Popular board game Scrabble has yet to make a real dent on mobile gaming, but two similar games - Zynga's Words with Friends and Bertheussen's Wordfeud are really getting people addicted, and both are available on Android and iOS devices.

Both games offer two-player, smartphone-based competitive word games as well as free and paid versions, but there are some significant differences between the two.

The game

Neither app offers games between more than two players, which strikes me as a lost opportunity, but beyond that, both offer a solid 'classic' version of the the letter-tiles game that will be familiar to everyone. Both games allow you to zoom into the board for easier play on a small phone screen, and both allow you to shuffle your tiles, swap and pass. In simple game terms, these are identical, and both great fun.

FIFA 12 comes out this Friday, so it’s time to start thinking about which soccer game you’ll be investing in this season. That means only one thing - it's time for our annual post comparing FIFA with Pro Evolution Soccer!

Since PES 2012 isn’t released until October 14 in some places, the temptation will be to splash out on EA’s title this week and not bother with Pro Evo, or just to stick it on your holiday gift list. But what if EA has tweaked the excellent FIFA 11 too much and ruined it? What if PES 2012 makes the leap and recaptures the magic of those enchanting previous generation versions?

My advice is to go and download the demo versions of both FIFA 12 and PES 2012 before you make any purchasing decisions. Give each a few hours workout and draw your own conclusions. That’s what I did, and here’s my verdict:

Gameplay

Pro Evolution Soccer 2012

Pro Evo has been accused of losing its way in recent versions - a pal of mine now calls it “No Evo”! It’s fair to say that PES has struggled to make the jump to the next generation of consoles, while FIFA positively embraced the new possibilities.

PES 2012, however, as with the previous version, sees the magic of the glory days (I’m talking Pro Evo 3 through to 7) slowly returning. PES 2012 is fast, fluid and fun to play. The game engine gives you a real sense of freedom: there are always plenty of options when attacking, passes can be weighted to perfection, and shooting is a joy to behold.

Pro Evo 2012 adds a new off-the-ball control system, which allows you to unlock even more new attacking opportunities. A run down the wing is now a journey into a world of possibilities, as you can take control of any other attacker, drifting into space to receive a pass or pulling a defender out of position to create space for the player on the ball. Granted, controlling players off the ball (done using the second analog stick) is disorientating at first, but you’ll soon start to love it.

Spotify, the music streaming service, has been the talk of Europe for a while now, but it wasn't until a few months ago that it became available to U.S. users. With Pandora being a longtime favorite among Americans, Spotify had some serious competition right from the get-go.

So how do the two music streaming services match up? Is one a better bet when it comes to having a sleek interface, the best music inventory, social integration and even free or paid features? We've put both apps to the test, and the results are in!

The beta version of Firefox 7 for Windows and Mac is already out just days after the final release of Firefox 6. Mozilla claim that it features significant memory fixes that go a long way to solving the memory leak problem that is encouraging more and more Firefox users to switch to Chrome.

Firstly, it should be made clear that a memory leak is different to memory usage. A memory leak is when an application suddenly starts guzzling RAM for no apparent reason - as Firefox frequently does. Memory usage is simply the amount of RAM that an application needs to run.

I conducted a short simple experiment on a fresh install of both Firefox 6 and 7 without any add-ons installed. I opened the same 6 tabs in Firefox 6 and Firefox 7 Beta and observed their memory use over a 2 hour period. The results were enouraging. Although Firefox 7 Beta 1 still uses about as much memory as Firefox 6, it does appear to have largely solved the memory leaking problem.

The 6 tabs I opened in each browser were OnSoftware, Softonic, BBC, Microsoft, Apple and YouTube:

Read more »

File compression apps PeaZip and 7-Zip are both top of their game, but so closely matched that it can be very, very hard to make a choice. If you're faced with this dilemma, read on and we'll make it just that little bit easier!

Format Support

Neither of these programs are exactly slackers on this front, with literally dozens of formats between then. 7-Zip takes the biscuit with its own propriety format, a serous hard hitter when it comes to compression ratio and exportability. You can read more about 7z here, and its worth bearing in mind that the format is read and write-supported by lots of other compression utilities, PeaZip included.

Not so long ago, Skype was the only serious contender for calling friends, family and colleagues over the net. Yet a few years, and an unpopular major update later, Skype has gone down in the estimation of many Mac users. At the same time, Apple released its answer to Skype - Facetime - which is rapidly climbing the download charts as a serious alternative. It's therefore about time we put Skype and Facetime head-to-head to see which is the king of calling.

Interface

Until the update to version 5, most Mac users were satisfied with the interface of Skype. Since the latest version however, many have found the new large-screen interface intrusive, unintuitive and basically harder to use than previous versions. Some have even gone back to the much slimmer version 2.8. Facetime meanwhile has a very simple interface which instantly detects your iSight camera on startup and makes calling contacts simple. Even better, it automatically detects contacts in your Address Book so you don't have to mess about adding them. However, it is still very basic compared to Skype at this stage of its development.

Result: Facetime draws with Skype 5 on interface at this stage of development.

Flexibility

Skype can be used on both Mac and Windows and you can call landlines or mobiles anywhere in the world. In terms of flexibility and interoperability between platforms Skype takes some beating. Facetime however is very much locked into everything Apple. Its not even available on Windows, works only on Macs or iPads, you can't call landlines and the only mobiles you can call are iPhones.

Result: In terms of flexibility, Skype wins hands down.

Zimly and TuneWiki are two of the top Android music players on Softonic. I've reviewed them both, and I gave them an identical - and very respectable - 8 out of 10. If you're trying to choose between them, though, I guess it doesn't make your job that easy! In an attempt to make it a little simpler to choose, I'm going to run through both of them, briefly concentrating on what each does best.

Downloading directly from the web has become a great alternative to other more "traditional" downloading protocols such as P2P and BitTorrent. The increasing popularity of these direct downloads has contributed to the launch of software like Mipony and jDownloader, and to the spread of dozens of online services for storing and sharing files on the Web. The question then is, which one of these services should you be using?

Most online file hosting websites look almost identical. They seem to offer the same tools and options, but a deeper look soon reveals small differences in what you get when using one or another. After comparing the ten most popular file hosting services, we've come up with two tables that sum up the features included in their Free and Premium accounts, respectively. A quick glance at the data will surely help you decide which hosting service is best for you.

Before moving on to the tables, let's explain the criteria we used to compare the services:

Storage Capacity: Maximum size allowed for each file you upload. If there are two figures, the second one refers to the amount of total space available for your account.

Transfer limit: Maximum amount of data you can transfer within a certain period of time.

Expiration date: This applies mainly to free accounts, and refers to the number of days the uploaded file will be available online. It's usually calculated from the time it was last downloaded.

File management: Is there a special tool to manage your files, and organize them in groups or folders?

Simultaneous downloads: Does the file hosting service allow multiple file downloads at the same time?

Waiting time: The amount of time you usually have to wait in free accounts before you can actually download the file.

Price: The monthly fee you have to pay for a premium account in each of these services.

Free account

	Storage capacity	Transfer limit	Expiration date	File management	Simultaneous downloads	Waiting time
	500 MB	No	30d/90d	Members only	No	Variable
	500 MB/200 GB	1 GB/24h	21d/90d	Members only	No	45s/25s
	200 MB	No	Upon warning	Members only	Yes	No
	2,000 MB	30 min.	90d	Yes, FTP	No	15s
*	200 MB/10GB	No	30d	Yes	No	Variable
	300MB/2GB	10 files/8h	20d/45d	Members only	No	60s
	2,000 MB/ 500 GB	150 MB/h	90d	Members only	No	+30s
	1 GB	No	60d	Yes, and FTP too	No	20s
	2 GB	No	No	No	No	100s
*	2 to 8 GB	No	No	Yes	Yes	No

*Requires registration

One of the hardest programs to track down is a good note-taking app. This seems weird, as there are a bunch of them out there. Even so, some just don't make the grade - they're ugly, awkward and sometimes really make it hard to jot down information when you're on the go.

EverNote and Springpad are considered by many to be two of the best. Both have smartphone and online versions, so we're evaluating them on their performance across devices and platforms, since accessibility is a major concern when it comes to note-taking apps.

Both score really highly in their Softonic reviews, so it's not surprising that you might be finding it hard to choose. The best way is to install both and test them, but if you're short on time - or motivation - we're here to do it for you!

Registration and sign-up

In the sign-up stakes, these apps are almost neck and neck. The sign ups are pretty much as painless as you get - email address, password and you're in. SpringPad does slightly better than EverNote - you don't need a username and there's no security CAPCHA, cutting out two steps and winning it this round.

Result - Springpad, but only just!

Available platforms

The availability of platforms is crucial for a note taking application. The aim is that no matter where you are or what you're doing, adding a note is as easy and fast as possible. Looking at our two applications, it's pretty obvious that Evernote comes out on top.

This application is available for pretty much anything you can imagine - Online, Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, BlackBerry, Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, Windows Mobile and even a Windows, Mac and Linux compatible Firefox extension, for including online information in the click of a mouse button.

Springpad doesn't skimp, but it's not quite as impressive. It's available online and for Android, iPhone and iPad. There's no desktop version, and if you have any smartphone other than Android/iPhone, you'll miss out.

Result - Evernote, by a mile!

Recently released, RockMelt is a Chrome-based browser heavily integrated with Facebook and Twitter, but it's not the first to do that. Flock has been around for a while, and this year it moved from being Firefox to Chrome based too, cutting its extensive social features back to Facebook and Twitter.

Which one deserves your download? Find out below:

Features:

Both browsers are designed for use with Facebook and Twitter. With Flock, both are integrated into a single retractable sidebar, whereas RockMelt uses iPhone-like buttons with notifications and pop-out floating windows. RockMelt also integrates Facebook Chat, while both have share buttons next to the address bar for quick link sharing. Of course, personal taste will come into this, but I do think RockMelt separates the two services more clearly, while its notification system is also neater. Flock does allow you to add your YouTube account, but you can add any feeds to RockMelt.  Winner: RockMelt

Interface:

Chrome is the base of both of these, and that's obvious in their overall style. However, RockMelt's tabs and text look better, and the social features are much flashier and more convenient. With its easily retractable social bar, Flock can quickly give you the most browsing space, but RockMelt's two sidebars are very slim. When you close the Flock sidebar, you won't be interrupted by any updates, while RockMelt's minimized buttons always tell you when something's happening.If you want to use a social browser, staying up to date and connected is the point - so RockMelt makes more sense. If you really want some peace you can easily close all the social sidebars. Winner: RockMelt

Efficiency:

Despite its double sidebars and having Facebook Chat running, RockMelt used considerably less memory than Flock, often by up-to 25%. This is surprising, because Flock's interface seems lighter and simpler and also has less features. Winner: RockMelt

Availability:

RockMelt is still in a limited beta. It's not hard to get an invite, but you might wait a few hours or days depending on your luck. Flock is available now, but unlike RockMelt, the newest version isn't available on Mac yet. Winner: Flock

Conclusions:

In its current development stage, RockMelt is by far the best social browser of the two even though it's still a beta product. Flock feels less developed and isn't different enough to a traditional browser to be a serious contender. The earlier Firefox version was a bit heavy, but it was full of features that really did make it unique. More work is needed on this Flock. RockMelt, feels light, fresh and different. It's great for Facebook and Twitter addicts, although some users may find it a little distracting. You can apply for a beta here, or follow us on Twitter and we will give you an invite as we get more.

Microsoft's Bing has been a surprising success in the search world, even if it's a long way off challenging Google as top dog. Both companies offer a map service and have been piling in features to entice users, but which is the best?

Usability

This is always my main concern, and in terms of basic mouse navigation both Bing and Google Maps are fine. Zooming in and out is fast, whichever view you're using. Bing has a neat Automatic view mode, which switches views according to how zoomed in you are. This is great, and leaves you in Bing's excellent Bird's Eye view, which is much nicer to look at then a simple satellite view.

However, in terms of usability, Google Maps pretty much wipes the floor with Bing from there on in. The maps are better quality and more accurate, and the directions are also improved with Google, according to tests I've done. In the image below, I searched for the same directions in both systems, and as you can see they look different. That's because Bing is taking me to the wrong place, for some reason. This is a good example of the occasional inaccuracy in Bing Maps, which makes it hard to trust overall.

So you've made up your mind and you want to create a blog. The question now is, how are you going to do it? There are many options available, for newbies and experts, for those who prefer to have everything set up and those who like to be in control of every single detail. But besides the traditional blogging platforms like Blogger or Wordpress, there are also a couple of alternatives for what is known as micro-blogging - a simpler, easier to update blog, perfect for those who don't need lots of features.

The two most popular micro-blogging platforms are Tumblr and Posterous. You may think they're quite similar, but the moment you analyze them in depth, you realize they also have quite remarkable differences. Let's take a look at both of them and maybe then you'll know which one suits you best.

The demos of both Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 and FIFA 11 are both released today. This means we get to fight all over again over which is the best soccer sim on the planet. Last year's match-up proved to be a bit of a non-event given that the improvements made to FIFA 10 pushed it so clearly ahead of the floundering PES 2010.

Thankfully, console football's biggest rivalry has just got interesting again. The new version of Pro Evolution Soccer is a marked improvement over the last attempt. EA has a few tricks of its own though, and FIFA 11 is more polished than it’s ever been. Here are my thoughts so far, having played both demos.

Gameplay

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011

I’d have to say that the gameplay refinements are much more noticeable in the leap from PES 2010 to PES 2011 than they are between FIFAs 10 and 11. This is almost certainly because Pro Evolution had way more to fix, of course.Pro Evo 2011 feels almost like an entirely new game, when compared with the last version. The sluggishness, over-automation, and general lack of control that blighted the last version have been more or less eradicated by the overhauled game engine in PES 2011.

Passing has been tweaked to allow you to measure balls more precisely. A power meter now appears when passing that lets you move the ball around with pinpoint accuracy, rather than the old way where the ball seemed to get magnetized to the nearest player’s foot.

PES 2011 now gives you more control over your defense. Gone is the horrible AI whereby defenders would all automatically hone in on an attacker (even the ones you weren’t controlling). The intelligent new system now allows you to decide exactly when to bring the defense up, when to apply pressure and when to hang back.

Pulling off tricks is now a much finer art in Pro Evolution 2011. There are lots of new flicks, tricks and special moves to try out. The best thing is, you can assign these yourself to certain button combos, so you’ve got your favorite ones ready at any time.

The gameplay in Pro Evo could still be better. For example, the AI of the computer opponent is still frustratingly predictable. This means that it becomes very easy to beat once you’ve played a few games.

FIFA 11

The new gameplay features in FIFA are more subtle than they are in Pro Evo, but they really help to add polish and class to the game.

Perhaps the two biggest innovations are Personality+ and 360-degree jostling. Personality+ is a system whereby players move and behave as they do in real life. This means, for example, that the ball will stick to Lionel Messi’s foot like glue, Wayne Rooney will run around like a chicken after loose balls, and Didier Drogba will score lots and lots of goals.

The new 360-degree jostling makes defending more realistic. A player is now able to hold off an opposing player by backing into him and swivelling around to try to gain space to move away with the ball or pick out a pass.

Handballs can be switched on in FIFA 11, adding a new element of excitement to the game. It seems that you can’t handle the ball on purpose, but occasionally a defender will automatically stick out his hand to stop a shot or a pass. This can be frustrating at times, but, of course, it could sometimes save your skin.Another interesting innovation in FIFA 11 is the ability to control the goalkeeper, which adds a new dimension into the gameplay. In general, keeper AI has been improved to make them more fallible and to give them characteristics of their real life equivalents.

One of the changes we didn’t like is the new penalty kick system, which is based around a power-bar. This feels very clunky and unresponsive and spoils what was a perfectly good system before.

Want to know what's that song on the radio, in the club or on TV? Thanks to the wonders of modern acoustic fingerprint technology, all you need to do is point your phone at the speakers and press a button. In order to do this, of course, you need an app installed on your device. But which one?

I've taken a look at the two principal candidates for iPhone, Shazam and SoundHound and put them through their paces to find out which one really knows the most about music.

The contenders

Shazam has been the king of music identification services for more than ten years. Initially launched in the UK as a premium SMS service, Shazam has since been released as an app on numerous mobile platforms. It continues to top the Music section of the iTunes App Store charts, and its free version was listed as the fifth most popular free iPhone app of all time.

SoundHound is a social music search service, powered by a community-created database. Originally known as Midomi, the iPhone app isn't as popular as Shazam - but that's not to say it isn't more effective. In contrast to Shazam, SoundHound claims to be able to recognize tunes that are hummed or sung.

A couple of weeks ago I had a first look at Office Web Apps, the online version of Microsoft Office 2010. Today I’m going to compare this newly launched service with another online productivity suite that’s been in the business for quite some time now: Google Docs.

To begin with, the main interface in Google Docs looks much better than the one in Office Web Apps, ruined by the presence of a huge, highly distracting banner. Google Docs is clearer and simpler, just like Google’s style.

Both suites have a similar structure on this main page, with document categories on the left and a list of all the files you’ve created so far. The list on Google Docs lets you select multiple documents at the same time to perform bulk operations such as deleting, hiding, starring or exporting. The list on Office Web Apps, however, only lets you manage files one by one, and doesn’t let you delete files – you have to click More > Properties, and then select Delete.