Welcome to the latest TWT newsletter. This month is all about our favourite web browser, Firefox. Version 3 has finally been released to the public and brings with it a whole host of new features and improvements.

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In this months issue:-

1) What's new at Top-Windows-Tutorials.com?
2) Firefox 3 Arrives - New Features and our Favourite Plug-ins
3) Tip of the Month - Get Organised with Google Calendar
4) Free Utility of the Month - Firefox 3
5) It's official - XP Is No Longer For Sale!

What's new at Top-Windows-Tutorials.com?

What a bumper month for our readers. We posted 4 tutorials for Evidence Eliminator, the most powerful file shredder on the market.

We also showed you how you can play DVD's for free, on any version of Windows, with VLC player Also, we updated our Outpost Firewall tutorials and our AVG Free tutorials and finally, we showed you how to use the hottest new free spyware remover, Spyware Doctor Starter Edition.

Firefox 3 Arrives - New Features and our Favourite Add-ons

Firefox version 3 has finally arrived and we are happy to report the new browser is working just great, including being compatible with most popular add-ons. What are the major improvements in the new browser? Extensive changes "under the hood" mean a faster, less memory intensive, more standards compliant browser. More immediately noticeable changes include an improved download manager and improvements to the favourites (bookmarks) and history managers.

Rather than waffle on about all these great new features, you can simply experience them yourself. Firefox 3 is our free utility of the month! If you haven't downloaded it already, go to the Firefox homepage and grab your copy now!

Firefox 3 is compatible with most popular Firefox 2 add-ons, though some may need an update when you install the new browser. There are so many cool and useful add-ons for Firefox, we thought we would bring you a run-down of our favourite 5, so here they are, in no particular order:-

AI Roboform Toolbar for Firefox

The best Windows password manager integrates seamlessly into Firefox to improve your browsing security and speed up the use of secure sites. Never forget an online password again!

Diigo Bookmarks and Web Annotations

Store and tag all your favourite sites, share your best web discoveries with your friends and even add notes, highlights and annotations to web pages. The best social bookmark tool on the web!

Flashblock

I hesitate to recommend this add-on because we use Flash extensively on Top-Windows-Tutorials.com! However, so do advertisers who desperately want you to watch their latest advertising video while all you want to do is access your web page. Flashblock solves this problem. Instead of seeing video content, you'll see a 'play' button instead. Click the button and the video loads. Not interested in the video? Don't click the button and it won't load, saving you valuable time.

Mcafee Site Advisor

Mcafee's Site Advisor plugin alerts you to potentially dangerous websites before you visit them. Sites that are known to be safe are given a tick, whereas sites that might install harmful spyware are given a big red cross. There are thousands of sites in the database and it is expanding all the time, making this a great add-on to help you with safer surfing.

Piclens

This is one of the most fun add-ons available for Firefox today. Ever wanted your computer to look as cool as the computers you see on sci-fi shows on TV? You'll love Piclens! On supported websites it turns Firefox into a 3D picture and video browser. Aside from looking really cool, its actually pretty useful too, and allows you to browse images and videos really quickly.

Tip of the Month - Get Organised with Google Calendar

Do you have a busy schedule? Do you work on several PC's at work and at home? Google's web-based calendar can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection and can be used to store appointments, birthdays and anniversaries or any important dates. You can even share your calendar with friends or work colleagues and even synchronise with Microsoft Outook calendars! Find out more by visiting the Google Calendar homepage. Outlook users should also check out Google Calendar sync.

Free Utility of the Month - Firefox 3

What else could our free utility of the month have been this month? Our favourite web browser gets faster, more efficient and smarter. If you haven't downloaded it yet, hop over to the Firefox homepage and grab your copy.

It's Official - XP Is No Longer For Sale

Ok, perhaps we are being a bit over-dramatic here, many computer stores are still stocking Microsoft's venerable operating system, but, as of June 30, 2008, Microsoft will not be providing any more stock. Many die-hard Windows XP fans will be disappointed that Microsoft has not extended that deadline once again, despite petitions to the software giant to do just that.

This doesn't mean that XP users are left high and dry, not yet anyway. XP will still be fully supported until the end of 2009, and limited support is promised until 2014. By then, the new version of Windows (Windows 7) will be available.

Looking back over XP's long lifespan, its worth remembering that although XP was a quantum leap forward in terms of stability and functionality over Windows 98/ME, it too met with some frustration when it was first released. However, most users saw immediate benefits from using XP because of its greatly improved stability. Going from XP to Vista can be much more daunting. Improvements to security such as User Account Control can prove to be intrusive at first and older machines can struggle to run Windows Vista with all its bells and whistles. If you still shun Microsoft's newest operating system, let's not forget that Vista does bring some big improvements over XP, particularly in the areas of security and networking. If you're still struggling with Vista, don't forget about our Windows Vista basics videos

Like it or not though, this is the beginning of the end for Windows XP, but don't worry, XP is still the most popular desktop operating system in the world and Top-Windows-Tutorials will continue to support XP users for the foreseeable future.

That's all for another month. We hope that you enjoyed our newsletter, if you didn't then please let us know why, you can contact us by visiting this page. If you have enjoyed this newsletter, feel free to pass it on to all your friends and family, or better still encourage them to sign up for their own copy! Until next month, keep checking Top-Windows-Tutorials.com and enjoy happy, safe and stress-free computing!