The virtues of older software releases

BANGALORE: Virus-wise there's little happening. The old Klez-like worm sees an upsurge in
infections reported every odd month, making May hotter in more ways than
one! Anyway, except for a low-grade Kazaa worm there's little to fear. I
actually hope none of my readers even use Kazaa. Not because it's an MP3
file-sharing tool. But because it's so damned unsafe. The software contains
so many tracking and information sharing utilities that by installing it you
are definitely giving personal privacy a go-by.

Instead check out Kazaa
Lite aka K-Lite (3 MB, Windows, free) is a cleaned up, freeware version
of the original Kazaa Media Desktop P2P (Peer-to-Peer) file sharing
application. With K-Lite you can still share media. The software also
connects to FastTrack's P2P network system (which iMesh, Grokster and Kazaa
Media also support).

You can download single files from multiple users and even resume broken and
suspended downloads. K-Lite also removes bit rate limits and other
restrictons that the full version imposes on users. Read about K-Lite's full
feature list TARGET="_fldrnew">here. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

How many times in the recent past have you whined for an older version of a
particular software? This usually sparks off a frenetic search for an older
version -- through your CD-R collection, your local downloads folder, on the
Web.
There are many reasons for using an older version. Either because newer
builds may be inadequately tested. Or Buggy. Or both. Either way, it's
terrible to have software that refuses to work like its immediate
predecessor. Or worse: breaks your computer!

That's where Oldversion -- which sells itself as "because newer is not
always better." Amen! This excellent place on an average has versions going
back 3-4 generations: equivalent to nearly a half-century in human terms!

What's available is exceedingly diverse. You can locate earlier builds of
apps like ACDSee, Acrobat Reader, Ad-aware, America Online (AOL) browser and
Instant Messenger (AIM), BulletProof FTP, CloneCD, CompuServe Browser,
CuteMX, DC++, DirectX, DivX, Eudora, Express WebPictures, GetRight, GoZilla,
ICQ, Internet Explorer, Juno, Kazaa, LimeWire, mIRC, Morpheus, MSN
Messenger, MusicMatch Jukebox, Napster, Nero Burning ROM, Opera,
PowerArchiver, QuickTime, RealJukebox, RealOne Player, RealPlayer, Scour
Exchange, Swish, Terragen, VirtualDub, Winamp, Windows Media Player, WinMX,
WinRAR, WinZip, Yahoo Messenger, ZoneAlarm.

Each software has a page listing the developer's URL, name, and the current
version. This is followed by description of the utility. And any
sub-versions. As well as alternates. There's even a discussion board. This
is probably one of the best software sites on the Internet. Oldversion isn't
a hacker's paradise. But you can download copies of older software for which
hacks are available on the Web.

Us laptop users face a problem with multiple network connections. One
solution is to use multiple, customized profiles. But it can become a pain
after a while. Enter TARGET="_fldrnew">Mobile Net Switch. This shareware helps you customize
your network settings to support multiple profiles. So you can have one for
the office. One for home (for that cable Internet connection). One for the
road. One perhaps for every branch office.

This Settings manager even restores mapped drives, resets IP addresses,
connects to the right Web proxy server (or none). And best of all works any
version of Windows that includes support for Windows Media Installer (WMI).
Go get a copy for yourself as soon as possible.

The best, and freest CD player (with included FreeDB support) has just been
updated. NotifyCD v1.60 Beta16 is now available. The code base has been
considerably tweaked. And its memory footprint is an awesomely tiny 1.2 MB!
There's no change in the feature set.

In other Beta news, something I mentioned on April 21, 2002 about possible
issues of the Firebird (nee Phoenix) web browser versus the Firebird SQL
database have come to the fore! The name was changed again after the Firebird database developers dug in their heels.

From a user perspective the name war reveals other chinks. The
browser-that-used-to-be-Phoenix is fast becoming bloat ware. Its zipped file
now clocks in at 6.5 MB and includes that stupid Talkback utility. This
supposedly notifies the developers of app crashes. Yeah! And what about my
privacy! I'm so disgusted after following the app closely in the past that
I've removed it altogether from my system. Instead I'm sticking with Opera
7, MyIE2, and good old IE6 SP1.

Opera's released v7.11 just as this column went to press. I haven't had a
chance to download and check out what's new under the 'hood. But there must
be a slew of tweaks. The proposed Opera 7.20 Beta is supposed to include
ActiveX support. If it does, then Opera can truly take IE on head-to-head.
But all those extra features like MDI, tabbed windows, better
personalization, notes, integrated intelligent download client, et al are
nullified by an inability to render pages with embedded ActiveX objects.

That's about all I can manage this week. Have fun!!!

G Menon href="mailto:seeol
freeloader@Ph&
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