As I said before, the very first program I installed, before doing any updates or even connecting to the internet, was Acronis True Image 10, followed by an immediate image of the new installation. After security issues were resolved I commenced to installing my 'must haves':
AlZip: I love this little bit of freeware, which opens every kind of archive; from executables to tarballs to rars and everything in between. I have found it very useful for making zip files as well.
Firefox: I resisted using this because spybot kept coming up with spyware after using it and since IE7 has tabs - who needs it? Well, the more I got into tweaking the more I started to love firefox and all its addons. I will list my must have addons in another blog.
Sandboxie: This is a wonderful program for exploring websites or executables you don't quite trust. I like to use this while surfing to get a sense of just how much crap a site like MySpace puts on your computer. It's nice for keygens too, if you used those kind of things.
Utorrent: a fast and lightweight bitttorrent client for grabbing those linux distros, etc.
PeerGuardian 2: for use with UTorrent. Privacy is a must!!
FastStone Image Viewer: I have three kids and lots of digital pictures and this handy app is awesome for keeping pictures organized, but what I really use it for is a very fast and powerful editor. Double click any picture to make it full screen then put the mouse to all four sides to see what different menus pop up. Very nice!!
FoxIt Reader: great little pdf reader
CCleaner: a great way to get rid of all that crap that sites like MySpace put on your computer!!
Revo Uninstaller: I like to try out new programs and this is great for getting rid of them when I'm done.
VMware Workstation 6: This is an absolute essential. I love this program. I love trying out new OS's, especially different linux distros, and this makes it happen. Also a very easy way to set up an ssh server (through a linux distro) and create a space for more secure browsing (ditto)
JKDefrag: This is a very handy and very powerful defrag utility.
Most of these are freeware because I have found that freeware and open source stuff is of great quality and very light, very specific to whatever task I am looking to have performed.
Got any favorites of your own? What programs do you put on your computer first? Any suggestions for apps that would do a better job than the ones I have listed?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment