How to Install Android 4.4 KitKat on PC via Android x86 ISO

Android has for long been restricted to smartphones and tablets, and is rightly considered as the mobile operating system. However, the advent of unofficial builds of Android designed exclusively for Intel's x86 hardware architecture with the likes of Dell XPS12 has changed the platform game.

Windows desktop or laptop or PC users are no longer restricted to using one-dimensional software and can indeed experiment with new open source software such as Android 4.4 KitKat, thanks to the release of fully-blown Android-x86 OS for PC.

Unlike the earlier builds, Android-x86 software extends support to numerous hardware manufacturers including Dell with an easy to setup installation procedure.

Prerequisites

1. Download the Android-x86 ISO file which is more appropriate for your laptop, desktop or tablet model (check for model numbers with the download links).
2. USB flash drive or a bootable CD/DVD drive
3. Ensure there is sufficiently free hard disk space on the computer/laptop on which you want to install Android-x86 OS:

• For Froyo – ICS, 2GB
• For Jelly Bean 4.2 and 4.3, 8GB
• For KitKat 4.4.2, 10GB

Steps to Install Android 4.4 KitKat on Your PC

• Download the version of Android-x86 ISO that's suitable for your computer hardware, and UNetbootin tool for flashing.
• Make a bootable USB drive with Unetbootin and the ISO image you downloaded earlier. Just click on the Diskimage button (see screenshot below) and select the ISO file you downloaded in step 1.

• Reboot the computer with USB drive as source by tweaking a couple of settings in system BIOS. However, latest computers often default to USB drive at boot time, whenever it's available.
• In the ensuing pop-up menu, select Install Android x86 to hard disk.
• Choose the partition where you wish to install Android x86. If you chose to use a new partition, don't forget to format it right away.
• Allow the install process to continue (Choose Yes or confirm to continue), as you are prompted to give permissions at various stages during GRUB Bootloader installation. Do not click cancel at any stage, else the system bootROM might get corrupted.
• Now another prompt will ask your permission to perform system /r/w (read/write operations). Just click Yes to continue.
• If you prefer to install ICS or earlier versions before KitKat, then you get another prompt to install virtual SD card. You may use 1800 MB of hard drive space as virtual SD card for flashing firmware. It is the maximum space supported.
• Once the Android-x86 software is completely installed, reboot the computer.

As this installation supports multiboot setup, you can switch between Windows or Android at boot time, according to your taste.

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Which Browser is Best? Chrome vs. Firefox vs. Internet Explorer

They're all free, fast, and compliant, but each of today's Windows Web browser choices has its own particular capabilities and features that may best suit your needs.

It's getting harder and harder to update this article—and that's a good thing for everyone but me, because it means that today's Windows Web browser choices are fast, secure, compliant with new Web standards. The products most people are likely to have heard of—Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox also sport trim, clear interfaces.

But each browser has its own appeal and unique features. Microsoft Internet Explorer excels at graphics hardware acceleration, as you'll see in the benchmark results in the reviews linked below. It's also the only 64-bit program of the lot, and the only one that includes powerful Tracking Protection against site code that tracks your browsing activity.

Google's Chrome exceeds other browsers in cutting-edge technologies like voice response and instant page loading for search. Firefox is known for its extensions that let you customize the browser beyond what's possible in the others. Other innovations include its clever Panorama bookmark tool and a Social API that makes it easy to integrate a social site into the browser.

A couple of lesser-known players—Opera and Maxthon—also have a lot to offer. Opera has been around since the early days of the Web, and it is now distinguished for two things. First is its Speed Dial start page of tile links. This page not only gives easy access to frequently used sites, but it can also even display live-updated content from said sites. The second is its Off-Road mode, which reduces webpage data by sending it compressed from Opera's cache servers. This can save you money on metered data connections.

Finally, and perhaps most extra-jammed of all, is the least-known of our browser candidates—Maxthon. A slew of tools like media download, screen capture, and integrated cloud services are just of few of this China-made browser's goodies. And it includes both Internet Explorer's and Webkit's page-rendering engines for extra compatibility. On top of all that it gets top grades of the number HTML5 features supported and does very respectably on speed tests.

Despite how excellent these browsers have gotten, website consumption is such a complex matter these days that every one of them will encounter particular sites that won't display correctly. A show of hands if you've seen Chrome's Aw Snap! page recently or gotten a message saying your brand-new IE11 is "out of date." Sometimes it's simply a matter of the site testing for particular browsers and refusing to let you in if your version and product don't fit their preset conditions—even if the site would work perfectly well in the browser. For these reasons, it's always a good idea to have more than one browser installed.

So while no one browser will be perfect for all your Web needs, you still have several excellent choices. It's just a matter of deciding what's most important to you. Dig into the detailed reviews linked below for plenty of help in making that decision. Note that these are Windows browers; Safari, which is no longer developed for Windows, is not included.

FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP

Chrome 33

Chrome's speed and minimalist design have deservedly attracted a devoted group of users to Google's browser. Leading HTML5 support means it will be ready for the future, application-like Web. Hardware acceleration adds even more speed, and though Google has implemented Do Not Track privacy protection (set to off by default), it's probably not the best choice for privacy mavens. Read the full review ››

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Firefox 27

Firefox versions keep coming at a fast clip, now that Mozilla hews to a Chrome-like rapid release schedule. These frequent versions haven't brought the kind of earth-shattering changes we used to see in new full-number Firefox updates, but the development teams have tackled issues of importance to a lot of Web users—startup time, memory use, speed, and of course security. This lean, fast, customizable browser can hold its own against any competitor, and it offers graphics hardware acceleration, good HTML5 support, and the unique Panorama system for organizing lots of tabs. Read the full review ››

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Internet Explorer 11 (IE11)

Now available for Windows 7 as well as for Windows 8 (but not for Vista or XP), Microsoft's latest browser is faster, trimmer, far more compliant with HTML5—a major improvement over its predecessor. It even now supports WebGL and SPDY, but not WebRTC. IE brings some unique capabilities like tab-pinning, leading hardware acceleration. Its excellent privacy tools include Do Not Track enabled by default and the more-powerful Tracking Protection feature.
Read the full review ››

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Maxthon 4.2

Recently re-dubbed a "Cloud Browser," thanks to its extensive online syncing and storage service, Maxthon is the app in this roundup known and used by the fewest people. But it offers among the most in tools, and surprisingly good performance and HTML5 support. If the idea of being able to take a screen capture of a webpage, download video, or switch to a dark view for night viewing appeals to you, give Maxthon a download. Site compatibility is guaranteed, since Maxthon uses both Chrome and IE's webpage rendering engines. The latest version even adds hardware acceleration.Read the full review ››

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Opera 20

Like the other current browsers, Opera is fast, compliant with HTML5, and spare of interface. Long an innovator, recently it's added support for HTML5 getUserMedia, which lets webpages access your webcam (with your permission, of course). Opera's Off-road mode speeds up the Web on slow connections through caching. It's dropped a few of its distinguishing plusses like built-in BitTorrent and email clients, and now defers to Chrome code for its page rendering—which does mean it's fast and supportive of new standards. Read the full review ››

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Microsoft Goes After iOS, Android With Universal Apps

App developers put a lot of time and energy into building their world-changing software, and they have two major desires concerning the endeavor—that the development process is as smooth, quick, and streamlined as it can be, and that its audience is as large as possible.

That's one reason you see more new apps coming out for iOS rather than for Windows Phone. And you see more apps on iOS rather than Android because of the ease factor: Android developers have to build code that runs on a plethora of different versions and hardware.

At its Build conference this week, Microsoft - in a single move - made advances in both areas. How? By bringing forth the Universal app. These apps, Microsoft claims, will allow developers to re-use 90 percent of their app code when moving from one target device to another. The concept of "write once, run anywhere" has long been goal for programming, with Java, and now the Web, being its chief exponents.

Another way Microsoft will increase the target audience for Windows Store apps is by placing a Taskbar button for the store in the desktop Taskbar in Windows 8.1 Update. With 200 million Windows 8/8.1 PC licenses sold, that should add a significant number of app installs.

Elsewhere on the ease front, Windows App Studio lets even people with no programming skills create Universal apps that will run on all the same target device types. They can even sell their apps in the Windows Store just like seasoned developers. A similar tool just for non-developer business users isProject Siena, currently in beta 2.

Real developers, however, will use the new Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC. Microsoft's Larry Lieberman, senior product manager for Windows Development Platforms, gave me an overview of how the new coding scheme works using this environment. First, the dev chooses a language of choice—C#, C++, DirectX, or HTML/JavaScript Store apps, and then chooses the Universal project template. Three sets of code for the Universal project goes into three "nodes"—shared, Windows Phone, and Windows Store. Lieberman told me that the vast majority of code will live in the shared node, and indeed you could have all an app's code in there, meaning all devices just need one code base.

Then the programmer can generate apps for each target platform, but it will also allow the developer to tailor it to each type of device. Things like notifications, file access, and device properties use the same programming interface for all the platforms but, for example, Windows Phone Cortana speech input and Action Center integration will only apply to Windows Phone. Some controls such as the very useful hub and listview controls will port effortlessly among the form factors, rendering dynamically to match the device's needs. I've seen promises of a single tool creating adaptive layouts for devices of differing dimensions from the likes of Adobe and Square. But even with these tools it's never a push-button proposition to get a big-screen app to work on a small screen and vice versa.

Universal apps bring not inconsiderable benefits to end users, too. They'll be able to install a Universal app on all their devices from the Store on one device if the developer has configured the app for that. But that's not all—in-app purchases will apply to all instances of the app on all their devices, and the apps can use shared roaming data. Push notifications will also go to all devices on which the app's installed.

A lot of tech news stories are reporting that this capability already extends to the Xbox, and indeed Microsoft demonstrated this in a Build keynote presentation. But that's more something on Microsoft's roadmap than a current capability for developers using Visual Studio.

Will Universal apps and Taskbar buttons for the Store make Windows and Windows Phone the low-hanging fruit for developers like iOS? Probably not any time soon. But allowing a single project to work on phones, computers, tablets, and game consoles may indeed more appealing for them to either stay with or test out development for the new Windows platforms.

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Windows Phone 8.1 vs. Android 4.4 KitKat: Microsoft plays catch-up, but still lags behind

Microsoft has spent the last few years struggling to gain relevance in the mobile world, which is an unfamiliar situation for the undisputed king of desktop software. Android was already starting its meteoric rise as Windows Phone launched in 2010, but the open nature, customizability, and rapid update cycle have helped Google’s platform take the lion’s share of the mobile market. Now Microsoft is taking aim at Android by ditching OEM licensing fees on Windows Phone and adding a plethora of new features seemingly designed to counter Android.Let’s see how Windows Phone 8.1 stands up to the latest and greatest version of Android.

Windows Phone 8.1 vs. Android KitKat: Voice control

Smartphone platforms are essentially required to have a voice assistant of some sort in this day and age, and now Microsoft has built one for Windows Phone — it’s called Cortana (like the Halo AI). Cortana is designed to be conversational and a little bit quirky. You can ask Cortana to find restaurants, then chain that together with a question about an item on the list like the time to reach it. Want to hear a joke? Cortana can do that too.

Android has voice search built into Google Now via the official search app. It handles most of the same queries as Cortana, but it’s not anthropomorphized — it’s just voice search. Whereas Cortana is using Bing, Android is tied directly into Google’s search and mapping products. You can ask for various bits of information and Android can provide it by producing cards from Google’s knowledge graph. This is probably a little more practical for simple queries.

Microsoft was keen to point out that Cortana learns about you and refines the data it provides. Google Now and voice search do much the same thing, but it doesn’t need to learn over time — most of what it needs is already in Gmail and your search history.

Google’s voice interactions and card-based Now predictive search are tightly integrated, and Cortana also has a few similar features. Summaries of information you might find relevant are presented by Cortana at convenient times. You might get traffic information when you have a meeting planned or flight information before a trip. Of course, Google Now on Android does much more, but this shows Microsoft is thinking about ways to surface more data.

Cortana also plugs into third-party apps like Hulu to give you control of various functions.Android 4.4 KitKat does this in a limited fashion, for example playing music from multiple apps. The framework is there in Android to do more, but it hasn’t been implemented to quite the level of what Microsoft demoed with Cortana. If this can be expanded to work with more apps, it could make voice interactions much more appealing on Windows Phone.

While it seems like Cortana can at least stand up to Google voice search, it’s only going to be out in the US at first, and it’s explicitly a beta product. When Microsoft says beta, it usually means beta. Android’s voice control evolves with each update to the search app in Google Play, which could allow Mountain View to quickly improve and leave Cortana in the dust.

Windows Phone 8.1 vs. Android KitKat: Customization

Microsoft started with Windows Phone as a fairly static platform with slick design, but little in the way of customization. This has changed little by little as the company adds more personal touches. This has been one of the main focuses in 8.1, and probably the one people will notice most. Backgrounds are a basic thing on most platforms, but it has taken Microsoft a long time to come up with an approach that jibes with the live tile interface. In Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft has integrated background images with the tile layout — the effect is actually quite nice.

Windows Phone 8.1 also brings lock screen customization at long last. Android only added true lock screen customization in late 2012 with version 4.2, but in true Android fashion, it’s a very open approach based on widgets. Third-party developers have made this feature worth using on Android by developing very cool, information-dense lock screen content. Microsoft is improving here, but it’s not going crazy. The new OS will add a range of built-in lock screen themes that offer various pieces of information and layouts.

Microsoft has made it easier to feel at home with the interface on Windows Phone 8.1. It only takes a few taps to get a really attractive, customized look. Android 4.4 offers a ton of customization options, but it’s not as simple to come up with something that looks great. Still, you can go further than Windows Phone would allow with a little tinkering.

Windows Phone 8.1 vs. Android KitKat: Settings

Microsoft has tried a few ways to make notifications better on Windows Phone, but in this new version it just gave up and did what Android came up with years ago. It’s nothing to be ashamed of — Apple did much the same thing. The Action Center is accessible with a swipe down on the status bar and shows you all the recent notifications on the device. Above the notifications are an assortment of quick setting toggles. This is an almost mirror image of the notification implementation in several builds of Android.

If you venture more into the settings of Windows 8.1, you’ll come across features like Data Sense. This tool tracks your data usage and can alert you to impending overages — a must have in this age of capped mobile data. Android has an almost identical feature, though it has a few more options like custom alerts and background data restriction. Google added this in version 4.0 back in late 2011, but it hasn’t been improved upon since then.

Android has struggled with battery life throughout its existence, but there have at least always been tools to tell you how badly your phone was performing — thanks, Google. Microsoft has traditionally had good luck with battery life on Windows Phone, but it’s adding a lot of new capabilities this time around. To make sure users can still make it through a day, there’s Battery Saver. This menu offers a breakdown of what’s eating up the battery and offers settings to reduce the drain. Stock Android still doesn’t include a simple power-saving mode, though many OEMs have created their own. Microsoft is doing better with battery savings than stock Android, but it’s not as wild as the extreme battery saving modes in KitKat builds from the HTC One M8 and Galaxy S5.

Windows Phone 8.1 also brings Internet Explorer 11 with support for sharing tabs across devices. You’ll be able to see the tabs you have open on the desktop and other mobile devices from the phone. This is almost identical to the setup on Android, though this is reliant on the Chrome app in Google Play rather than a full OS update.

Storage Sense is Microsoft’s attempt at making the obfuscated file system in Windows phone a bit more accessible. It allows you to choose storage locations for new content and move things like photos, music, and apps between the internal storage and SD card. Android has a completely open file system, but has actually started clamping down on SD card access in Android 4.4. Apps can no longer mess with the data of other apps on the SD card, making file explorers less useful. Android is still a bit more complicated and powerful in this respect, but Microsoft is getting closer to finding a reasonable middle ground.

Windows Phone 8.1 vs. Android KitKat: Catching up

Looking at Windows Phone 8.1 in a vacuum, it seems like a solid OS upgrade. There are more features, settings, and some nice UI tweaks. Windows Phone doesn’t exist in a vacuum, though, and Android is way out in front. Many of the additions to Windows Phone are similar to what we already have on Android devices, but that’s fine — Microsoft needs to play catch up if it has a hope of gaining ground.The emphasis placed on Cortana shows how seriously Microsoft is taking voice interaction. Google has a big head start in implementation, but Microsoft has been working on machine learning and voice recognition for a long time. If it can bring its full technological might to bear on Cortana, perhaps it will be the clear victor down the road.

Windows Phone 8.1 compares fairly well to Android KitKat, but Google is rumored to be planning a big revamp of the platform in the next version. Microsoft isn’t planning to roll out the new Windows Phone for a few more months, which might end up being a problem as Google I/O is coming up fast.

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