MP3 Software - Brief Guide

To listen to MP3 music
You need MP3 player software unless you have browser plug-ins.

To extract music from an audio CD
You need ripper software to extract sound tracks and turn them into certain kind of sound files so that you can save them for later use.

To convert a sound file into MP3 format
You need MP3 encoder software.

All-in-one does it all
All-in-one software is a combination of player, ripper and encoder. With one such software, you can generally avoid the troubles associated with using different software. All-in-one software is especially good for beginners