Many of you are getting new PC’s these days either as a gift or just because there is a shiny operating system out there but once you get fired up on the operating system installed, it’s time to populate it with good software. Don’t just take all the dreck of your old machine people. Use this opportunity to start fresh. Let me give you the seven essential pieces of software for your new PC.
First, security, you need an antivirus app and it’s not something you need to pay for. CNET’s Download.com gave AVG free antivirus edition five stars out of five and if you’re not a big company, it won’t cause you a dime. Now that you’re protected, it’s time to browse the internet. Don’t just go with the web browser that came with your OS. There’s Opera, Chrome, Firefox, so many other options and you know what? I am not going with any of them. I recommend Sea Monkey. Why? Because it has the Firefox web browser but also bundles in email, an IRC client and the web page editor as well. Now if IRC and web editing don’t matter to you, then maybe go with Firefox and Thunderbird for e-mail. However, to get the most bang for your byte, I say go Sea Monkey.
Next, you need to tell all your friends your experience on your new computer so get an IM client. On Windows, I recommend Pidgin, for Mac users, try Adium. They both are free, open-source, multi-service clients. They worked great on a bunch of platforms.
Next, it’s time to save you a few hundred bucks. Don’t go out and drop dough on Microsoft Office. Open Office from OpenOffice.org is better than it has ever been. I used it daily for word processing, spreadsheet manipulation, presentations and more. If your an Excel super user, you might have issues with it but for the average Joe it’s going to do everything you need for free. Alright, we got a productivity covered, now for some entertainment.
For that you need VLC media player. They can handle almost anything you throw at it, DVD won’t play in that piece of crap software that came with your PC? No problem, VLC will handle it. Music, any format you can think of and it’s got that magic price you love.
Two more and were done. First, you need a graphics editor. How else will you put your friend’s head on celebrity bodies? For Windows, there’s nothing than better than Paint.NET, it’s free and powerful. For Mac, it’s a little tougher. I like Acorn which is free to download but $50.00 to keep. For free that stays free, try Seashore which is based on the GIMP engine or try Skitch. Finally, one last piece of security software, Antispyware. You can go with a cocktail of Ad-Aware, SpyBot Search and Destroy, Windows Defender and so on, it’s not a bad idea to run more than one but if I was backed up against the wall and forced to pick just one I pick Hijack This. Trend Micro has given us one of the most powerful Malware removal tools you can find and it’s free ware.
Now they are certainly many other apps you need, such as registry cleaners, torrent downloader, FTP clients and so on but they start to stray into niches that vary for different types of users. I can say without a doubt for these seven programs I’ve mention today are essential for everyone to install on every PC no matter who you are. That’s t for this how-to, I’m Tom Merritt, CNET.com.
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