If you haven’t tried one of these apps for yourself yet, the premise is pretty simple. The user types a descriptive sentence into the AI generator, and the algorithm tries its best to generate an image that best fits the description.

So how are the results? Generally, they’re pretty amazing! Typing “squirrel soldier wearing battle armor” will yield some pretty artistic (and humorous) results. Once you’ve exhausted the weird and wonderful, these generators can produce some genuinely decent artwork.

One of the latest offerings in the world of text-to-art AI apps is PicSo, whose developers named “after Picasso to convey the idea that everyone can be a great artist”. Let’s take a look at the app to see if those claims stack up.

PicSo AI Art Generator

PicSo uses machine learning to search for themes based on the words you’ve entered and skillfully blends them into unique images. The concept might not be new, but the software does offer plenty of unique styles for your masterpieces, including settings for Van Gogh, Epic, Sketch, Octane Render, Cyberpunk, CG Render, Anime, Traditional Art, Digital, Ghibli, and many more.

How Easy Is PicSo To Use?

PicSo’s AI text-to-image converter is straightforward to use. Here are the basic steps involved:

Step 1: Click The Create Button

To start creating amazing artwork, click on the create button.

Step 2: Type In A Phrase

Enter a phrase to generate an image based on your input, select an art style and then click the create button.

Step 3: Press Save Or Publish

Once your art is generated, you can either save a copy or publish it online.

PicSo Pricing

PicSo is a free-to-use app, but there are some caveats. You can generate 3 free images per day on the app and 3 more on the website. You can unlock 2 further freebies by watching ads.

If you want to create more artwork than that, you’ll need to purchase a Pro subscription, which unlocks 100 credits per month, Pro styles, and multitasking. In addition, you’ll enjoy priority rendering for your images and the watermark will be removed.

Pro subscriptions cost $9.99 per month or $39.99 if you sign up for a whole year.

Summing Up

Overall, we really enjoyed using PicSo. The app is versatile, user-friendly, and constantly gets decent results. The artwork produced by PicSo is of excellent quality, and the site offers alternative formats for output and upscaling too. If we had to think of a downside, it would be that the free version is a little restrictive — however, the subscription pricing is very competitive if you purchase a whole year at once.

If you want to take PicSo for a test drive, head over to the official website.

The post PicSo Review: A Popular AI-Based Text-To-Image App appeared first on Tech Magazine.

Despite the tremendous importance of immediately and accurately responding to customer service questions, many businesses have not taken any steps to improve the quality of their customer service.

Why not? Often it’s because they’re not aware of the existence of powerful yet easy-to-implement help desk software solutions like Help Scout.

If you’re among them — or if you want to compare Help Scout with other similar help desk software solutions, such as Zendesk or Freshdesk — then this in-depth review is just what you need to make an informed decision.

What Is Help Scout?

Help Scout is a help desk software solution designed to manage all your customer conversations in one powerful platform that feels just like your inbox.

It launched in April of 2011, and it has since been used by over 12,000 customer-facing teams in more than 140 countries, including everyone from small businesses to high-growth startups and non-profits.

As a company, Help Scout embraces a remote-first company culture to hire the best talent the world has to offer. Its employees are based in 80+ different cities worldwide, and they enjoy flexibility and work-life harmony.

The diverse nature of the Help Scout team has allowed the company to build a help desk software solution capable of meeting the needs of businesses from around the world, giving them a better way to talk with their own customers.

Help Scout Platform Overview

Most businesses with an online presence that have yet to implement a dedicated help desk software solution provide customer service primarily via email.

Typically, they set up a dedicated customer support email address and give all customer support employees access to the associated inbox so they can respond to questions directly from their email client of choice.

The email-based approach to customer service works reasonably well when the number of questions sent by customers is very small, but it can quickly turn into a disorganized nightmare. When that happens, customer service satisfaction metrics take a nosedive, and some customers may decide to leave for competitors.

Help Scout provides an elegant solution in the form of its email-based customer service platform. As a user, you can configure all support messages to be automatically forwarded to the Help Scout platform, which provides a single point of communication with a wealth of customer service features that no regular email client offers.

Let’s take a closer look at some of these features to illustrate how Help Scout can elevate your customer service to the next level.

Shared Inbox

At the heart of Help Scout is its shared inbox, whose main purpose is to make it possible for multiple customer service employees to collaborate with ease.

Received messages can be assigned to individual team members based on their experience and areas of expertise, and they can be sorted by priority to ensure that the most urgent messages are dealt with first.

Private Notes

The users of the Help Scout platform can communicate internally directly within the platform itself using private notes. Such notes are not visible to customers, but they are displayed right next to messages in a convenient chronological view.

Individual notes can be assigned to specific team members, and you can even change their status to separate relevant notes from those that can be safely ignored.

Tagging

Just like most modern email clients, Help Scout has a flexible internal tagging system that can be used to organize customer support tickets by separating them into different categories, such as pre-sales, bugs, and returns.

All tickets that have been assigned a certain tag can be filtered out using the powerful search feature, which can also filter tickets based on their status, type, subject, time of creation, and more.

Saved Replies

Anyone who has extensive experience with customer support knows that some questions are asked over and over again. Instead of always writing a reply to each such question from scratch, Help Scout lets you use smart templates to reply with a few clicks.

What’s great about saved replies in Help Scout is that they can include variables, such as the recipient’s name, that are automatically filled in with the relevant information when used.

Automatic Workflows

Helps Scout has powerful workflow automation capabilities that can be used to automate all sorts of repetitive tasks, from internal tracking and organization to sending automatic replies or notifications.

Automatic workflows in Help Scout can have AND and OR conditions, and it’s possible to combine them together. When you create a workflow, you can retroactively apply it to existing tickets to keep your entire inbox equally well organized.

Knowledge Base

One way to greatly reduce the number of customer support messages you have to deal with is to create a knowledge base, and Help Scout makes this easy.

It takes just a few simple steps to create an elegant knowledge base that works on any device and has an auto-generated sitemap and configurable SEO options to please search engines like Google and Bing.

Multiple knowledge base templates are available, and each of them is fully customizable using CSS. Help Scout knowledge bases can also be used for internal purposes, as private knowledge repositories accessible only to select users.

Reporting

Thanks to Help Scout’s extensive reporting, you can evaluate how many tickets you get by channel, busiest hours, and trending topics. You can also see which knowledge base content gets the most views or who on your team is talking with customers the most.

All gathered data can be exported to CSV/XLS or extracted directly using the provided API endpoints for additional analysis using third-party software tools.

Customer Management

Customers love it when they feel a personal touch when receiving customer support, and the customer management module of the Help Scout platform has you covered in this regard.

With its help, you can see customer data, previous conversations, and app activity right next to every support request. Empowered with a wealth of useful information about each customer, you can send better replies in less time.

Beacons

Beacons in Help Scout are small pop-up windows that put help content front and center to keep your customers on track. A Beacon can provide an easy way to send an email message or start a live chat, but it can also display help content in a self-service fashion.

Besides providing help when it’s needed the most, Beacons can be used to promote newly launched products, special discounts, or seasonal sales, among other things.

Help Scout Integrations

A help desk solution like Help Scout isn’t the only software businesses need to thrive in the increasingly competitive and sophisticated world of business.

Fortunately, Help Scout supports many third-party integrations, making it easy to integrate it into your existing workflow. Here are some popular tools Help Scout easily integrates with:

• Slack: A team communication and collaboration app.
• Freshbooks: Accounting software for small and medium-sized businesses.
• Mailchimp: A marketing automation platform and email marketing service.
• Shopify: An e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems.
• CircleLoop: A cloud-based business phone system.
• Olark: Live chat software for sales and customer support.
• Capsule: A customer relationship management SaaS web application and mobile app.
• Pipedrive: A sales customer relationship management tool.
• WooCommerce: An open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress.

For example, you can configure Help Scout to automatically send a notification to your Slack channel when a new customer support message arrives, or you can pull customer information from WooCommerce (check out this interesting WooCommerce product video) and use it to write more informed responses.

But what if there’s no official third-party integration for a tool you strongly depend on? In that case, you can take advantage of Help Scout’s API and build anything you want.

Help Scout Pricing

Despite being so powerful, Help Scout is reasonably priced, and you can choose from three different pricing plans depending on your needs and size:

The Standard plan includes 2 mailboxes, 1 Docs site, up to 25 users, live chat, in-app messaging, the Beacon help widget, custom reports, automated workflows, customer properties, and third-party integrations.

The Plus plan includes everything the Standard plan does plus 3 additional mailboxes, 1 extra Docs site, no maximum user limit, 25 light users, custom fields, teams, advanced permissions, unlimited reporting history, advanced API access, Salesforce, Jira, HubSpot apps, HIPAA compliance, and enterprise security.

Finally, the Pro plan includes everything the Plus plan does plus tiered discounts, API rate limit increase, concierge onboarding service, and a dedicated account manager. Those who go with the Pro plan can create up to 25 mailboxes, 10 Docs sites, and 50 light users.

Non-profits and startups can apply for special discounted plans to save money. For example, non-profits that advocate for human rights, environmental sustainability, and underrepresentation in tech can get a discount of up to 100 percent.

Conclusion

With its emphasis on usability and a rich collection of powerful features, Help Scout gives businesses of all sizes everything they need to provide their customers with the customer service experience they demand and deserve.

Yes, there are even more advanced alternatives available, such as Zendesk, but the extra capabilities they offer, including Service Level Agreement (SLA) management, are not something many businesses are willing to spend a lot of extra money on.

If Help Scout seems like the right solution for you, then you should try the free version to see how it works in practice. You can also request Help Scout to give you a live 1:1 demo and answer any questions you might have about the help desktop software platform.

The post Help Scout Review: The Only Help Desk Software You’ll Ever Need appeared first on Tech Magazine.

A tool like this has the potential to help small streamers go viral with minimum effort required, but the results have to be convincing, and the tool itself has to be enjoyable to use.

Main Features

SwapStream recognizes that streaming happens on many different platforms these days, so you can expect it to work with YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and just about everywhere else, and you can even stream on multiple platforms at the same time.

Because SwapStream is a web-based app, you can use it regardless of if your computer runs Windows, Mac, Linux, or ChromeOS. It also means that you don’t have to download anything to your computer or install software updates from time to time.

When it comes to usability, SwapStream has a simple but functional user interface that takes very little time getting used to. It also helps that not that many options are available in the current version of the tool, so you definitely won’t feel overwhelmed when you use it for the first time.

Getting Started

To get started using SwapStream, you first need to sign up or log in with your Facebook account or Google email address. Once you’re in, you have two options to choose from: Start with Webcam and Set up for encoder. Use the first option if you want to swap webcam footage directly, and use the second option to connect SwapStream with streaming software like OBS (Open Broadcast Software).

I went with the first option, and SwapStream instantly detected my FaceTime HD camera and Bluetooth headphones, so all I had to do was click Enter to proceed.

The face swapping process itself is very simple, and it boils down to just three steps:

1. First, you need to upload a picture of your face to give SwapStream source material to analyze.
2. Next, you need to provide a picture of the face you want to transform your own face into.
3. Finally, you click Start Faceswap and wait a short while for SwapStream to work its magic.

You can then see the result in real-time. To share it with the whole world, simply click the Go Live button and connect the tool if the platform of your choice.

Convincing Results

So, how does the footage produced by SwapStream look like? Surprisingly convicting but the quality of the results greatly depends on the quality of the provided sample pictures, as well as the quality of the source webcam footage.

When I swapped my face for the face of Tom Cruise, I could instantly recognize the famous actor, and that says a lot because I look absolutely nothing like Tom Cruise.

Unfortunately, the footage produced by SwapStream seemed to lag a second behind the source footage, which resulted in strange audio synchronization issues that would immediately annoy real viewers and potentially make them close the stream.

Is It Worth The Price?

SwapStream uses a credit-based payment system. It costs 1 credit a minute to stream on 1 or 2 channels, and the number of credits required increases the more channels you stream on simultaneously.

All premium subscribers get 100 credits per month, and the premium subscription plan costs $19 a month or $179 a year, which means that a minute of streaming costs from $0.15, and that’s quite a lot of money when you think about it.

Of course, most streamers probably wouldn’t want to use SwapStream for the entire duration of their stream. For the occasional gag, SwapStream may really be worth the price — it all depends on how it’s used. The results it delivers can certainly look great, so the inherent wow factor of deepfake technology is there.

The post SwapStream Review: Real-Time Face Swap For Streamers appeared first on Tech Magazine.

What was once a private conversation is now on full public display for other potential customers as well as leaders of companies, and that’s a good thing.

Live Commenting Is Good For Business

Live commenting is a real-time, interactive way for customers and followers to engage with a company or product. Customers can give their opinions, offer suggestions, and even ask questions.

This live interaction builds trust and rapport between the customer and the company. It also humanizes the company, making it seem more approachable and responsive.

All of this leads to increased customer loyalty and advocacy, which is the best kind of word of mouth marketing there is.

It’s Also Great For Customers

Live commenting offers customers a way to have their voices heard. It gives them a platform to share their positive experiences and, just as importantly, to give constructive criticism.

Live commenting also allows customers to connect with each other. Customers can ask each other questions, offer advice, and build relationships. This sense of community is one of the main reasons live commenting platforms like FastComments are becoming so sought after.

FastComments Makes The Process Fast & Easy

FastComments is a platform that easily lets you add live comments to any website, blog, or app in seconds.

Imagine the impact you can create when your community is interacting over shared experiences with your product in real-time on your website or application. Don’t worry, with FastComments you won’t face any problems with spam as all comments are vetted by a classifier that is continuously trained, meaning unverified comments are automatically removed.

If you’re looking for an innovative way to keep your members engaged, look no further than FastComments. With their live commenting feature, members can post comments in real-time – perfect for lively discussion and debate. What’s more, live commenting also works with private member-only communities. So, if you’re looking for a way to add an extra element of interaction to your community, FastComments is the perfect solution.

Once you try their free demo you will ask yourself how you ever lived without live comments!

The post Live Commenting Helps Build Customer Loyalty & Brand Affinity appeared first on Tech Magazine.

One particular application that has received a lot of attention is the creation of the so-called deepfakes, synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced by AI with someone else.

The first deepfakes were created by experts on AI, and their creation took a lot of time and effort. Since then, countless deepfake tools have emerged, allowing virtually anyone to create deepfakes with a few simple clicks, and DeepSwap is among the best of them.

Creating Deepfakes Using DeepSwap

The main goal of DeepSwap is to make the complex deepfake technology accessible to everyone, and we can say that it accomplishes this goal perfectly.

When you open DeepSwap in your web browser, you’ll notice two things: First, a sample video showing what the tool is capable of. Second, a prominent “Create your own video” button that you can click to get started.

The first thing you need to do when creating your own deepfake using DeepSwap is to upload the video, image, or GIF you want to swap. You can upload videos that are up to 100 MB large and 120 seconds long, images that are up to 10 MB large, and GIFs that are no larger than 15 MB.

Next, you need to choose the face you want to replace the original with. There are some stock faces to play with, but what you really want to do is create your own by clicking the Create button. Don’t worry: The process is very simple, and DeepSwap takes care of all the heavy lifting.

Finally, you wait for DeepSwap to apply its sophisticated AI technology to create a convincing deepfake that you can then share with others.

Can DeepSwap Produce Convincing Results?

Knowing that DeepSwap is a relatively young deepfake tool, we approached it with some reservations, not sure how convincing results it would produce.

To our surprise, DeepSwap reliably produces deepfakes that are as convincing as deepfakes created using much less user-friendly tools, and it does so within a few seconds.

Of course, you’ll come across some glitches here and there, but that’s the case with pretty much all deepfake tools. What’s more important is that the glitches are not so severe that they would make the resulting deepfakes unusable.

How Much Does DeepSwap Cost?

DeepSwap is a paid tool, and there are two plans to choose from. At the time of writing this review, the 1-month plan was discounted from $19.99 per month to just $9.99 a month, while the 12-month plan was discounted from $99.99 a year to $49.99 a year.

All premium users get unlimited swaps, unlimited photo uploads, priority processing, and 20 credits per month. The credits are used to upload videos and GIFs, and it costs 1 credit to upload 15 seconds of video footage or 1 entire GIF.

DeepSwap processes payments using PayPal, so you can pay with your PayPal balance or with a debit or credit card.

Verdict

Overall, DeepSwap is a great choice for anyone who wants to create convincing deepfakes with minimal effort. The price of this tool is justified by its ease of use and quality, but it’s a shame that only subscription options are available. Hopefully, the creators of DeepSwap will introduce the ability to purchase a set number of credits for a fixed price in the future.

The post DeepSwap Review: A Great Online Deepfake Tool appeared first on Tech Magazine.

It’s estimated that consumers around the world spend $152 billion a year under the direct influence of fake online reviews, and the problem is only getting worse. The good news is that some companies are trying to curb the spread of fake reviews, and Fakespot is among the most prominent players.

What Is Fakespot & Why Should I Use It?

Fakespot is a service that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect dishonest reviews on popular shopping sites. The service seamlessly integrates with Chromium-based web browsers, Firefox, iOS, and Android, making it easy to analyze product listings to determine if they are trustworthy.

Fakespot was co-founded in 2016 by Saoud Khalifah and Rob Gross. The company is based in New York City, and it has so far raised $5.3 million in funding, with $4 million raised last year in Series A funding led by Bullpen Capital, with participation from Graph Ventures, Faith Capital Holdings, 500 Startups, and Ty Shay.

Also Read: Awok: The Rise & Fall Of An E-Commerce Giant

“Our mission is to be the most trust-obsessed company on Earth. That starts with empowering our customers to avoid e-commerce scams and make informed purchases. We make reviews more trustworthy with our consumer-first AI” says Khalifah.

While shopping sites are also battling fake reviews, they simultaneously benefit from them because customers are more likely to purchase a product that has hundreds of positive reviews, even if the reviews are fake. As a third party, Fakespot doesn’t have any stake in the game, so they really must bring out the big guns to detect fraudulent product reviews and third-party sellers.

The machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms used by Fakespot have been steadily improving since the launch of the service, and the user reviews showcased on Fakespot’s website suggest that the service is performing quite well, which is why we were so excited to put it to the test.

How Does Fakespot Work?

The quickest way to get started with Fakespot is to use the online analyzer. The online analyzer supports Amazon (in multiple languages), Walmart, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Steam, Sephora, and BestBuy. All you need to do to use it is to insert a product URL and click the Analyze button.

Fakespot will then instantly display the product’s Review Grade, which is a rating based on the authenticity of existing reviews. The service will also highlight the most noteworthy reviews and provide an overview with useful information about the product listing.

As useful as the online analyzer can be, its functionality pales in comparison with Fakespot for Browsers, which is a web browser extension compatible with Firefox and all Chromium-based web browsers, like Google Chrome and the new Microsoft Edge.

In addition to what the online analyzer can do, Fakespot for Browsers can display real-time review grades, review ratings, alternative sellers, analysis history, and special Fakespot offers. The last feature mentioned may seem especially exciting, but it basically comes down to Fakespot displaying ads to related products — not much to be excited about.

Where Fakespot for Browsers really shines is convenience. By displaying Fakespot reviews analysis directly on the product page, as well as on the search results page, it makes it extremely easy to find products with reputable reviews and avoid the rest.

The extra information provided by Fakespot for Browsers is integrated well, so it won’t degrade your online shopping experience in any way.

We really like that the extension works even if you don’t log in. If you decide to create an account or log in with your Google account, you’ll gain the ability to track your product searches, receive trusted offers from Fakespot product partners, and get important product updates.

Last but not least, Fakespot also offers mobile apps for iOS and Android. The apps feature a special web browser that integrates the same review analysis capabilities provided by the Fakespot for Browsers extension, allowing you to browse the web just like you’re used to and see the familiar Fakespot grade when you land on a supported product page. Alternatively, you can share products via other shopping apps and browsers.

Is Fakespot Worth Using?

Our experience with Fakespot was positive, and the service seemed to perform everything it promised. That said, we don’t have the ability to verify if the assigned grades truly reflect the trustworthiness of published reviews.

Not too long ago, Amazon reviewed the accuracy of Fakespot and found that it rated products as untrustworthy about 80 percent of the time. Soon after, Amazon got Apple to remove Fakespot from the App Store.

“The app in question provides customers with misleading information about our sellers and their products, harms our sellers’ businesses, and creates potential security risks. We appreciate Apple’s review of this app against its App Store guidelines” said Amazon.

This wasn’t the first time a large corporation accused Fakespot of being inaccurate. In 2018, a TripAdvisor spokesman said, “The claims about fake reviews are based on entirely flawed techniques. Their methods are unreliable for one simple reason: they have no access to the technical data you would need to determine whether or not a review is fake”.

As such, we recommend you try Fakespot for yourself and use your best judgment to decide if the service is useful.

Conclusion

Fakespot is fighting the fake review epidemic using advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms that are supposed to accurately tell fake reviews apart from legitimate ones. The service is easy to use thanks to the provided web browser extensions and mobile apps, but independently verifying its accuracy is difficult. But since it’s completely free, there’s nothing stopping you from giving it a test drive to see if it can save you from bad purchase decisions.

The post Fakespot Review: Easily Identify Fake Online Reviews appeared first on Tech Magazine.

Traditionally, brand assets were created using heavy-weight graphics editors like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, which are far from easy to use and are too expensive for solo entrepreneurs and small businesses.

RelayThat is a next-generation design automation app that makes it possible to create incredible marketing images for websites, social media posts, print and online ads, and other channels with just a few clicks — no graphic design skills required. Let’s take a closer look at what it has to offer.

What Is RelayThat & Who Is It For?

RelayThat describes itself as a design automation platform that takes the guesswork out of design, allowing its users to create professional marketing designs in a fraction of the time.

You can think of it as a modern alternative to traditional graphics editors. While it doesn’t offer nearly the same flexibility, options, and creative freedom as applications like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, it does make it possible to create attractive brand assets without wasting hours and days watching online tutorials and doing everything from scratch.

As such, it’s perfect for solo entrepreneurs, small businesses, startups, non-profit organizations, and everyone else who wants to see big results with minimal effort.

Features

Now that you know what RelayThat is, you’re probably interested to learn more about its features. We won’t cover everything this design automation platform has to offer because this RelayThat review would end up too long for its own good, so let’s focus on the main features.

When you create a RelayThat account and sign in, you’re greeted with a dashboard showing you all recently used workspaces and saved designs. A workspace is essentially an instance of the RelayThat editor, where you can work on a specific set of brand assets. There are pre-defined workspaces for all kinds of projects, so getting started is very easy.

Since you can create multiple workspaces and switch between them with a single click, managing multiple brands and marketing campaigns is effortless. But workspace management is probably the least exciting aspect of RelayThat. The real fun begins when you enter a workspace and start generating jaw-dropping designs.

The image above shows an example workspace in all its beauty. In the middle, you can see your design in all of its glory. The right pane lets you change all images and text that was used to generate the design. Finally, the left pane is where you can switch between different layouts and access stock photographs, fonts, color pallets, and more.

According to RelayThat, users can choose from over 3 million royalty-free images with no usage fees or additional costs, and the selection of fonts and color pallets is just as impressive. All these design elements can be used to instantly generate everything from online ads to YouTube thumbnails to business cards. You simply need to select the layout that best fits your needs, customize it, and either save it or download it to your computer as a JPG or PNG file.

RelayThat also makes it possible to create interactive designs with buttons thanks to its “Smart Layouts” feature. Again, all you need to do is pick a layout with buttons, customize it, and use it for your project. To make customization even easier and quicker than it already is, you can click the “Magic Import” button and let RelayThat automatically collect assets, including colors, photos, icons, and text, from any website.

All these and many other features make RelayThat an excellent graphic design tool that makes it possible for anyone to impress potential customers, users, or visitors with stunning brand assets.

Pricing

Great graphic design tools don’t come cheap, but RelayThat is certainly an exception. For just $25 per month, you can purchase the Pro plan, which lets up to 2 users create 20 workspaces, download an unlimited number of high-quality images, collaborate with other designers, change any responsive layout to perfectly fit any channel, upload custom fonts, add keywords to drive traffic with every image posted online, and much more.

RelayThat also offers an enterprise plan, which unlocks an unlimited number of workspaces and adds branded sign-in pages, data integration, white-label options, and large team collaboration capabilities. This plan doesn’t have a price tag attached to it because its cost depends on the size of the enterprise purchasing it.

RelayThat vs. Canva vs. Stencil

RelayThat isn’t the only solution that automates the creation of social media posts and marketing images. Canva and Stencil are both popular alternatives, each offering its own approach to brand asset creation.

Being a more mature product, Canva has more features than RelayThat, and it also enjoys a significantly larger userbase. With Canva, you get more freedom to customize pre-defined layouts since the tool lets you quickly add and modify all kinds of design elements, including images, text, and shapes. Canva also gives its users access to stock video footage and music, making it easy to create promotional videos.

Stencil aims to be a lighter version of Canva, designed from the ground up to be fast and easy to use. It provides full access to 4,900,000+ photos and 3,100,000+ icons and integrates with great social tools like Buffer.

The biggest advantage of both Canva and Stencil over RelayThat is that they offer free plans, which provide access to everything you need to start designing. Canva’s Pro plan costs $12.95 a month for up to 5 people, while Stencil Pro costs $9 a month per user. In other words, both Canva and Stencil are cheaper than RelayThat.

Read Now: Softonic Review: Is This Download Service Safe To Use?

Conclusion

Overall, RelayThat is a fantastic graphics editor for people who want to spend less time designing and more time enjoying the results of their work. It automates the design process to such an extent that generating a stunning design takes just a single click. If all this sounds interesting to you, we encourage you to try it yourself so that you can see first-hand what it has to offer.

Did you find our RelayThat review helpful in making a platform selection for your next marketing project? Let us know in the comments below!

The post RelayThat Review: Easily Create Engaging Marketing Images appeared first on Tech Magazine.

What Is Softonic?

Before diving straight into the Softonic review, let’s briefly talk about the basics. The Softonic download service is a website that allows its users to download millions of software applications and games free of charge. It’s used by over 100 million users every month, making it one of the largest of its kind.

The website was launched in 1997 as a file-oriented download service called Shareware Intercom. Initially, it was owned and operated by a Spanish provider of internet services and selected as one of the best places to work in Spain.

In 2015, Softonic changed leadership when industry veteran and Download.com co-founder Scott Arpajian was appointed as its CEO. Today, the download service delivers more than 4 million software applications per day and has a revenue of between $25 and $50 million.

What Does Softonic Offer?

Softonic offers a broad selection of software applications and games for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. The available applications are subdivided into the following categories:

• Browsers
• Security & Privacy
• Business & Productivity
• Internet & Network
• Multimedia
• Development & IT
• Education & Reference
• Lifestyle
• Personalization
• Social & Communication
• Travel & Navigation
• Utilities & Tools

While all applications offered by Softonic can be downloaded for free, the applications themselves are not always free, depending on their license. Here are the most common license types that you may encounter on the website:

• Free: You can use these applications for free without any restrictions.
• Free (GPL – General Public License): You can not only use these applications for free, but you can also study their code, modify them, and distribute them.
• Free With Ads: Ad-supported applications can be used for free, but they will display ads.
• Trial Version: Applications of this kind can be used free of charge only for a limited amount of time.
• Demo: These are limited versions of full applications that don’t provide access to all features.
• Paid: Such software can be used only after purchasing a valid license.

In practice, this means that clicking the download button when attempting to download an open source software application like VLC results in the download of an installation file, while clicking the download button on, let’s say, the Microsoft Word page redirects you to Microsoft’s website, where you can purchase a license.

Why Do Some People Doubt Softonic?

Softonic has been offering software applications for more than two decades, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it has both fans and critics. In fact, it doesn’t take much effort to find a whole host of negative reviews that accuse the website of distributing dangerous malware.

Just take a look at these examples:

• This website is a virus farm which will completely destroy your computer and litter it with so many viruses and trojans. You will have to either get your whole computer fixed or get a new one. (Source)
• Had so much trouble with Softonic before, installing stuff on my PC without permission, malware and takes forever to figure out how to get it off. Takes over your browser, and always leaves some unknown process running in task manager. (Source)
• I downloaded a software here and got a virus. Contacted them on twitter, they said everything was checked by over 30 antiviruses. I Trusted them, they lied. (Source)

Reviews like these are not to be taken lightly because a single malware infection can cost you hours and hours of valuable time, not to mention your data. That’s why it’s important to investigate whether they’re based on facts or fiction.

Is Softonic Safe?

On its website, Softonic claims to be the safest software destination on the internet, offering Clean and Safe guarantee to ensure a totally safe user experience.

During our Softonic review and thorough testing, we were pleased to discover that the platform doesn’t package software installers inside custom wrappers configured to download additional software and display annoying ads. When an application wasn’t available on Softonic’s servers, the site promptly redirected us to its official download page.

When it comes to downloading paid software, Softonic gives you the option to purchase a license from a trusted partner, which is sometimes the developer itself and sometimes a third-party company. We highly recommend you avoid giving your credit card information to third parties since doing so introduces too many security risks.

As long as you stick to free software and protect yourself by following the tips described in the next section of this article, you should be safe when downloading from Softonic.

How To Stay Protected When Downloading From Softonic?

The dangers you face when downloading software from Softonic are not much different than the dangers you face when downloading any files from the internet, which means that you can effectively protect yourself by keeping in mind the following tips for safe downloading:

• Use an antivirus: You can’t see inside installation files, but an antivirus can so make sure to always have one running on your computer.
• Install an ad-block: Like most websites today, Softonic displays ads to make money. Since the ads are selected algorithmically, they may not always be legitimate, so proactively blocking them by installing an ad-block is the safe thing to do.
• Avoid questionable software: Softonic isn’t responsible for the quality of the applications it offers, so you need to use common sense and avoid those with an overwhelming number of negative reviews.
• Don’t download what you don’t need: We understand that software applications can be extremely interesting to explore, but you should try to resist the urge to download everything you see.
• Back up your data: You should always be ready for the worst-case scenario by keeping your data safely backed up on an external storage device or in the cloud.

Also Read: Fresha Review – The Best Salon & Spa Management Software

Conclusion

Just like all download services that offer large quantities of software, Softonic contains both legitimate applications as well as applications that should be avoided. The site itself, however, can be trusted because it doesn’t distribute malware and actively tries to make its users safe. If you found this Softonic review helpful, do let us know in the comments below!

The post Softonic Review: Is This Download Service Safe To Use? appeared first on Tech Magazine.