All following programs are high quality and free of charge.Anti-Virus: For protecting against virii.avast! AntiVirus - Home version is free when you register. Great protection, easy to use.
AVG - Or "Antivirus Gold". It's a free antivirus that operates much in the same way that Norton does. Provides email protection, system protection, and other little goodies like update and scan scheduling. The new version occasionally makes you download a new one once your "trial" runs out, but even that is automated.
TrendMicro Housecall - Don't want to install anything? Just want to do a quick virus scan? TrendMicro provides this service to better protect the world. Works great, but of course, requires an internet connection.
Anti-Malware: For protecting against adware, spyware, and their brethren.Ad-Aware - Anti-spyware program. Get rid of those malicious pop-ups.
Spy-bot - Another anti-spyware, use in tandem with Ad-Aware. Also can "immunize" your system to prevent future attacks by certain malware.
SpywareBlaster 3.3 - This anti-spyware utility prevents the installation of a lot of damaging ActiveX components in IE (and IE based browsers) and adds harmful sites to the Restricted Sites list in IE. It also features tracking cookie blocking in IE and Mozilla/Firefox. After installing this, Ad-Aware and Spybot don't have much to find and remove anymore.
Hijack This - A registry scanner that lets you easily remove offending registry entries (usually caused by spyware or the programs that funnel them into your system). You really have to know your shit on this one, though. Don't just go in there and delete everything the program finds, or you'll fuck up your system.
Image and Document Creation: For the development and manipulation of text and images.OpenOffice.org - Office suite for word processing, slideshow presentations, spreadsheets, and basic illustrations (drawing). Works with MS Office and Corel WordPerfect documents.
Internet Utilities: Browsers, plug-ins, and other bits for one-to-many communications.FireFox Browser - Web browser with built-in pop-up blocking and other great add-ons. Very clutter-free and easy to use. Seems to be much more stable than MS Internet Explorer (where random freezes and other issues are the norm).
Opera Web Browser - An alternative browser to the aforementioned Firefox. I prefer Opera mainly because of it's simple organization. If you tend to have various different applications on while browsing the web, this browser keeps a tab of all active pages within the web browser, which will keep your taskbar clutter free. As far as plug-ins and such, you may have to read up on those. Opera is a simple, tidy browser that I would recommend to anyone.
Maxthon - One of the better IE based browsers out there. It has a lot of great plugins and skins, and also uses tabs for browsing. The two downsides are that since it's based on IE you're screwed if your security settings aren't high enough, and that it has so many options that it may be a little confusing for some people. You may prefer this to Firefox, although either one is better than regular IE.
Thunderbird - E-mail client. Very easy to use if you are familiar with MS Outlook or Qualcomm's Eudora.
Miscellaneous Utilities: The assorted odds and ends, generally increasing functionality if not productivity.Registry Mechanic - Used to fix random blue screen errors and lag problems, likely via the Windows registry. As easy to use as Ad Aware.
IsoBuster - Very useful data recovery tool. Can recover lost files from damaged CD's and DVD's. Also a must have for compiling and extracting .iso files. Many downloads are compressed in this form, and this is the only program I know of that's able to do it.
PC PitStop - This online utility is perfect for tuning up your PC. After a brief system test, various tips and solutions will be listed to optimize each subsystem. It will pick up anything from low internet ping to a needed defragment. Great online application.
Ethereal - Protocol analyzer/Packet Sniffer. Great for troubleshooting network problems. Allows you to capture all network traffic for however long you want. Run this on your network to see just how insecure email is.
Websites/Online Utilities: Products found on, or tied closely to, specific websites.The Code Project - Website for coding resources. This has been my saviour many, many times. There is a very large and constantly updated C# programming section. They have hundreds of controls and techniques. Definately worth a visit for any programmer.
Video Stuff: For dabbling in those fancy moving picture shows.K-Lite Codec Pack - An excellent codec pack I have been using for about a year now. My codec issues have simply disappeared since installing this. It includes (or used to, when I last downloaded it) the excellent Media Player Classic, which is an open source extension of the original Windows Media Player.
AVI Codec - It's not a codec pack, but any file that you're having trouble opening, you can run the media through this program and it will specify a location to download that specific codec.
Trimmed down to apply to commonly asked computer questions. - RutegerSee the list in it's entirity
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