free

Ziggy TV is an all-in-one YouTube downloader and file converter with some extras, including a Net radio player, streaming Internet TV, free movies, and online games. It searches for music and videos on YouTube and plays or downloads and converts files to audio formats such as MP3, AAC, and even FLAC, as well as video formats. It's compatible with most versions of Windows, including Windows 8. While it's freeware, it's the free version of a "Pro" shareware app that offers higher quality conversions and more formats, so some of its premium features may be disabled.… Read more

To be sure, more parents than ever before are using electronic devices like their iPads and iPhones to entertain young children. These amazing devices are tailor-made for kids to swipe and tap games or movies. But some of the games, developed specifically for toddlers and other preschool-age children, utilize certain shortcuts that can present problems.

One such game is Coloring Shapes for Toddlers. The app is fairly straightforward in that, once you open it, you press the "Touch to Color!" button and can start coloring one of many shapes. Tap a color and the brush and start coloring … Read more

The iPad and coloring books are a match made in heaven. Coloring, which has kept children around the globe amused for generations, translates very well to the lap-size screen and finger-oriented interface. Coloring Book for Toddlers attempts to capitalize on that perfect fit and does so quite well in many ways, though not without some issues.

Coloring Book for Toddlers is exactly as it sounds. Open the app and you can choose from four coloring book categories. Only the first -- animals -- is unlocked in the free version, but there are quite a few pictures in each coloring book … Read more

This is a guest column. See below for Greg Lukianoff's bio.

Last month was a bittersweet seventh birthday for Twitter. The Union of Jewish French Students sued the social-media giant for $50 million in a French court in light of anti-Semitic tweets that carried the hashtag #unbonjuif ("a good Jew"). In January, Twitter agreed to delete the tweets, but the student group now wants the identities of the users who sent the anti-Semitic messages so that they can be prosecuted under French law against hate speech. Twitter is resisting. It claims that as an American company protected … Read more

Mirror's Edge. Rush City. Temple Run. Subway Surfers. Agent Dash. Pitfall. If endless runners are your thing, you'll find no shortage of them in Android and iOS app stores.

So when Vector (Android | iOS) came along, I thought, "Meh, big deal, more of the same." So why can't I stop playing this game?

Because it's awesome, that's why. A side-scrolling endless runner (aka "free runner") that borrows its formula (if not its dystopian plot) from the likes of Mirror's Edge, Vector grips you from the first frame of its dramatic … Read more

The most popular iOS game of all time is Angry Birds, a combination of simple puzzler and semi-intuitive physics that can be played between stops on the train and is extremely popular in all of its many forms. So it's no surprise to see a game like Simple Catapult Free, an obvious riff on the Angry Birds formula, in the App Store. The question, of course, is whether the game is unique enough to warrant a download all its own or if you are safe sticking with the tried-and-true Rovio formula.

Simple Catapult uses rocks instead of birds and … Read more

The iPad is a perfect device for piano training. It is compact, easy to mount near or at the piano, and contains countless apps for practicing and training with scales or chords. So does Piano Scales & Jam Free provide enough features and an intuitive enough design to be useful for someone learning the piano, or is it yet another simple scale trainer like so many others in the App Store? It falls somewhere in between.

Piano Scales & Jam Free is simple at first glance. When you open the app you can choose to either practice scales as outlined … Read more

Unlike zipping files, creating compressed ISO archives isn't as easy as a simple right click. Free ISO Creator is a solid tool to help you turn multiple files into a writable ISO image file. The program does exactly what it says it will. However, it's not the easiest or most customizable creation software you'll ever use.

The program gains major points just for being free. There aren't many similar programs that can say the same. However, there are a good deal of things missing that might be available in a paid program. Free ISO Creator is … Read more

No matter what the reason, there are times when listening to an entire song is just too much. Free MP3 Cutter helps you slice off any unnecessary parts of an MP3 track you don't want. The program has no extras but does what it is supposed to do well.

This program's outdated layout isn't going to win it any awards. That does, however, mean it's easy to find the exact feature you're looking for. It's hard to say if that's a testament to how simple the layout is or how lacking the program … Read more