Ashampoo Burning Studio 14 review: A competent burning suite, mildly upgraded

Ashampoo Burning Studio 14 is a nice, but extremely mild, upgrade to what is now one of the longest-lived and competent CD/DVD/multimedia burning suites available for PC. It offers all the usual features: CD/DVD/Blu-ray burning, jewel case and cover editing, movie and slideshow creation, plus backup from PC and mobile devices, and does so for an affordable $50 ($20 to upgrade from a previous version).

New features in version 14 are the ability to write password-protected and encrypted discs, and one-click backup of mobile devices. Alas, the one-click backup seems to accept only an optical disc as a destination. Most of the backups that ABS performs may be stored anywhere, even across the network.

Ashampoo Burning Studio14 is easy-peasy to use and pleasing to the eye.

ABS 14 will create, burn, and also let you browse .iso, img, bin/cue, and its own .ashdisc image files. It also copies non-copy-protected discs and gives you the impression that it will do the same with copy-protected movie discs. It doesn’t, but it won’t say so until it runs into an unreadable sector, which can be well into the process.

The video editing and movie production (menus, themes, etc.) in ABS 14 are basic, but provide all the functionality that most users need. The themes are friendly-looking, but not terribly cutting-edge. For home users, they’re fine, but they won’t impress in the board room. The variety and quality of the transitions for movies and slideshows, however, are very nice.

ABS 14 understands nearly all the major file types, including AVCHD. You can import files into projects as separate scenes, or combine them with a basic but effective single-track editor. You can also burn discs from movies ripped to folders.

Ashampoo Burning Studio 14's video editing is simple but capable.

ABS’s backup capabilities are also rudimentary, but sufficient. It performs backups at the file-level backup to a single large file, which may also be encrypted. You can save them anywhere you want: your hard drive, optical disc, or the network. The device backup routine, as mentioned, only backs up to disc. It did a nice job backing up my Windows Phone 8 phone and my iPad, though only the images in the latter. Android devices are also supported.

There are still plenty of uses for optical drives, so if you have the need for a well-rounded suite that fully supports the technology, Ashampoo Burning Studio 14 deserves a look. If you don’t need the movie editing, image browsing and other advanced features, there’s also a free edition of Burning Studio that’s very competent.

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Review: Avira Internet Security 2013: Competent but confusing

Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Silicon Valley. She has a love/hate relationship with social media and a bad habit of describing technology as "sexy."
More by Sarah Jacobsson Purewal

Avira Internet Security 2013 is an acceptable antivirus program—if you happen
to be an expert in security jargon and working your way through a somewhat
unfriendly user interface. This particular security suite passed our tests (though,
not with flying colors) and even managed to come out on top a couple of times,
but it’s not for the average user.

In our real-world attack test, Avira managed to completely block 94.4 percent
of attacks, and partially block 5.6 percent of attacks. This indicates how well
the product will block new malware threats when it encounters them in the wild.
While this result is solid, it’s not good enough compared to the top competitors:
Five out of the 10 security suites we tested managed to completely block all
attacks.

In our malware-zoo detection test, which determines how well a product can
detect f known malware, Avira detected 98.8 percent of samples. Although
respectable, this percentage still puts Avira in the bottom half of the suites we
tested—six suites managed 99 percent or higher detection.

Avira was able to detect and disable 100 percent of malware infections in our
system cleanup test, but was only able to purge them completely about 50
percent of the time: That’s the worst cleanup rate of the suites we tested. Avira
did perform impressively well in our false positives test; it didn't flag a single safe
file as malicious.

Avira is a fairly lightweight program, and it won’t slow down your computer
too much. It adds less than a second to startup time (as compared to our test
computer without any antivirus software installed), and roughly two seconds to
shutdown time. Avira's suite did drag down file downloads more than we'd like,
though. It’s acceptably quick with on-demand scans (1 minute, 41 seconds, the
fifth-best of the group), and also fairly speedy with on-access scans (4 minutes,
26 seconds, the fourth-best of the group).

Avira’s installation process isn’t the quickest, but it’s fairly easy to get through.
There are about six screens to click through, and the last one requires some
basic personal information—your name, email address, and country. You are able to opt-out of installing the toolbar and Avira SearchFree (if you choose to
just install the toolbar, Avira will change your default search to SearchFree).
You’ll also need to restart your computer once the installation process is finished.

When you first restart your computer, you’ll be inundated with pop-up windows
from Avira as the program tries to determine which of your already-installed apps
should be able to access the Internet. This can be annoying if you’ve got a lot of
apps (including things like AIM and Yahoo Widgets), but luckily Avira remembers
what you choose to allow.

Avira’s user interface isn’t very straightforward. The main screen has a large
checkbox on top that shows whether your computer is secure, and smaller
checkboxes to show PC protection and Internet protection. The left side of the
screen has options for different types of protection (PC protection, Internet
protection, child protection, mobile protection), as well as an administration
section for scheduling scans and viewing reports.

However, clicking on any of these links in the left bar is just…confusing. Screens
are clearly set up for advanced users: For example, if you tap “Web Protection”
under the Internet protection section, it shows you non-user-friendly information
such as what the last scanned URL was. If you tap “Avira Firewall,” you’ll see
the current security level of the firewall and what that means—“Flooding and
Portscans are prevented.” While this information is great if you’re an advanced
user, it means nothing to the average consumer.

The settings are also difficult to access and very confusing. Each screen has
a “configuration” button, which requires you to turn on “Expert” mode (as if
you aren’t already in it?) and takes you to a terrifying, jargon-filled menu full
of checkboxes and nested menus. At least there are descriptions of different
settings in this screen (they pop up in a box when you roll over them).

At the end of the day, Avira Internet Security 2013 is a competent antivirus
program. But being merely competent isn’t a great thing, especially when it’s
combined with an interface that's for advanced users only.

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Competent, Easy-to-Use Magix Digital DJ

Magix Digital DJ 2 ($50, feature-limited demo) is very nice representation of what would've once been about $10,000 worth of DJ audio equipment. It's rather sedate in appearance compared to the skinnable VirtualDJ and Mixxx, but it's also logically designed and makes it very easy for you to get to relevant tools and functions.

As with nearly every other DJ program, Digital DJ 2's interface is based around a library, two players/turntables, and a balance control to manage the output level of each player. You load files from the library into the players, play them, and do your cross-fades with the balance control. Also on hand are other DJ essentials such as cue for auditioning, one-hundredth second precise alignment forward and back, waveform display with loop marking, individual tempo and volume sliders, and so on. There's an entire section dedicated to looping as well.

Though not as flashy as MIXX or VirtualDJ, Digital DJ 2's interface is logical and well thought out.I have two very minor complaints about the Digital DJ 2 interface. First, it lacks tool tips--those little hints that pop up when you hover over screen elements and controls. Their absence makes it a bit harder to get up to speed, though it should still be very intuitive to anyone with DJ experience. Second, I'd like to be able to right-click and send all the files I've selected in the library to a new playlist. As of now, you must drag them to an existing one.

As far as file support is concerned, Digital DJ 2 understood WAV files up to 96 kHz/32-bits, WMA, MP3, Apple normal and lossless, OGG, and FLAC. It didn't recognize APE, and it loaded, but wouldn't play, Windows lossless files--but those are two rarer file types. Digital DJ 2 ships with and utilizes the free ASIO4ALL audio driver, which reduces the latency of your audio system down to around 5 millisecond. Though adequate for playback, the normal WDM audio drivers respond far too slow for implementing real time FX such as tempo changes or scratching.

A DJ's most important talent is people skills--knowing what a crowd of people want, what they will react to, how they'll react, and when to press the right button. Digital DJ 2 will only provide the button, but it does so in a very comprehensive and logical, if not glamorous, manner.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's website, where you can select the correct version for your system. Also, the audio drops out every 4 minutes in the Digital DJ 2 demo, but it is otherwise feature intact. Take it for a spin (very bad pun intended).

--Jon L. Jacobi

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