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The recently released Firefox 4 is a big improvement over previous versions of the popular Web browser, but you can still teach it plenty of tricks.

Some downloadable software is so good that you just have to grab it. Unfortunately, often you have to pay for it after you try it out. But every once in a while, a must-have program is totally free. Such indispensable, no-cost programs are the hardest kind to find.

Like everyone else on the Internet, you likely use one or more of Google's many services, from search to Gmail to Google Calendar to Google Docs. And like plenty of other people, you probably have wished that these services could do even more, or that you could make them run exactly the way you wanted.

Much as coelacanths have changed only slightly despite millions of years of evolution, some bundled Windows apps have scarcely progressed since the dawn of Microsoft's operating system. Today's Notepad text editor, for one, barely differs from the 1985 version.

As Android's popularity continues to mushroom, the number of Android apps available has surpassed 100,000. That's good news because there are so many possibilities to choose from, but bad news because the sheer volume of options is becoming overwhelming and it's hard to know which ones are worth downloading. And if you using a different phone OS, you may suffer from serious Android envy.

Microsoft Word is ubiquitous: It's the standard word processor in most places of business, and it often ends up installed on home PCs due to compatibility and familiarity. It isn't the only choice, however. Whether your main concern is price, complexity, specialized functionality, system footprint, or some combination of the above, you might have many reasons to look beyond Word.