Tips &
Recommended Software
NOTE: for current regular tips, instructions and advice, visit my Facebook Page
Recommended
Software
Occasionally, I will write up a list of my latest top free recommended Windows programs. Watch my Facebook Page for updated posts, or, check out my latest list on my tech blog Tweak. Note: the current list on Tweak is a bit out of date.
NOTE:
THIS PAGE IS BEING UPDATED. SOME OR ALL OF THE LINKS BELOW MAY NO
LONGER WORK. SOME OF THE SOFTWARE LISTED BELOW IS STILL ACTIVE/BEING
UPDATED AND IS SOMETHING I WOULD RECOMMEND - SEE MY FACEBOOK PAGE FOR
THE MOST UP TO DATE TIPS AND ADVICE.
Security
Firewall
For most home users, the operating
system's built-in firewall is sufficient.
Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware
– AVG
Free Edition
One
of the best anti-virus
programs out there, and
it's free! Fairly simple to use, yet powerful. And they have updates
almost every day. It takes up very little in the way of system
resources as it runs in the background. The occasional pop ups to
install other software or upgrade to the pro version can be declined.
And, although they are annoying, the pop ups for AVG Free are less
annoying than the pop-ups and reminders for the other good free
anti-virus programs.
Anti-Spyware
Malwarebytes
An
excellent anti-spyware
program for doing
regular manual scans. The definitions are updated frequently, and
this will catch a lot more junk on your computer than some of the
commercial programs. This is the best current scanner for ad-ware and
spyware. For most people, the free version works fine. To install the
free version, download the free version from the link above, and when
installing, un-check the option to eneble the free trial.
Anti-Spam
- Mailwasher Free
If
you get a lot of spam
all the time, this is the
program for you. With it you can bounce the
spam back at them and never see emails from the same spammer twice.
Internet
Browser
Mozilla
Firefox
This
is the
browser I recommend (over all the other Mozilla/Netscape browsers,
Opera, and over MS Internet Explorer). The core of it is small, but it
is
powerful, especially with the ever-growing amount of available
extensions. And it is more secure than Internet Explorer. It is also
very customizable, so it can be tuned to your liking.
Email
Mozilla
Thunderbird
This
is the companion to
Firefox. More
customizable and user friendly than Outlook (and less bloated).
Productivity
Libre Office –
Office Suite
Libre
Office is an off-shoot of Open Office from when the Open Office project
stopped for a while. This is an all-around better version and it is
updated and improved frequently. This
is a free open source
office suite that is
comparable to and is sometimes better than Microsoft Office. It is
also able to open MS Office files, and you can save to MS Office file
formats too (if you need to). There are still some minor things in
the file conversion processes that fall through the cracks, but
improvements are continually being made in this and in other areas of
the suite. Included are the following programs:
Writer
(word processor)
Base
(database)
Calc
(spreadsheet)
Draw
(drawing)
Impress
(presentation)
Math
(equation editor)
Note:
you can export to PDF
format from all of
these programs.
GIMP
– Image
Manipulation Program
http://www.gimp.org/
A
small but powerful image
manipulation program –
an alternative to Adobe Photoshop.
Google
SketchUp
– 3D Design
http://www.sketchup.com/
A
simple yet powerful 3D
design program.
Media
– Video, Music and Image ProgramsVLC Media Player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
A very good simple media player/viewer, that will also play DVDs and
streaming audio/video. It is able to play pretty much every format of
digital video and audio file.
Picasa - photo viewer, editor, slideshow
http://filehippo.com/download_picasa/
A fairly in-depth but fun and easy to use program for viewing,
editing, and sharing your photos (and videos). The program has been
discontinued and they have changed to a web-only format, but you can
still download the last version from the link above.
Utilities
& MiscellaneousCobain Backup
http://www.cobiansoft.com/cobianbackup.htm
An easy to use
backup program for scheduling backups daily, weekly,
monthly or whenever. It also backs up to CDs, DVDs, network drives and external drives
7Zip
http://www.7-zip.org/
A free program for compressing or decompressing a number of compression
file formats. It will open zip, rar, cab, iso and many other file
types.
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