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As anyone who has spent evenings searching for and watching the occasional grumpy or existential cat video (don't look at us), you know that there are a ton of videos to weed through before finding the right one. YouPlayer offers users a way to search for their favorite video, and while it doesn't really offer anything different from the official YouTube app in terms of search, it performed as promised.

YouPlayer opens with a self-explanatory interface. Search options reside at the bottom of the screen. You can search by Featured videos, Most Viewed, and Trending. If you can'… Read more

LogMeIn is a remote access tool that allows you to connect from one device to another, acting as though you are sitting in front of the remote device. LogMeIn needs to be installed on the devices you wish to remotely control, and then those devices are accessed through a Web browser or app. LogMeIn requires a subscription, although there is a free trial period.

When you connect remotely to a machine, you see your desktop or you can work through a menu-driven interface instead for tasks like file transfers. We used LogMeIn several ways. We started by installing LogMeIn on … Read more

SoundCloud is meant to allow people who work with audio files a lot to manage their workloads and their libraries. The idea is to use SoundCloud to listen to sound files from others and to share your own. To do so, you need to set up a SoundCloud account. SoundCloud installs easily on Mac OS X 10.6 or later.

The SoundCloud interface is similar to iTunes: there's a list of folders and playlists on the left, a middle pane that lists music files, and a panel on the right with more information about a selected file. There's … Read more

We were impressed by Unarchiver for Mac, a free, supereasy app for opening almost all compressed file types. It integrates easily with your computer and worked perfectly in our tests.

As soon as you download Unarchiver for Mac, a little pop-up window will prompt you to customize the application to specify which files it should handle, where to save the extracted files, and whether the compressed file should be deleted after decompression. After that initial setup, you'll see the program's icon automatically anytime a compressed file is detected. Double-click the detected compressed file, and Unarchiver does the rest. … Read more

Some drivers wear out their welcome yet refuse to leave. You delete them and reboot, and yet there they are, somehow restored, no matter what you do. You can eject those unwanted hangers-on with help from Phyxion's Driver Sweeper, a free tool that can delete or update your system's drivers. It helps you avoid driver conflicts and failure-to-update by deleting obsolete and unwanted drivers, allowing your system and software to install the latest versions. Driver Sweeper lets you create custom filters to update specific drivers, and it can also create backups of the drivers you remove. If you … Read more

With energy costs perpetually rising, you don't have to be all that green to want to reduce your energy use and expenditures. Energy Cost Calculator from AB-Tools is freeware that calculates how much energy your appliances use, and how much it's costing you. It's easy to use, but you'll need to know your electric utility rates, usage habits, and appliance types for the program to calculate your energy costs. Energy Cost Calculator's database includes many examples, and you can add new ones, too.

Energy Cost Calculator's compact interface opened with an optional tool tip … Read more

Freeciv Portable is Freeciv, the open-source civilization-building game, rendered totally portable by PortableApps. As with the installed version, players attempt to build empires over a timescale spanning the Stone Age to the Space Age. Freeciv Portable lets you play new games, save and return to games, and connect to network games, just like the regular freeware. Freeciv's been around a long time, and the original version from the mid-1990s was based on an even older game from the Days of DOS, Sid Meier's Civilization. It's gotten much more sophisticated since then, in both look and gameplay.

We … Read more

Every now and then we get tools we can't really review because they're only for fixing problems our test system (thankfully) doesn't have. Case in point: the dreaded 80070005 family of errors, which can appear when you're trying to install software, update a driver, or do something else that ought to be totally easy but for some reason has become the focus, and thus the bane, of your existence. That's where Security Restore enters the scene. This free tool from Rizonesoft simply attempts to restore your PC's default security settings when something happens to … Read more

The Kodak ESP line is meant for budding photographers and families that need a simple device to output family photos, collages, and personalized photo snapshots. The latest 3.2 all-in-one delivers print, copy, and scan functionality in a compact frame that still gives creatives access to a 2.4-inch color screen that accepts light photo edits. … Read more