Run your favourite software online

Avoid the hassle and risk of downloading and installing programs by running them in your browser instead. Jonathan Parkyn reveals the easiest and cleverest ways to use software online

Run programs from the cloud using Cameyo

You’re probably already familiar with the concept of portable apps – programs that you can run from a USB stick, rather than having to install them on your PC. But what if the apps themselves were stored in the cloud rather than on a physical drive? That’s precisely the idea behind the brilliant Cameyo (online.cameyo.com/public), which offers a massive library of apps including VLC, Foxit Reader, OpenOffice, Picasa and many more, that you can run straight from your browser.

Force web pages to load faster

Even with a super-speedy connection, the web can seem slow to load. Robert Irvine reveals how to beat the delays and get content instantly

Reduce the amount of data used by pages

The less data a web page uses, the faster it loads in your browser, which is why Google’s new Data Saver extension for Chrome (bit.ly/datasaver370) is such a good idea. It compresses content such as photos and design elements without affecting the appearance of pages. The add-on tells you the size of a page before and after compression, often reducing data by over 50 per cent. Sadly, it doesn’t yet work with secure HTTPS or incognito pages, and there’s no word of a Firefox version, but we definitely noticed a small boost in loading times.

Data Saver is also available in the Chrome app for Android. You can turn the feature on and check how much data you’ve saved over the last month by going to Settings, Advanced and tapping Data Saver.

Ad blocking declared legal by German court

A German court has ruled that the popular adblocking tool Adblock Plus is legal to use, following a complaint from a group of publishers who want the add-on banned.

Adblock Plus does just what it says on the tin: when you install the extension in your browser, it blocks all ads from displaying on web pages and in online videos. The German publishers wanted to ban the tool from blocking ads on their websites, which are – like many other sites – partly funded by advertising. After a four-month trial, the court disagreed and said the software was indeed perfectly legal.

What’s Important in Website Analytics

There’s no doubt that we live in the data era. Today, nearly everything we do online is trackable.

Even more importantly, new analytics tools appear every day to crunch this data and provide marketers and businesses with insights we simply didn’t have in the past.

In the business world, companies that base decisions on data are more successful than those that do not. The culture inside the most successful companies in the world, like Google and Amazon, is data driven, and decisions are usually made based on what the numbers say rather than what the most senior person in the room thinks.

Optimizing Conversion: Hands-On UX Analysis

Improving conversion rate on a client’s site can be a challenge

Finding a page with decent organic traffic, high conversion rate and low bounce rate is a proverbial diamond in the rough. Something in the user’s experience of that page resonates strongly with users – but what? Thankfully, Web analytics allows us to see what is working and what isn’t.

In this article, we’ll analyze a site that is predominantly information-based, focused on getting users to register for the site and regularly purchase on-site content.