On the Mac, QuickTime is a recognisable video application - it ships with every computer. On the web, QuickTime has become old news. Alternative encoding methods have become commonplace, offering smaller file sizes, leaving QuickTime way behind.

Perian is an add-on for QuickTime that makes it compatible with a huge range of video file formats. That makes it much easier to watch a range of video content on the Mac: FLV, DivX, MPEG4 and so on. Instead of constantly hunting for codecs or players, QuickTime becomes the "Swiss Army knife" of video players - a phrase its developers are proud of.

Once Perian is installed, users see far fewer popups about missing codecs. The content just plays as though it were a native QuickTime file. The only downside is that its support was phased out from QuickTime 10, and Perian is in the process of being put out to pasture.

Other benefits include:

• Broad support for audio files.
• Subtitle support.
• Simple options and preferences.
• Intel and PPC compatible.

Grab Perian now before it disappears from the web for good.