Jul. 27, 2004, 01:52 AM
Hello all! I'm new here and I thought this would be a good place to start since I love good software! I'm pretty picky about what I install and, to my knowledge, none of this stuff contains any spy/ad ware.
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All software was tested on Windows XP Pro, but many applications will work on other Windows environments.
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
Kerio Personal Firewall" - FREE for home use - This is an excellent firewall for both beginners and advanced users alike. It uses a very intuitive GUI and it can grow with you as you learn more.
AVAST32 Anti-Virus Scanner - FREE for home use - This is an excellent virus scanner that is the winner of several prestigious industry standard awards for its detection capability.
SpyBot - Search & Destroy - FREE - I'm sure most of you know about this.
Password Corral - FREE - A pretty good password manager, though you can't create groups. Since I've collected a lot of passwords, I'll be looking for a new manager that can do groups. Still, this is great for those that don't have 50+ passwords.
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TWEAKING/SYSTEM UTILITIES
Xteq X-Setup - FREE for home use - Perhaps the mother of all tweaking tools for the various flavors of Windows.
RivaTuner - FREE - Although I don't use an Nvidia card any longer, I thought I'd throw this out for anyone who does. Like the above, this is likely the mother of all utilities for the Nvidia cards.
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FILE UTILITIES/EDITORS
PowerArchiver - SHAREWARE - Unfortunately I've been unable to find a really good utility to manage compressed archives that's free. I was using UltimateZip, but it's just no where near as good as PowerArchiver. It does all the stuff the "other" popular utilities do, plus some. It also has a pretty neat built-in FTP client. It does CRC checking, can run an AV scanner and supports all the popular formats (ZIP, JAR, RAR, CAB, etc., etc.). After downloading a compressed archive with a setup.exe in it, PowerArchiver can automatically begin the installation without having to manually extract anything. File compression is better than most other utilities as well, including WinZip I believe. It's also fast.
UltraEdit - SHAREWARE - Perhaps the best text/programmers file editor on the planet! The list of features is overwhelming and so is its configurability. A few key features are: A tabbed interface, syntax highlighting, FTP client (wow, do I use that a lot!), very configurable search and replace functions, find functions, line numbering, favorites, projects, various formatting options, macro's, column mode, HEX editor, file compare, font tools...
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OTHER UTILITIES
X-Fonter - FREE - A good font manager for you graphics people.
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GENERAL INTERNET UTILITIES
The Google Toolbar - Google also has available their "Google Toolbar" which is a wonderful little add-on for your web browser. It incorporates it's own little menu bar right in with your browser. It's fairly configurable and makes using Google a snap. Whenever I reformat, this is always one of the first things I install. A truly must have item!
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MEDIA/MULTI MEDIA
IrfanView - FREE - Although I have a few issues with this thing, it's still the best graphic viewer I've crossed paths with. It's extremely configurable, very fast, supports plug-ins and supports a massive variety of file types. I assume it was primarily designed to be a fast graphic viewer, which it really does excel at, but many plug-ins have been developed that expand it's capabilities far beyond pictures and it now supports several multimedia formats as well.
Quintessential Player - FREE - QCD blows everything else clean out of the water as far as I'm concerned! It also supports WinAmp plug-ins to boot! As usual, it's extremely configurable, has a great play list set-up, supports plug-ins, is skinable and so very much more. It has the greatest skin browser and plug-in updater I've seen. Fantastic little toy!
DVD Shrink - FREE - Super simple program to "back-up" those DVD's.
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FILE SHARING/FTP CLIENTS
Shareaza - FREE - A fairly new kid on the block, Shareaza is an outstanding file sharing client for the Gnutella Network. It contains no ads, pop-ups, spyware, etc.. It's pretty unique in many of its outstanding features and the GUI is awesome! Very highly configurable, yet friendly enough for the novice.
SmartFTP - FREE for personal use - I've been using this baby for some time and I have got to tell you, this is one very sweet FTP client! It has an incredibly slick auto-update feature that requires you to do absolutely nothing! Features are plentiful, including FXP (transfer direct between 2 servers), queuing, multiple connections, drag and drop, favorites, resume, URL watcher and much, much more, all packaged in a very slick, customizable GUI. This thing has got to put many of the shareware FTP clients to absolute shame!
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INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS
Miranda IM - FREE, open source - Miranda replaces Trillian as my weapon of choice for instant messaging clients. Miranda is also much faster and it supports plug-ins, of which there is a ton of! It is under active development and, when extended with a few plug-ins, becomes a very powerful IM solution. Like the rest of the lot, it does file sharing, buddy lists, it's skinable and much more. Another upcoming IM client to keep an eye on is Gaim. This one looks sweet too!
PopTray - FREE - PopTray is an email account checker/filter that is heads and tails above the rest. This is another one of those utilities that I couldn't live without. It supports multiple protocols and accounts, has a rotating tray icon (showing the number of emails in each account), colored account identification, can delete junk at the server level, can filter out spam by using customizable filters and can check multiple accounts for mail on an individual basis. It can also preview your email without starting your client. It's fairly fast, stable, very configurable and the GUI is good.
------------------------------
All software was tested on Windows XP Pro, but many applications will work on other Windows environments.
------------------------------
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Kerio Personal Firewall" - FREE for home use - This is an excellent firewall for both beginners and advanced users alike. It uses a very intuitive GUI and it can grow with you as you learn more.
AVAST32 Anti-Virus Scanner - FREE for home use - This is an excellent virus scanner that is the winner of several prestigious industry standard awards for its detection capability.
SpyBot - Search & Destroy - FREE - I'm sure most of you know about this.
Password Corral - FREE - A pretty good password manager, though you can't create groups. Since I've collected a lot of passwords, I'll be looking for a new manager that can do groups. Still, this is great for those that don't have 50+ passwords.
------------------------------
TWEAKING/SYSTEM UTILITIES
Xteq X-Setup - FREE for home use - Perhaps the mother of all tweaking tools for the various flavors of Windows.
RivaTuner - FREE - Although I don't use an Nvidia card any longer, I thought I'd throw this out for anyone who does. Like the above, this is likely the mother of all utilities for the Nvidia cards.
------------------------------
FILE UTILITIES/EDITORS
PowerArchiver - SHAREWARE - Unfortunately I've been unable to find a really good utility to manage compressed archives that's free. I was using UltimateZip, but it's just no where near as good as PowerArchiver. It does all the stuff the "other" popular utilities do, plus some. It also has a pretty neat built-in FTP client. It does CRC checking, can run an AV scanner and supports all the popular formats (ZIP, JAR, RAR, CAB, etc., etc.). After downloading a compressed archive with a setup.exe in it, PowerArchiver can automatically begin the installation without having to manually extract anything. File compression is better than most other utilities as well, including WinZip I believe. It's also fast.
UltraEdit - SHAREWARE - Perhaps the best text/programmers file editor on the planet! The list of features is overwhelming and so is its configurability. A few key features are: A tabbed interface, syntax highlighting, FTP client (wow, do I use that a lot!), very configurable search and replace functions, find functions, line numbering, favorites, projects, various formatting options, macro's, column mode, HEX editor, file compare, font tools...
------------------------------
OTHER UTILITIES
X-Fonter - FREE - A good font manager for you graphics people.
------------------------------
GENERAL INTERNET UTILITIES
The Google Toolbar - Google also has available their "Google Toolbar" which is a wonderful little add-on for your web browser. It incorporates it's own little menu bar right in with your browser. It's fairly configurable and makes using Google a snap. Whenever I reformat, this is always one of the first things I install. A truly must have item!
------------------------------
MEDIA/MULTI MEDIA
IrfanView - FREE - Although I have a few issues with this thing, it's still the best graphic viewer I've crossed paths with. It's extremely configurable, very fast, supports plug-ins and supports a massive variety of file types. I assume it was primarily designed to be a fast graphic viewer, which it really does excel at, but many plug-ins have been developed that expand it's capabilities far beyond pictures and it now supports several multimedia formats as well.
Quintessential Player - FREE - QCD blows everything else clean out of the water as far as I'm concerned! It also supports WinAmp plug-ins to boot! As usual, it's extremely configurable, has a great play list set-up, supports plug-ins, is skinable and so very much more. It has the greatest skin browser and plug-in updater I've seen. Fantastic little toy!
DVD Shrink - FREE - Super simple program to "back-up" those DVD's.
------------------------------
FILE SHARING/FTP CLIENTS
Shareaza - FREE - A fairly new kid on the block, Shareaza is an outstanding file sharing client for the Gnutella Network. It contains no ads, pop-ups, spyware, etc.. It's pretty unique in many of its outstanding features and the GUI is awesome! Very highly configurable, yet friendly enough for the novice.
SmartFTP - FREE for personal use - I've been using this baby for some time and I have got to tell you, this is one very sweet FTP client! It has an incredibly slick auto-update feature that requires you to do absolutely nothing! Features are plentiful, including FXP (transfer direct between 2 servers), queuing, multiple connections, drag and drop, favorites, resume, URL watcher and much, much more, all packaged in a very slick, customizable GUI. This thing has got to put many of the shareware FTP clients to absolute shame!
------------------------------
INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS
Miranda IM - FREE, open source - Miranda replaces Trillian as my weapon of choice for instant messaging clients. Miranda is also much faster and it supports plug-ins, of which there is a ton of! It is under active development and, when extended with a few plug-ins, becomes a very powerful IM solution. Like the rest of the lot, it does file sharing, buddy lists, it's skinable and much more. Another upcoming IM client to keep an eye on is Gaim. This one looks sweet too!
PopTray - FREE - PopTray is an email account checker/filter that is heads and tails above the rest. This is another one of those utilities that I couldn't live without. It supports multiple protocols and accounts, has a rotating tray icon (showing the number of emails in each account), colored account identification, can delete junk at the server level, can filter out spam by using customizable filters and can check multiple accounts for mail on an individual basis. It can also preview your email without starting your client. It's fairly fast, stable, very configurable and the GUI is good.