As I have decided to reinstall windows in a few days (in order to solve some bugs I'm experiencing), I felt it would be cool to also update my lybrary of softwares (of course, shareware or freeware). However, as I have not followed the PC news for a while, I don't know what should I get.

As so, I decided to ask: What software you guys consider a need-to-have in your computers? A good calendar? A peer-to-peer? A good program to play music, see video? A good free anti-virus, and spyware defenses? A cool free firewall? the latest nero burning tool? Something to watch DVDs? A hardware monitor? Any other utility I can't think of right now?

What recommendations do you guys have for a fresh install, and why do your program of choice shines above others of similar function?

Regards :).

:nono: wrong forum dude ;)



-------------------------------
AVG for virus control
Winamp for music
Adobe for .pdf's

They jus get surfing and see what programs your forced to get for video watching etc like shockwave and wot not.

Go for. VLC Media Player for videos, I-Tunes as a music manager, U-Torrent as a Peer-Peer client.

Yeah, duh, I forgot computer talk. :lol:

Anyway, until the mods move it...

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack (http://www.codecguide.com/about_mega.htm)

It's a collection of many different audio and video codec formats, including codecs to allow you to play Real and Quicktime files in different players.

ooh ooh ohh.. and ARESlite for peer-to-peer.

AVG Antivirus: Self-explanitory
Zone Alarm Firewall: Duh
Spybot Search and Destroy: Spyware remover
Lavasoft Ad-Aware: Spyware remover.
iTunes: Best music player
Winamp: Best media player
TVUPlayer: Allows you to watch TV if you are connected to the internet
Eraser: Lets you permanetly delete stuff from your computer
CCleaner: Cleans up crap on your computer that you don't need.

That's everything I remember off the top of my head, and obviously it all free.

ooh yea CC cleaner is good... doesnt AVG make Lava and Spybot redundant?

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack (http://www.codecguide.com/about_mega.htm)

It's a collection of many different audio and video codec formats, including codecs to allow you to play Real and Quicktime files in different players.

Ill second that

winamp, of course

NOD32 is simply the best AV software out there.

FLStudio 6 for musicianship ;)

Rainlender is an excellent calender.

As I have decided to reinstall windows in a few days (in order to solve some bugs I'm experiencing), I felt it would be cool to also update my lybrary of softwares (of course, shareware or freeware). However, as I have not followed the PC news for a while, I don't know what should I get.

As so, I decided to ask: What software you guys consider a need-to-have in your computers? A good calendar? A peer-to-peer? A good program to play music, see video? A good free anti-virus, and spyware defenses? A cool free firewall? the latest nero burning tool? Something to watch DVDs? A hardware monitor? Any other utility I can't think of right now?

What recommendations do you guys have for a fresh install, and why do your program of choice shines above others of similar function?

Regards :).
Goldwave
ARWizard
eDesk
emacs
Cygwin
Mozilla
IrfanView
Tera Term Pro
LeechFTP
DBVisualizer
Java 1.5
pkzip25
GIMP

doesnt AVG make Lava and Spybot redundant?

Nope. They tend to find diffrent stuff.

VLC media player. It's the nuclear option in playing stuff. Even plays encrypted DVDs.

i have a quick question. Is there any free program for PC to convert video formats as good as ffmpegX for Mac? www.ffmpegx.com

Also, for the CFC folding fans: PyMOL http://pymol.sourceforge.net/

Those of you who suggested VLC, tell me... does it play DVD files located on the HD (extracted files)?

TVUPlayer: Allows you to watch TV if you are connected to the internet
.

I looked up the website for that program, and something it didn't explain was where the content comes from. Does it simply aggregate over-the-internet broadcasts, or do they have contracts with broadcasters to carry their content, or does it work some other way? :confused:

edit - found the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVUPlayer) page on it and am currently reading it.
edit2 - appears that it is rather legally questionable (at least in the U.S.)

Hmm...I dunno what the others said, but I'll add my own few things.

StyleXP/Windowblinds: Get StyleXP, it's less of a strain on your computer because you don't need to have it open to have a changed skin. However, it will cost money, so you will need to acquire it through unscrupulous means. The skin I'm using is Souluna Remix Final. I love it. It's a minimalistic skin, which means that things are uncluttered. You even get an extra 16 px with a reduced taskbar! I don't even like looking at "normal" taskbars anymore. They just seem fat and ugly.

uTorrent: Best P2P software.

Free antivirus: Personally I use Avira Free.

Firewall: Kerio free is good. You get the paying version, then features get disabled afterwards. Personally, the features they disable you can already get anyways. An example is their popup blocker and ad remover Just use Firefox with Adblock

For that matter, Firefox. A beautiful browser, all open source, which is a good thing that I totally support. Plus, you can pimp it out with coolio extensions. Extensions I would recommend are NoScript, Adblock, IE Tab, Fission, and Download Embedded off the top of my head.

Use iTunes if you have an iPod and need to update your music. Otherwise, I'd use winamp, because I like the custom skins and junk. Don't use Winamp for video, though, for that you will need...

VLC music player, it plays pretty much anything.

AdAware will get rid of your ads and stuff. If you don't like that, you can use Spybot Search and Destroy. Or both, even.

If you want a rotating wallpaper, you can find a way to get Wallpaper Master Pro. If you try it out, you'll be desperate like me to find a way to procure it for free. Unfortunately, you won't be able to. There are some options though. You can get Quickchanger. It won't scan subdirectories though. I'm using Quickchanger right now. Other options are wallpaperchanger.de and...hmm, that's all I can think of right now.

Hope these suggestions help! :p

Does this VCL player replaces quicktime player or the real player?

I looked into it, and apparently not...

Lightfang: I don't think I would suggest that a lawyer, studying for becoming a judge, use "unscrupulous means" to acquire software. ;)

Even if Brazilian law isn't as draconian as US law....

Trillian (msn + yahoo + irc + etc etc)
Mozilla (Firefox & Thunderbird)
7-zip file manager
GIMP 2 or Picasa depending on your needs
Winamp
CutePDF writer to save files in pdf
Foxit reader pro to read pdf files (faster, lighter, better!)

all of the above are freeware!

Free Games, mostly, also, free music from MySpace (there're awesome artists out there)

Try also this: http://www.abandonia.com. It's even legal!

Ya noobs. You didn't mention Civ3. :D

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=163346 :D


For security I'd suggest as follows. All are free, but some offer extra functionality if you pay a small amount.

Antivirus: anything with a good reputation
Firewall: same as above. (Note that the XP firewall does not have a good rep)

Spybot - offers realtime protection without consuming cpu power. Also used to scan the hard drive.
Ad-aware - used to scan the HD. A hit.
ie-spyad - not a program that runs on you computer. Instead it loads thousands of websites into the browser's restricted zone. Spybot also does this, but ie-spyad's database is bigger.
WinPatrol - monitors critical parts of the system. Also offers loads of information, and control of many things.
No Flash - Wonderful little program that can freeze animated pictures and block flash content. Easy to turn it off if you some time need to allow all content.

I use more than this, but this is the most important ones.

Some links:

Spybot's forum and info: http://forums.spybot.info/
Ad-aware forum and info: http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/

Download site: http://www.castlecops.com/downloads-cats-14-0-10.html
Download site: http://www.majorgeeks.com/
Download site: http://www.merijn.org/programs.php

ie-spyad: http://www.spywarewarrior.com/uiuc/resource.htm
No Flash: http://www.bbshare.com/
Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html and http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html
Ad-aware: www.lavasoft.de/support/download
WinPatrol: www.winpatrol.com/download.html

Do NOT trust programs on this list: http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm