I’ve been using Turbotax for 13 years now.

Good product

I have had numerous versions of this program over the years. The earlier versions were very easy to use. Later versions became more complex and frustrating to navigate. This new version fixes some of the complexities and I find it easier to navigate. You can very easily construct a tree and find plenty of flexibility in producing reports. The online info is vast and interesting… it is also very expensive once you get past the relatively short free period.

I am a heavy user of Sony Movie Studio and quite a fan. I wanted to try Corel to see how it compared. I was significantly hampered because it crashes every time I try to use an mts file from my camcorder. Works fine with AVI and other video files, but not mts… unfortunately, these are the files I work with most. Looking up the problem, it turns out that one has to have updated video drivers from Intel.

This works fine… but is unnecessary. You can use online free products like yousendit.com and sizeablesend.com and many others (just google). It would be fine if it allowed huge downloads but you are limited to 2gb and you pay 120 a year. I can’t tell what people have downloaded. I see no benefit to this except that it automatically zips. If you use the free products and you have more than one file to send, you zip them into 1 first.

This installed easily. Comes with a headset. Recognition is very accurate. It does lots of shortcuts on the computer (eg tell your browser to go back. This is more of a gimmick because it is easy enough to use the mouse. The headset is very comfortable but it is a pain to have to wear one. I think there is no way around this. I type well but this would be fantastic for someone who doesn’t.

If Microsoft 8 works faster and better under the hood, great. I am not opposed to the pretty tiles.. but they lead to apps that just don’t cut it. I have spent years finding and working with programs (mail client for example) that do what I want very well. Great if they come up with a better mail client but they haven’t… and it is unlikely that they will be better than the market (this was always Windows’ strength.

I was very concerned that this product apparently changes all the defaults without an option to refuse. I therefore choose to install on my older computer. It isn’t that old in that it runs Windows 7… but it has slowed down considerably which is why I upgraded… So keep that in mind that this may not apply to you.. but it crashed on install and I couldn’t use the product. I would try it on my newer computer but I am reluctant to have all my defaults changed.

I have used many versions of FTM. I will leave the details to others but I find this version cumbersome and confusing. I think they put out new versions sometimes just to get more sales, not to improve the product. In particular, I find it hard to navigate through the tree. It used to be a family unit was on the screen and you could click on any one of them…then fill in their relatives…then that would lead to others.

I was worried when I read the reviews and I have to say I had to spend 30 minutes trying to figure out where stuff was and if it was still the same as my previous version. It did the job. Took a while for me to find the frame sizing portion. not intuitive but works. I still use it over MS publisher but both programs have their merits.