This topic is great thanks to everyone for the advice
Had fun googling all your tips
I ran the command "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras" and that seemed to get the codecs I was missing.....is that the right thing to do?
What are ppa's and which ones should be on my system?
I managed to update firefox to the daily updates so it seems to be better for me
Now all I need is a good cd-ripper, version alternative to winrar and a decent iTunes alternative (just for my iPod) and I will be happy to swicth