Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: tapakeg on September 05, 2006, 07:17:12 PM
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Let's hear some testimonials, what is the best free software out there?
Try not to list things that have a trial period. FREE !!!
My wife's computer would not defrag by running the defrag in system tools, I'm not sure why. I downloaded
THIS (http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/)
and it worked wonders. It is also FAST.
For cleaning up your hard drive and fixing simple issues
CCLEANER (http://www.ccleaner.com/)
works great.
of course there is AD Aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/) and Spybot (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/)
I was getting a ton of spam and was not satisfied with Firefox as an e-mail client. I know, I know outlook sucks, but it is what works for me.
Trend Micro Anti-Spam (http://www.trendmicro.com/en/products/desktop/anti-spam/evaluate/overview.htm)
Is working great so far. I still have the fear that some important email is going to go in the spam forlder for a while. It is also just easier to delete them, but I would rather battle them.
Ok, I know those are pretty basic, what else works great for free?
And please, there have been plenty of "AVG" discussions around, so let's just avoid that one ok?
:D
Let's share what works for you, and maybe some horror stories on what to avoid.
Tap
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avast antivirus
zone alarm
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Is there a need for a firewall such as zonealarm if you are running winxp firewall?
Or is XP firewall like a wet napkin?
XP has a firewall, my router says it has a built in firewall, do I need 3?
Tap
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EasyCleaner (http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm) is an all-around cleaning tool that gets rid of just about everything but spyware/malware. Registry cleaner, junk cleaner, ect...
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http://www.irfanview.com
Awesome graphics viewer, freeware, small, very well written.
Opens virtually every graphics file known to man, saves to most file types including windows icon.
Does Screen capture, slideshows, and of course editing of pictures.
Rotate, flip, resize, color depth, convert to grayscale, enhance color, negative are just some of the options. Only thing it doesn't do is create from scratch like paint.
Best of all its easy to learn.
http://www.utorrent.com/
Best of the torrent downloaders. Its tiny, full featured, easy to configure.
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If you don't want to buy Microsoft Office, there's a free suite from Sun Microsystems called Open Office. Go to openoffice.org. Works just like Word, Excel and is compatible with MS files (.doc, .xls, etc). There's a Powerpoint and Access clone too, I believe although I've not used them yet. Just installed it on a new laptop and works great.
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do a search for "Real alternative".. plays real-player media without having to install their software. Also available is a quick-time alternative as well, both work great.
Open-office is awesome! Only problem is doesn't convert excel too well, but word and powerpoint files don't seem to be an issue.
Avast antivirus I love, but I had some issues with zone alarm awhile back, left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm behind a hardware router anyway so I don't think a firewall is all that important for me.
I used to have an open-source equivalent to Photo shop, but I can't remember the name of it. Once I get my real system fixed, I'll be reinstalling it. Just do a seach for "open source picture editor". It did all the same exact things as photoshop.
I paid $10 for ad-aware awhile back before it was commercially released.. and I'm entitled to free updates and everything. Best $10 i ever spent on computer software.