Microsoft has yet to comment about rumors of yet another extension for Windows XP that first started circulating late last week, but that now seems to have changed, with a spokesperson for the company reportedly confirming in an email to InformationWeek that it is in fact pushing the end date back six months, all the way to July 31st, 2009. According to the spokesperson, that’s being done to make sure that customers moving to Vista are “making that transition with confidence and that it is as smooth as possible,” adding that, “providing downgrade media for a few more months is part of that commitment.” We believe that it has something to do with the fact that consumers don’t want to move to Vista.

Today, Comcast added a video download store to its Fancast online video site. Until this annoucement, Fancast featured free streaming video from Hulu and CBS video websites. Now users of Fancast can rent or purchase TV shows and movies, as well there is now a bigger selection of new releases and older movies. The Fancast Store is much like Amazon Unbox.

While Fancast started out as a video streaming service and moved into downloads, we have heard reports that Amazon may be moving in the other direction. What makes this service funny is that Comcast recently announced plans to limit the amount of bandwidth the company’s internet service customers can use each month. If Comcast wants you to spend $3.99 to $20.00 to download videos which can be several gigabytes, the company may get rid of the download limitations.

Here are fifteen free portable applications that should be on your flash drive.

Web and Internet

Operator – Opera is not everyone’s favorite browser, but it works great as a portable application. As well as being a browser, it features anonymous browsing built in to keep you safe. We also recommend Portable Firefox that is if you are on a trusted network.

Pidgin – Pidgin lets you use one application for many different chat services, it’s the best option for a multi-chat application. Be sure to check out the encryption plugin for security.

Filezilla – Best FTP program PERIOD.

Peer-to-Peer

μTorrent – Small and very efficient torrent program that is under one megabyte in size.

Frostwire – Efficient download program that uses the gnutella network.

Cleanup and Support

CCleaner – CCleaner deletes all the personal data left on your computer.

Revo Uninstaller – Revo is much better than windows add/remove programs.

Treesize Free – Tells you where you are using the most hard drive space. Makes drive cleanup an easy task.

Teamviewer – TeamViewer makes it easy to make connections to any PC around the world.

Multimedia

CDBurner XP – Easy CD and Dvd burning program. That knocks Nero to the ground.

VDownloader – This free program downloads YouTube videos. VDownloader is capable of saving in a number of video formats, or if you want just the audio it saves as MP3.

Irfanview – For image viewing and basic edits like crop, rotate, resize, rely on Irfanview.

VLC – Videolan is simply the best portable media player because it supports so numerous formats and does not require you to download codecs. Here’s another reason why you need VLC player, it has been download over 100 million times.

Document Editing

Notepad++ – Notepads freeware BIG brother features macro recording, syntax highlighting, tabbed interface and much more.

Foxit PDF Reader – Adobe Acrobats worst enemy. Foxit PDF reader is super fast, never crashes and of course is free.

What other portable apps do you recommend?

A couple of hours ago, Google released it’s Chrome Web Browser. We were excited about the new web browser and clicked download, but not before I saved a copy of its terms of service. We know that many users would like to know what they are agreeing to.

Here are a few things that stood out to us.

1. Google reserves the right to automatically update and install Chrome.
This is quickly becoming standard with almost all software these days, but is worth noting.

“The software which you use may automatically download and install updates from time to time from Google. These updates are designed to improve, enhance and further develop the services and may take the form of bug fixes, enhanced functions, new software modules and completely new versions. You agree to receive such updates (and permit Google to deliver these to you) as part of your use of the services.”

2. Although you keep any copyrights to content you own and use in the browser, Google says it has a right to display some of your content, when promoting its services.

“By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services.”

3. Pages in Google Chrome may contain more ads.

“Some of the services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the services, queries made through the services or other information.
The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Google on the services are subject to change without specific notice to you.”

Besides Google Chrome’s terms of service, pay attention to the settings when you install it. The default settings, create shortcuts, so if you don’t want this, be sure to click “customize these settings.”

Google Chrome, the new browser from Google that Google fans everywhere have been waiting for years is now available, keep in mind it is a beta version. Just like Google, Chrome is simple, easy to use and fast. Google Chrome uses the open-source WebKit browser as the foundation for Chrome. Currently there is only a Windows version of Chrome, even though WebKit is the foundation for the Safari search engine on the Mac operating system.

While Google Chrome is installing, Google Chrome asks to import your bookmarks, browsing history, and passwords. This allows an easy switch over to Chrome almost instantly. Amusingly, Chrome asks if you would like Google to be your default search engine, or if you would like to specify a different one.

Here’s a walk-through of the Chrome user interface.

The interface for Google Chrome is simplistic to say the least, with browser tabs at the top of the window rather than below the other browser elements such as the address bar:

Tabs can be rearranged by dragging them. The tabs look like most file folder tabs, rising vertically above the window.

The browser is certainly fast, opening Gmail is a snap. New tabs open instantly, and instead of displaying a blank window you are given a quick launch window showing your most regularly visited sites:

While the main user interface is plain, the options windows are even more simple. There are only three tabs of options, and none of them change the user interface. Users that like to change settings of their browser will be complaining:

What are your thoughts about Google Chrome, Google’s new browser?

The well known classifieds site, Craigslist, has always been simple yet, outstanding. Other web services changed their content to AJAX, and Flash, while Craigslist kept the same design since the beginning. The site has kept people coming back for some time now, so there hasn’t been much need for change.

Craigslist has been in the news over the last few weeks for unpleasant reasons, so it’s in good reason that Craigslist now has an official blog where CEO Jim Buckmaster can post his thoughts.

Here’s the interesting thing, Buckmaster is discussing the hot issues of the day on the blog, and engaging with his audience directly. Users can even leave comments on blog posts (although not on the same page as the post). But the blog still feels old school. It has a plain layout, and there’s not even an RSS feed. Welcome to the 21st century Craigslist!

Apple released an updated version of the Safari web browser today, with many improvements on performance, compatibility, and reliability. Safari 3.1 also adds support for CSS 3 web fonts, HTML 5 audio and video elements, and other web standards. Safari was the first browser to pass the Acid2 standards test, but unfortunately it failed to pass the Acid3 test.

The update also includes:

Improved JavaScript performance
Enhancements to the Windows version including localization in 16 languages, Improved back/forward performance, and better pop-up blocking
Double clicking on the tab bar opens a new tab
URL metadata is included when images are dragged or saved from the browser
Support for trackpad gestures back, forward, and magnify on MacBook AIR and Pro computers

Download Safari

One thing that has always annoyed us about Windows is how it brings up an AutoPlay menu asking if we’d like to burn a disc, watch a movie, or perform some other action. Or if you have selected an option, Windows may just automatically launch a program.

To our relief CleanHandler came along. It is a freeware program that helps you remove or fix entries from the AutoPlay menu. Sadly there’s no option for adding new programs to the AutoPlay menu. If your media player of choice doesn’t support AutoPlay, there’s not much CleanHandler can do. But it can clean up bad registry entries.

Go download it

eBay has just release eBay Desktop 1.0. Right after Adobe Air 1.0. Which they did purposely. It provides a desktop alternative to the eBay website. eBay users can use it to search, browse, bid, keep track of their auctions, and more. And because it uses Adobe AIR, it runs on both Windows and Max OS X.

The eBay Desktop installer is just 7 MB (Adobe AIR installer included). Installation was fast and simple, starting up the program was a little difficult because it crashed, but it finally opened.

When you first start the program, you are shown a video introduction to the eBay desktop. The eBay desktop home page allows you to track all your bidding and watching activity, and there are separate tabs for finding items, tracking and paying for your winning bids, and a feeds tab.

eBay has spent some time creating this program, and it shows. The user friendliness is a major plus. One drawback is some features are not available for sellers. Sellers are not able to track the items they’re selling or past sales.

Canonical has just released some more details and pictures of Ubuntu Mobile, a version of the popular Linux OS designed for mobile devices using Intel’s Silverthorn processor. News that Ubuntu Mobile was in progress has been known for some time, but it looks as though the operating system is coming closer to an official release. Source code is available now to developers, note that we do not recommend installing it on a device unless you’re willing to risk erasing all of your data.

Details we know so far: Ubuntu Mobile will include touch-screen support and large icons. The OS is designed for 4.8-inch through 7-inch screens with resolutions from 800 x 480 pixels to 1024 x 768 pixels. The default web browser is based on Firefox and supports Flash 9 and Java.

Some of the applications will include:

Skype with Video support
Audio and video players
An email client with support for POP and IMAP
An RSS Reader
PIM software

Via Canonical