number of selected beta testers.

Facebook Messenger for Windows not only lets you communicate with your Facebook contacts but also gives you access to your news feed and message notifications giving you access to all the essential tools of Facebook.

The interface of Facebook Messenger for Windows is very clear and divided into two separate windows. One is dedicated to contacts and feeds like the right column of Facebook and the other opens chats. Any notifications appear as pop-ups on your desktop.

Note that although this is the first official Facebook desktop app, there are already several programs that allow you to chat with Facebook contacts including Digsby Trillian Astra, Nimbuzz and Skype.

Download Facebook Messenger for Windows

It's been a long time in coming but the beta version of XBMC 11 has now been released. Version 11 "Eden" adds lots of new features and improvements to the open source home theater software for both Mac and Windows.

The most notable changes are Addon Rollbacks and vast improvements to the default skin Confluence.

There are also significant speed increases thanks to what's known as "Dirty-region rendering", a new JPEG decoder, a simpler, better library, additional protocol handling, better networking support, better handling of unencrypted BluRay content and structures, adjustable display refresh rates in OSX (to match the already available feature in Windows and Linux), AirPlay support, an upgraded weather service, and much more.

You can find details of all the new additions and changes to XBMC in the changelog.

Although not finished yet, there are also important changes in progress to XBMC Live to make it more like a full “*Buntu” version of XBMC with major changes to the boot and install process.

Mac users can get some free Skype credit by signing-up to test Skype's new "Click to Call" service which allows Mac users to make calls from directly within their browser.

The service is in closed beta and you have to take a survey first and sign a non-disclosure agreement with Skype to test it. You're then entitled to an unspecified amount of free Skype credit for calling landlines and mobiles as a thank you gift. In addition, a "larger gift" will be given to the top contributor.

Successful applicants will be contacted over the next few days and you can get started with the survey here. Remember that it's only open to Mac users.

Mozilla has released the final version of Firefox 9 beta meaning it won't be long before it is confirmed as the next stable version of Firefox.

The latest update features improvements to Javascript that Mozilla claims boosts performance by over 30 percent. Mozilla has also tweaked Javascript with something called Type Inference for faster loading times. The other improvement is greater theme integration and swipe navigation for Mac OS X users.

Mozilla's frequent update policy still isn't popular with users - especially because they don't seem to deliver major improvements and break add-ons. Let's hope when the final version of Firefox 9 is confirmed, the transition will be smoother and the improvements more noticeable.

You can download Firefox 9 beta final for Windows and Mac or just wait for it to update automatically.

Apple have just launched iTunes Match but what is it exactly? In a nutshell, it's basically part of iCloud and makes it possible to access your iTunes collection from anywhere with iTunes 5.1 or higher. This also provides a handy backup of your music if anything happens to your PC, Mac or iPhone.

In addition, iTunes Match can clean your iTunes library by replacing those tracks obtained from outside the iTunes store with official iTunes store versions. This is useful for example if you have lots of ripped CD's or music downloaded from other sites that either aren't labelled very well or are of poor sound quality. iTunes Match will replace poor quality tracks with 256kbps versions.

iTunes Match isn't a free service. It costs $24.99 a year which isn't bad if you're a heavy iTunes user on multiple devices with a rather disorganized music collection.

Note that once you've uploaded your iTunes collection, you can stream it to your Apple devices in the same way as you can with Spotify. There's also a 25,000 track limit although those you have purchased via iTunes don't count towards this total.

The initial scanning and uploading process can take quite a long time especially if you've got a large iTunes library. Once a song is uploaded, a cloud symbol will appear next to it to let you know it's done.

For Spotify users, iTunes Match isn't really offering anything new but for those that rely on iTunes a lot, it's a practical service.

Voddler has the potential to be a great film service although the lack of film choice in the Spanish pilot version and general usability still need much improvement for it to be really popular.

Just under two years ago we were on the first blogs to test and review video-on-demand service Voddler plus we brought you an exclusive interview with co-founder Mathias Tönnesson. We've now had chance to see how far it's come as Voddler starts a wider European-wide roll-out in Spain. Note that Voddler is still only available in limited regions.

Voddler started out as purely a desktop client but the company soon decided to integrate it with a web based service after numerous security breaches and complaints about usability from users.

To stream films in your browser, you need to download the desktop client. There is also an offline client available for download which allows you to play films you have paid for without a net connection.

The BBC have finally released an official BBC iPlayer app for iPhone. Although iPhones are already able to access the iPlayer via a web browser, this is the first official app which gives iPhone users a similar experience to that found on iPads. The new app also supports streaming iPlayer video content over 3G networks to your iPhone.

The new app includes additional improvements such as more free content and AirPlay for both subscribers and non subscribers. Note that the new app also works with  iPod Touch and the AirPlay feature that allows you to stream content to your TV requires iOS 5.

Mac users still using OS X 10.5 Leopard may not be able to use newer versions of Firefox much longer. Mozilla engineering manager Josh Aas has proposed dropping support for Leopard from June 2012 onwards.

Aas quotes figures that show only 6.6% of Firefox users are on Macs and estimates that around 20% of these are using Leopard. He adds that this figure is only likely to go down when the next final version of Firefox is released:

Mac OS X 10.5 users have been declining by 1-2% per month (as a share of our total Mac OS X users). This means that when Firefox 13 ships, Mac OS X 10.5 users will likely make up about 13% of Mac OS X users across all versions of Firefox. This number should be around 9% for users of the most recent version of Firefox.

It's unlikely that Leopard users will lose sleep over this news though. Many Firefox users have preferred to stick to Firefox 3 anyway due to various bugs, memory hogging issues and add-on in compatibility problems since Mozilla moved to a Google Chrome-like faster release cycle. The problem with this though is that older versions of Firefox no longer receive security updates and fixes.

If you are a Leopard user and rely on Firefox it looks like you've got two options. Either stick with any Firefox version that's released up until June 2012  or take a look at Google Chrome, Safari or Opera which all plan to keep supporting OS 10.5. Also, check-out our Firefox to Chrome switchers guide if you're considering Google's browser as an option.

Safari for Mac and Windows has been updated to version 5.1.2 with stability and security fixes and now allows you to view PDF documents within web pages.

From now on, in you want to view a PDF document in Safari you can just click on it and it will open within your browser window.

Also, if you've been experiencing hang-ups and excessive memory usage with Safari, this latest update makes it considerably more lightweight and stable.

Download Safari for Mac and Windows.