Freeware All The Way For Your System!

Recently when I was down with the flu, my system too decided to take a break and the motherboard burnt out. I have since replaced the necessary parts and the system is up and running full steam, but it was during this down and out phase when I was not blogging I decided to reformat my system and also made a decision to go with freeware on my system just to try and run my system on freeware. Of note though, I am running licensed copies of Windows XP and Microsoft Word since I already have them and also because I am not much of a Linux fan having tried it before and I have never tried free word processing programs like Open Office. Apart from Windows XP and Microsoft Word, everything else on the system is freeware. I thought I will make a list of the freeware that I am using on my system so it will help others looking out for similar freeware/software, so here we go for a list of the freeware/software that I have currently running on my system!

Most Importantly Protection For Your PC – I will start with the most important of them all, protection for your system in the form of antivirus and firewall. Gone are the days when I used to run Norton on my system and also the present day free antivirus solutions perform as well as the paid ones and hence for my system I have gone with and also do recommend the following.

• Avast Antivirus – Avast scores very high and comes both with built in anti-rootkit and anti-spyware. You can also check out AVG Free and Avira AntiVir Personal Edition.
• Comodo Firewall – Free and works very well too, but not everyone’s cup of tea especially in the training mode with the number of prompts it throws up every so often. You can also check out Kerio Personal Firewall which works very well indeed or alternately ZoneAlarm which is what I used previously.

Apart from security, here is a list of freeware that will run/operate just about anything and everything on your system.

• Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 FREE – Ashampoo wins hands down when it comes to DVD/CD burning software and this is coming from a person who has used Nero for years.
• AusLogics Disk Defrag – The best freeware disk defragmenter available and beats the Windows default defragmentation any day. Ashampoo Magical Defrag works better and in real time, but it’s not freeware.
• CCleaner – The best temp files cleaner, CCleaner literally cleans the crap from your system. CCleaner also has a registry cleaner, uninstaller and a startup manager too, but I mainly use CCleaner to clean the crap from my system.
• EasyCleaner – The Windows registry cleaner I have been using for years without any problems. EasyCleaner also has other functions like an uninstaller, checking and deleting duplicate files, startup manager, deleting cookies, etc.
• Thoosje Quick XP Optimizer and Advanced WindowsCare V2 Personal – I have installed both of them on my system, and both do the function of optimizing Windows XP, but from my personal experience I would go with Thoosje Quick XP Optimizer since I have found it definitely makes Windows XP faster and more responsive. You can try out both for yourself and make a decision on what works for you.
• EvilLyrics – The best search and display tool for lyrics as you play music on your system. Works with all major media players like Winamp, Foobar, MediaMonkey and my personal favorite XMPlay.
• FileZilla – The best FTP client there is and it is open source and freeware to boot. I used to use Ipswitch’s WS FTP a long time ago, but for the last couple of years since checking out FileZilla I have stuck with it and I can tell you it is the very best and performs as good as a professional FTP client if not better.
• Daemon Tools – If you have a lot of formats on CD/DVD/media and need a single solution for reading and copying data then look no further beyond Daemon Tools. It performs excellently as a disk image emulator and comes in handy to play games on your system.
• HTTrack Website Copier – The best offline web browser and website downloader. From downloading entire websites to backing up my own blog offline, HTTrack Website Copier delivers on all counts.
• Media Player Classic – All in one media player for your system and combined with K-Lite Codec Pack it is a one stop solution to play all formats on your system including proprietary formats like QuickTime, ACC, etc.
• K-Meleon – The fastest internet browser and the only competition to Opera in terms of speed, but I have switched over to Google Chrome as my default browser of late.
• Mozilla Firefox – The only serious competition to Internet Explorer and really the browser you should get as a replacement to Internet Explorer.
• Opera – The best internet browser by far in terms of speed and security. Opera has been my mainstay for browsing for years and has only recently been replaced by Google Chrome as the default browser on my system.
• Google Chrome – As mentioned above Google Chrome is the default browser on my system and it really scores in terms of speed and ease of use. Importing bookmarks from Firefox is a cinch and in terms of memory and CPU usage Google Chrome scores big time with many multiple tabs open at the same time.
• Picasa 3 – Good photograph manager from Google. I really don’t use it to display pictures on my system, but it really comes in handy to upload photos to online web albums on your Google Account.
• FastStone Image Viewer – The best image viewer. It is superfast and displays all formats. Very useful for resizing photos and for cropping functions too.
• POP Peeper – Not exactly Microsoft Outlook, but it works well with all email IDs like YahooMail, Hotmail, AOL, GMail, and some more like RediffMail, Mail.com, Lycos, Excite, etc. It comes in really handy if you have a ton of email IDs and accounts.
• Revo Uninstaller – While not Your Uninstaller, Revo Uninstaller is the best uninstaller in freeware and definitely beats Add or Remove Programs from Control Panel.
• VLC Media Player – The best media player your system can have both for audio and video and open source. VLC also plays media over the network, a definite advantage over other media players.
• Winamp – Definitely needs a place on your system and comes in handy especially for playing all audio media on your system.
• Foobar2000 – The Firefox of media players. If fiddling and tweaking around and playing with plug-ins is your cup of tea then Foobar2000 is exactly what you need. Foobar2000 delivers the best sound with tweaking options/customization and even supports Kernel mode streaming.
• XMPlay – The best sounding audio media player and with support/codecs/plug ins for a host of formats and functions. XMPlay really scores in terms of the bass output it delivers.
• Unlocker – If you have ever faced the error message Windows cannot delete as the file is in use then you will need Unlocker on your system. Unlocker will unlock all other processes using the file and give you access to move or delete the file. Really useful if you keep moving data from one HDD to another HDD on your system.
• NetMeter – NetMeter is a very useful application that will monitor and let you know the bandwidth you are getting from your ISP. Very useful to know if you are getting the speeds promised by your ISP and it also gives totals of uploads/downloads and total data transferred in any given day, week or month.
• Adobe Reader – The best PDF reader and much needed to read e books on your system. You can also check out Foxit Reader if Adobe is not your cup of tea.
• Trillian – The best multiple IM client, Trillian comes as freeware and even in a Pro version. If Trillian is not your cup of tea then you should check out Pidgin or better still take a look at Digsby which supports social networks and email support too.
• Google Talk – I have completely switched over to Google Talk for my chatting and very rarely get on Yahoo or MSN for instant messaging so Google Talk is the best IM client there is as far as I am concerned.

I will update this list if I come across any other freeware that warrants a place on my system or if I have forgotten to mention any that I am already using.