3 Brilliant, Free Software Apps

Posted by: ErikL on 28 December 2003

This weekend I downloaded:

AVG- FREE anti-virus software. It's already better than my previous McAfee app (to be fair, having no anti-virus software is better than McAfee but you know what I mean).

Ad-Aware- FREE anti-spyware software. It's outstanding, and already found some sneaky files.

ZoneAlarm- FREE firewall. I'm still "teaching" it, but it shows a lot of promise.

I know all 3 have been discussed here before. I'll throw my votes in the hat- highly recommended.
Posted on: 28 December 2003 by Roy T
Just remember to look for updates to the virus databases every couple of days or so.

Roy
Posted on: 28 December 2003 by Mr Underhill
Or move to a whole new operating system with lots of 'free' apps!

ZoneAlarmis very good - check out grc.com.

Also have a look at Tiny Personal Firewall. It is not as 'friendly', but you will start to learn about various IP ports, and so get a greater insight into the TCP/IP protocol suite and stack,
Posted on: 28 December 2003 by Jez Quigley
Ludwig,

I agree. They are 3 excellent free apps. Just as good or even better than paid for equivalents. You don't 'teach' ZA - it just likes to get to know you over a few days and then shuts up and gets on with it's stuff Wink

"Be my lover, don't cause me pain, just play me John Coltrane"
Posted on: 29 December 2003 by kevinl
I strongly advocate use of the OpenOffice.org suite.

As far as free software goes, it rocks. It runs on virtually all modern operating systems, albeit with a particular taste for RAM.
Posted on: 30 December 2003 by monkfish
Hi
A better free anti-virus program is Bitdefender, which also updates its virus definitions automatically online.
Regards
Jim
Posted on: 30 December 2003 by Roy T
How about giving the mozilla - home of the mozilla, firebird, and camino web browsers a try? It sure helps with Popups and other nasty things that some sites force upon you during a brief visit.

Roy
Posted on: 30 December 2003 by ErikL
Now I'm in over my head. The lure of excellent free apps is too much.

Does anyone know 1) a top disk defragmenter (the Windows one sucks); and 2) a top registry cleaner, or something to help manual uninstalls? I used to run PerfectDisk (defragmenter) but the license price seemed to have increased by about 225%.

Also, Firebird looks like my kind of thing but I fear interference with the queen of PC system whores- IE. Ditto for Thunderbird and Outlook (although if T'bird lacks a complete PIM it's worthless for my uses).
Posted on: 30 December 2003 by Geofiz
For eliminating spyware from your system, you might want to try Spysweeper (www.spysweeper.com) freeware and subscription service. Seems to be pretty effective.
Posted on: 30 December 2003 by Jez Quigley
I haven't used it, but Diskeeper is apparently the defragger of choice. You can check it out at www.download.com

"Be my lover, don't cause me pain, just play me John Coltrane"
Posted on: 01 January 2004 by ErikL
Hmm, it seems odd that only 59% of users give Diskeeper a thumbs up if it's the standard.
Posted on: 01 January 2004 by matthewr
IIRC Diskeeper, or at least an older version of it, is the Windows defragger as MS licensed the technology.

Not sure what's wrong with the Windows one.

Matthew
Posted on: 01 January 2004 by ErikL
The Windows one leaves quite a few files fragmented, plus the way it handles files while defragmenting is inefficient and leads to quicker fragmentation.