The Download Blog

Apple's App Store has a new set of pirates.

Game maker Ubisoft has released Assassin's Creed: Pirates for iOS. The game is essentially a pirate simulator, allowing gamers to engage in naval combat, build up their pirate ship, and explore the Caribbean. Gamers play as Alonzo Batilla.

The Assassin's Creed franchise has been extremely popular on consoles. The latest launch, Black Flag, is also set on the open seas and features pirates. Black Flag is available on consoles, but not on iOS.

Assassin's Creed: Pirates is available in Apple's App Store for $4.99. It … Read more

A recent report by the AV-Test Institute found that exploits in Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, and Java account for 66 percent of Windows systems affected by malware.

In a 10-year-plus study, AV-Test uncovered that one exploit for Adobe Reader had nearly 37,000 recorded variants that exploited user machines with high levels of precision. Users with outdated software or versions known to be susceptible stood virtually no chance of avoiding malware damage without some form of protective software.

The biggest offender? Java, which had a whopping 82,000 attacks spread across different versions, making it one of the most vulnerable … Read more

Think about how you process your daily snail mail. If you're anything like me, you separate the important items -- bills, letters, cards, and so on -- into one pile and the fliers, catalogs, magazines, and other stuff into another.

Free iOS app Cannonball applies that same concept to managing e-mail on your iPad, automatically separating the wheat messages from the chaff messages and presenting them in a visually appealing format. It also incorporates a few handy elements from popular e-mail client Mailbox.

The app supports Gmail, iCloud, Outlook.com, and Yahoo, and offers a unified inbox for users … Read more

Following in the footsteps of Vine and Instagram, another well-liked Android and iOS app has made the leap to Windows Phone. This time it's Mint, which makes its debut on both Window Phone 8 and Windows 8 today.

If you're not familiar, Mint is an online service that pulls in transaction data from your bank accounts, credit cards, and loans to help you keep track of your spending and create financial goals, such as paying down debt or saving for a new home.

The Windows Phone app comes five years after Mint launched its first mobile app, for the iPhone, … Read more

Adobe Systems has been more aggressive of late with its subscription plans, and we'd like to know if you think they're worth it.

That's right: It's time for the fourth Adobe survey in a series that CNET and analyst firm Jefferies are running to try to gauge customer sentiment about Adobe's products and its transition to a subscription company.

Click the link above if you want to take the survey, but here's a preview of one part: We'd like to know if you signed up for Adobe's Photoshop Photography Program.

The program … Read more

Imagine spending the winter globetrotting to such exotic locales as Mykonos, St. Tropez, Marrakech, and Ibiza and partying with the likes of Stephanie Pratt from "The Hills," model Elisabetta Canalis, and rapper Tinie Tempah, among a host of local insiders.

This season your champagne wishes and Hvar dreams will finally be realized, guided by travel connoisseur and "Bold and the Beautiful" soap star Jacqueline M. Wood on new series "Party On," which showcases the most exclusive party destinations around the globe. Audience members won't feel left out, since the interactive series encourages plenty … Read more

If you're one of many shoppers heading out to stores this Black Friday, you'll need backup to find the best deals. I've combed through the Google Play store to find three Android apps that give you an early look at the sales, find extra discounts, and even let you earn rewards while you're out shopping.

Hopefully you're reading this from your tent outside a big-box store, since people have been lining up for Black Friday deals for almost a week. But if you're not camping out, you might still be able to get a … Read more

Chrome and Opera have become the first browsers to match Mozilla Firefox's support for Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 and the Web-based Epic Citadel demo that's built on the 3D graphics technology. The demo's computing challenges include 3D graphics covered with 2D textures, rustling leaves, flowing water, reflective stone floors, lens flare, and shadows and other lighting effects.

Mozilla and Epic Games demonstrated the advanced Web programming in March using a combination of Mozilla technologies: Emscripten that converts C or C++ software into JavaScript, and asm.js that can run a specialized subset of JavaScript much faster. … Read more

As Turkey Day approaches, so does the the much-dreaded shopping season with its onslaught of store "deals" and half-sales competing to pry you away from your hard-earned cash. But if you're anything like me, then you probably haven't gotten your Christmas shopping strategy together yet. That means venturing off into the unknown and hoping that you won't get ripped off too badly.

But this year I made a commitment to get my act together and shop sensibly. Armed with my trusty iPhone 4S, I compiled a list of apps to find the best deals on … Read more