Five Star Simple Software: #1 Gom Player.

The first of a long promised series of software recommendations, where I'll highlight the picks I've found in my travels and experiences online. As we all seem to get more time poor these days I just don't have time for software unless it sticks core guidelines that tend to be along the lines of;

1. Simplicity, in design, operation & usage.
   
2. Lightweight in file size & processor usage.
3. Just get the job done well
   
4. No sneakiness. So thats no nagging or overtaking your system. [A la' usual suspects Adobe, iTunes/Quicktime & Real Player.] So that means no making useless folders in your 'My Documents' or shares or phoning home.
   
   
   

So up first, the unusually named GOM player. While most people have Windows Media player or Quicktime by default on their platform, why do you need one more? Well, probably because the other two try painfully hard to be the center of attention on your system. Both are large in file size [Quicktime needs a diet for sure], one prompts you to have a license just to listen to your music, or the other hogs your system tray and asks you pay to do anything other than basic features. No thanks.

With those two trying to compete and hog your system whenever they can, it's a breath of fresh air with software that just does as it says on the tin. Being the 'Computer guy' amongst many family and friends, I've throughly road tested this for over a year on many different machines. To date I've heard zero complaints. As the Gom player site says, its free, light and just works. No spyware or ads, and with some excellent features such as intuitively playing the next file in alpha/numerical order such as a tv series your watching, and also finding the codec you need, without you having to all the work.

With an excellent set up process, and enough advanced features there for those that want to get technical with it, it makes it a great all rounder for everyone. It keeps its interface, simple, clean, and effective. Playing MP3,WMA,OGG and most other music formats as well as XviD, DivX, FLV, MP4, H263, MOV [sadly you'll still need Quicktime or Quicktime alternative as its a closed codec to get .MOV's thorugh it] but once done, it truly is one app for the lot. With low CPU usage, skins should you need them, and much more, this is one of those essentials I install on every machine.

Oh yeah, it's also 100% free.