Essential Windows Software

As I’m probably going to be building a computer in the near future as a gift, I figured I would go ahead and share what I consider to be the essential free software to add to a fresh windows installation. You may disagree but here it is :

Documents :

FoxIt Reader – Faster than Acrobat, and feels more lightweight

PDF Creator – create a virtual printer to print PDFs from any app that prints

OpenOffice – Office suite compatible with that other guy’s

Yahoo! Desktop Search – fast, and easy search for your files

Picture Organizer/Touchup :

Picassa – From Google, easy and ituitive

Browser :

Firefox – fast, and just as bloated as you make it

Firefox Extensions :

Sage – RSS Feed Reader, integrates with live bookmarks, and feeds are customisable with style sheets.

Google Browser Sync – Just use the bookmarks (don’t use the cookies, history, or password synchonization as it make me a little quesy)

Google Notebook – Notebook meet bookmarks

BugMeNot – Never register for a one use password again

Media Players :

Itunes – maybe a little bloated but works really well

Media Player Classic – nice video player, plays several formats, harkens back to the days before MS went overboard with Windows Media Player

Virus/Spyware :

Avast! – antivirus suite, frequently updated, easy to use

Windows Defender – Spyware removal for dummies

Spybot S&D and Ad-aware – Backup Spyware detectors

Paranoia :

Eraser – really get rid of files, or whole drives

Extra Geeky :

Sun Java – java runtime/compiler

Cygwin – posix layer for windows, give you access to *nix tools

PuTTY – Windows Telnet/SSH client

TightVNC – Remote Control Software for you computer


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