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[Drensch]

I just got a new pc, and I'm trying to think of stuff to add for install. Ideas?

 

[Tenacious-V]

Essentials for good clean continuous operation:

Diskeeper
Ad-Aware
Spybot S&D
MS Antispyware
Norton Antivirus (or equivalent)
Window Washer
Registry Mechanic
Trojan Remover

Those are the basics to keep the computer clean. Unless you meant other types of programs......

 

[iced lightning]

what was that program that was posted here to clean up temporary internet files and crap from your computer? I forgot but it had cleaner in it I think.

 

[Tenacious-V]

what was that program that was posted here to clean up temporary internet files and crap from your computer? I forgot but it had cleaner in it I think.

I dunno bout that one.

Window Washer cleans tons though:

Autocomplete Form Data
Address Bar (history)
IE Cache (TIF)
cookies
IE History (visited sites)
Media Bar (media player history)
Star Menu History
Windows Document History
WMP
Recycle Bin
Registry Streams
Windows Run History
Windows Search History
Temp Files
Acrobat
JASC Animation Shop/Painshop Pro
Photoshop

this list goes on and on...

 

[Jason]

what was that program that was posted here to clean up temporary internet files and crap from your computer? I forgot but it had cleaner in it I think.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

 

[iced lightning]

http://www.ccleaner.com/

yes, thank you.

 

[J2 Cool]

Is there any free anti-virus programs that are effective out there?

 

[aoi tsuki]

Is there any free anti-virus programs that are effective out there?

i've been using AntiVir for a couple of years now and it's caugh. There's also AVG, but i tried it only briefly a couple years back and haven't looked back since then.

Ifranview - image viewing/conversion
XnView - image collections
BS Player - video player (free version doesn't play DVDs though)
Sygate Personal Firewall - firewall software
Open Office - free MS Office-compatible suite of applications
Winamp - plays pretty much everything media-wise.

There's also Picasa for image collections, and it's free as well, but i've read a few things that states it installs spyware, so i've stayed away from it. Tenacious-V listed a lot of the other essentials that i'd recommend.

Edit: Forgot a few...

Firefox - alternative to IE with more features and security
Thunderbird - email client from the Firefox team
Opera - another browser; download it as a backup if Firefox starts acting weird

 

[Desperado]

FIREFOX

 

[Drensch]

Already had most of those, but I wanted to make sure.

 

[Polari]

Video Lan Client - The best video player, period. Will play pretty much anything you throw at it. http://www.videolan.org

OpenOffice.org - 2.0 is currently in beta, it's vastly improved over the last version, and apparently reasonably stable. Download it then upgrade when 2.0 final is released. http://www.openoffice.org

Firefox - Everyone throws this one out there, and for good reason. http://www.getfirefox.com

The GIMP - Free Photoshop alternative. If you want to do some amateur image manipulation without paying for Photoshop (or stealing it) this is a must download. http://www.gimp.org

 

[Drensch]

Got'em. Although opera>>>>>>>Firefox.

 

[ShyGuy]

Essential installs straight after Windows XP installation:

- Mozilla Firefox (or whatever non-IE browser you prefer)
- Picasa!!!
- dB PowerAmp
- iTunes
- Xvid codec
- Adobe Reader
- Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.Org
- Nero Burning ROM 6 Reloaded
- WinRAR (who needs winzip?)
- Norton Internet Security
- BitComet
- AdAware

And that's it!

 

[ghostface]

Microsoft Antispyware Beta (I like its realtime scan), plus everything else listed here.

On a side note, does anyone know how effective SP2's firewall is? Is it any less protective than, say, Zonealarm (lets forget customizability for now)?

J2 Cool: AVG Free works great.

 

[Shogmaster]

Essential installs straight after Windows XP installation:

- Mozilla Firefox (or whatever non-IE browser you prefer)
- Picasa!!!
- dB PowerAmp
- iTunes
- Xvid codec
- Adobe Reader
- Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.Org
- Nero Burning ROM 6 Reloaded
- WinRAR (who needs winzip?)
- Norton Internet Security
- BitComet
- AdAware

And that's it!

A big fuck noes from me. itunes is unnecessary bloat that runs unasked processes whenever you boot (unless you plan to buy music from them), and Norton Internet Security gave me more headaches then any other Anti-virus/firewall programs, and let's too much crap through at the end of the day for the asking price.

Instead of iTunes, just use Windows Media Player or if you must download an alternative player, Foobar.

Instead of Norton, try Panda or Kaspersky. Panda is especially nicely priced, and very very good.

 

[ShyGuy]

A big fuck noes from me. itunes is unnecessary bloat that runs unasked processes whenever you boot (unless you plan to buy music from them), and Norton Internet Security gave me more headaches then any other Anti-virus/firewall programs, and let's too much crap through at the end of the day for the asking price.

Instead of iTunes, just use Windows Media Player or if you must download an alternative player, Foobar.

Instead of Norton, try Panda or Kaspersky. Panda is especially nicely priced, and very very good.

Well iTunes rules the roost for me because I use it exclusively to manage my iPod, and without it I don't think I would ever have gone to the trouble of fully organising my music colelction.

I spent a number of hours fixing up artist names, album titles, and such details that now my music collection (over 30gb's worth) is all perfectly organised.

So, thanks iTunes!

As for Norton, well yeah I see YOU had trouble with it, but I never have and it's always served me well, so why should I switch?

I forgot to add MSN Messenger 7.0 and trillian 2.0 to the list.

I have justification, and so do you!

 

[Shogmaster]

Well iTunes rules the roost for me because I use it exclusively to manage my iPod, and without it I don't think I would ever have gone to the trouble of fully organising my music colelction.

I spent a number of hours fixing up artist names, album titles, and such details that now my music collection (over 30gb's worth) is all perfectly organised.

So, thanks iTunes!

If you don't buy music with iTunes, Foobar has iPod extensions that manages it just as well.

As for Norton, well yeah I see YOU had trouble with it, but I never have and it's always served me well, so why should I switch?

I had no troble with it on my computers (I used 2003 and 2005 on two of my set ups before), but I had plenty of troble setting up some of my client's networks without Norton Internet Security screwing up use of some of their proprietary apps they use for business and their particular network configuartions. And setting up a printer share through a networked computer was a pain in the fucking ass with NIS. I ended up disabling NIS and just having them use NAV by itself for their set up.

Also, NAV is just not thorough enough at scanning virus. If you tend to engage in alot of risky behavior, you should get a beefier AV. For instance, NAV really sucks at scanning compressed files like ZIPs and RARs.

I have justification, and so do you!

I'm just looking out for you guys.

 

[Jeffahn]

I would go with Azureus/ABC instead of Bitcomet.

...

 

[Companion Cube]

What do you guys think about TweakUI? (on download.com) Has anyone tried it?

 

[ShyGuy]

TweakUI is excellent, I used to use it back when I wanted more control, but these days I don't need it that much.

And Shogmaster, I guess in that case you have good points, but for me it's all I need and I have had no problems with viruses. That's for 2 pc's and having a networked printer hasn't been a problem either.

I can appreciate that you had problems, but I just haven't had any so don't feel the need to switch programs.

As for bittorrent clients, azureus is a freaking resource hog, and I switched from ABC to bitcomet because I was getting better speeds and I could select which files from a multi-file torrent that I wanted to download (e.g. specific episodes from a multi-episode torrent file).

 

[fart]

On a side note, does anyone know how effective SP2's firewall is? Is it any less protective than, say, Zonealarm (lets forget customizability for now)?

afaik it's no more vulnerable than any of the popular software firewalls

 

[Danj]

On a side note, does anyone know how effective SP2's firewall is? Is it any less protective than, say, Zonealarm (lets forget customizability for now)?

Yes, because it only handles incoming traffic, whereas zonealarm handles both incoming and outgoing traffic, which is useful if you get a worm through an email or something - zonealarm would (theoretically) be able to prevent it from spreading on your network, whereas the sp2 firewall wouldn't. On the other hand, the SP2 firewall is certainly better than nothing, so if you don't like zonealarm it's worth enabling the SP2 firewall while you look for an alternative.

 

[CurlySaysX]

1 - irfanview
2 - divx drivers for windows Media Player
3 - A good Software firewall
4 - BF2
5 - Everest
6 - Nero

that norton program is a POS. i wouldn't bother with it.

 

[Jeffahn]

As for bittorrent clients, azureus is a freaking resource hog, and I switched from ABC to bitcomet because I was getting better speeds and I could select which files from a multi-file torrent that I wanted to download (e.g. specific episodes from a multi-episode torrent file).

You need to have the latest JRE for Azureus to work properly. Azureus also allows you to select individual files to dl, btw.

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