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Essential programs to any computer?

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I

impirius

Member
Firefox
Thunderbird
AVG (or other anti-virus)
Ad-Aware
Spybot: Search & Destroy
Google Toolbar
Trillian (or other IM program)
Winamp
OpenOffice (or other office suite)
Metapad
 
I

impirius

Member
Metapad: Notepad replacement that'll open large .txt files and is just better in every way.

Google Toolbar adds a Google bar and pop-up blocking to IE. You can probably do without it if you're putting on Service Pack 2.

I don't guess all of those programs are essential, but that's what I put on systems that I build. Those and all the Windows updates, of course. :)
 
C

Cerebral Palsy

Banned
Firefox
Thunderbird
Ad-Aware/Spybot
WinRAR
Bit-Torrent
ICQ/AIM
Quicktime
Real Alternative
iTunes/Winamp
mIRC
Open Office/MS Office
Divx/Xvid codecs
FTP prog (i.e. Bulletproof FTP)
Anti-virus prog (whatever floats your boat)
 
R

rastex

Banned
ok ok those are all for nerdy people. The absolute ESSENTIALS for your average person.

Winamp
MS Office
Ad-Aware/Spybot S&D
Firefox

That's it. Actually, they could just use WMP instead of Winamp, and if they're smart about using the internet and use Firefox they won't even need Adaware/Spybot. Office/Firefox are the essentials. (e-mail and IM are built into Windows)
 
J

Jim Bowie

Member
I would say:

Firefox/Mozilla
iTunes
Office
DaemonTools, if she likes games
AOL/MSN IM
TrayManager, to keep the tray tidy
 
P

Poody

What program do you use to photoshop a picture?
DAEMON tools
spybot s&d
aim
Regsupreme pro
BT
FireFox
MS Office... duh!
media codec
winrar
I use to think winamp was essential but i just use mplayer 10 nowadays
no need for antivirus prog
 
P

pnjtony

Member
if you DO use AdAware/Spybot S&D be sure to keep a copy of LSPFix in case it screws up your winsock2. nerdy, yes, essential...only if you don't ever want to see the error "An operation was attempted on soemthing that is not a socket" when you try to renew your IP
 
A

aoi tsuki

Member
rastex said:
ok ok those are all for nerdy people. The absolute ESSENTIALS for your average person.

Winamp
MS Office
Ad-Aware/Spybot S&D
Firefox

That's it. Actually, they could just use WMP instead of Winamp, and if they're smart about using the internet and use Firefox they won't even need Adaware/Spybot. Office/Firefox are the essentials. (e-mail and IM are built into Windows)
Click to expand...
Agreed, with some suggestions. i'd recommend both Ad Aware and Spybot though. AA catches most and Spybot catches the rest, but sometimes it's the other way around.

Add Trillian to the list if she has friends on multiple clients, but you might also wanna download (but not install) the dedicated Yahoo! client at least, since some features like the webcam don't work through Trillian.

If your sister is a complete PC newbie (or just isn't that proficient), i'd recommend iTunes over Winamp. The interface is much more intuitive and she probably won't be using that many plugins anyways.

OpenOffice is a good free office alternative. The interface isn't as familiar, so if that matters, look into Office 97. It's got the highest features to bloat ratio, and can be had for ~$50 online.

Firefox is a definite, but don't neglect the following extensions:
IE View - Right click and select "View in IE" for the small percentage of pages that don't open correctly in FF.
Image Toolbar - Mouseover an image to bring up a toolbar to copy, save, or view your image folder.

There may be a couple i missed, but those will make her FF experience a little easier as an IE user. They're available at texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/. i'd also recommend at least a download of Thunderbird if she has a POP3 mail account.

Also, i'd add Anti-Vir (free), or McAfee Antivirus if you don't mind paying for virus protection.

Lastly, i'd recommend Sygate Personal Firewall. In the normal mode, it'll prompt whether or not to allow access to any program or remote computer which asks to access the internet or her computer each time it happens. This can be annoying, but it helps what restrict programs access the net and who can access her computer. In Allow All mode, it'll allow everything to transfer as if the firewall wasn't activated, but it'll still log everything transfer that happens (make sure to set this in options). Even if it's set to allow all, it's good for debugging where a malicious piece of software came from, or where her data is being sent.
 
A

aoi tsuki

Member
Jim Bowie said:
I can't believe I forgot Winrar! That's so necessary!
Click to expand...
For the average user, ZIP compatibility is much more important. ZIP files are recognized by XP (as folders... >_<), but a freeware program like ZipGenius supports multiple formats (ZIP, RAR, ACE, LHA, etc.) natively, removing the need to use separate programs for each compression method.
 
J

Jim Bowie

Member
aoi tsuki said:
For the average user, ZIP compatibility is much more important. ZIP files are recognized by XP (as folders... >_<), but a freeware program like ZipGenius supports multiple formats (ZIP, RAR, ACE, LHA, etc.) natively, removing the need to use separate programs for each compression method.
Click to expand...

Additionally to complete RAR and ZIP file support, WinRAR is able to unpack the following popular archive formats:

* CAB
* ARJ
* LZH
* TAR
* GZ and TAR.GZ
* BZ2 and TAR.BZ2
* ACE
* UUE
* JAR (Java Archive)
* ISO (ISO9660 - CD image)
* 7Z
* Z (Unix compress)

So why limit yourself to just WinZip?
 
M

miyuru

Member
Winrar is where it's at, it supports a lot more than you're saying. I never actually open the program either, just "right click -> extract files here" or "extract to folder...". Or if I'm archiving, it's all right clicks :p

Never ever get Winzip.
 
A

aoi tsuki

Member
Didn't know WinRAR recognized all those formats, but i never mentioned WinZip. Zip Genius supports the following:

ZIP / CZIP, JAR, 7z, EAR, WAR, XPI, PK3, SQX: all functions
CAB
RAR, ACE, TAR, TAZ, TGZ, GZ, Z, BZ2: these files can be just read and decompressed by ZipGenius. Compression is not supported because their algorhythm is not available to third parties.
ARJ, ARC, LHA/LZH, ZOO: ZipGenius can read these types but you must install an external compresison program to modify their contents.
PAK
WAL: WinAmp® skin file (treated as ZIP, plus it can be optimized)
WMZ: Windows® Media Player skin file (treated as ZIP, plus it can be optimized)
All OpenOffice.org/StarOffice 6.x documents (they are treated as zip files, plus they can be optimized)

It's missing ISO support, but personally, i'd rather leave that to other programs. Also, is WinRAR free or at they still charging? i look for freeware first when i'm looking for a particular program, and i'd suspect that others would do the same, especially if the freeware version offers more functionality with less bloat than commercial software.

And again, for the average user who might occasically download a compressed file like a program or something they got in e-mail, ZIP support is enough. Average users don't even know about RARs, TARs, etc.
 
J

Jim Bowie

Member
I assumed since you said that for the average user, ZIP compatibility is more important, that people should take Winzip over WinRar. My bad, yo.

WinRar's still free.
 
A

aoi tsuki

Member
Jim Bowie said:
I assumed since you said that for the average user, ZIP compatibility is more important, that people should take Winzip over WinRar. My bad, yo.

WinRar's still free.
Click to expand...
It's been years since i've used WinRAR. Wasn't there some sort of catch to the free version, like you couldn't compress with it or something? i'm not too interested in switching right now, but i'm always looking for better freeware.
 
R

rc213

Member
www.7-zip.org

The main features of 7-Zip:

* Highest compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
* 7-Zip is free software distributed under the GNU LGPL
* Supported formats: 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB
* For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
* Self-extracting capability for 7z format
* Integration with Windows Shell
* Powerful File Manager
* Powerful command line version
* Plugin for FAR Manager
* Localizations for 46 languages
:D
 
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