Applications I Cannot Go Without

There are some applications that I just have to have on my computer. I will list some here, as my gift to you. The best thing about these programs is that they are all free!

InternetFor my Internet browser, I cannot go with Firefox. Not only is Firefox safer to use than IE, but the many add-ons make it so customizable that you can have it set up, tailor-made to your surfing needs.

Certain add-ons are a must for me.

Firstly, TrackMeNot – a simple little add-on that camouflages your surfing trail from all the “sneaky ones”. It’s not high-tech, but it will blur your trail by spewing out all kinds of fake searches on your behalf. Just install it and forget about it. No hassles.

Secondly, DownThemAll! is a very functional download manager that actually increases the download spead. When you want to download something, just right-click and save with DownThemAll. Multiple downloads are possible at the same time and definitely faster than Firefox’s build in download function.

Thirdly, Video Download Helper. This add-on can download media files, including embedded videos from most video directories, such as YouTube. Yes, with this you can download YouTube videos for later viewing. An absolute must in your surfing-arsenal.

Then, Cooliris. This plug in is a image viewer that displays images in a fully zoomable 3D wall. Use it when doing image searches in Google to quickly navigate to the images you’re looking for. It also has a slideshow function. I use Cooliris all the time.


A recent find, and something that I will probably use all the time from now on is the Split Browser add-on. With this nifty little gadget you can split your browser in two or more frames. I use it to keep my email account in plain view all the time while I do my normal surfing in the other browser. I also use it when watching online TV/video programs.

Security

Standard on all my computers is AVG’s free virus protection. I’ve always been quite happy with it. Recently I’ve replaced AVG on my home computer with AVIRA AntiVir Personal.

Another must on your computer is a good firewall. I used to use Zone Alarm, but recently changed over to COMODO.

I also have Spybot Search & Destroy to handle spyware. I furthermore make use of PeerGuardian 2 to keep me safe from the “sneaky ones”, especially when doing P2P-sharing.

Media

I use Foobar2000 as my default audio player. It is an extremely simple player that takes very little system resources; however, it can play practically any audio format out there. It also allows multiple playlists, which is ideal for me, as I usually have a couple of genres of music I like to listen to interchangeably and often also have a playlist open for the spiritual (sermons, seminars, audio Bible, etc.) stuff I’m listening to, as well as an audio book, or philosophical lectures of some sort.

For video files I usually use Korea’s Gom Player; a great product that plays basically all typical video formats. A nifty thing about Gom Player is that it downloads its own codecs. Gom Player is also my player of choice to watch .flv-files – those YouTube videos I downloaded with Video Download Helper.

Where Gom Player doesn’t work, I fall back to VLC Player. Between these two players I can usually play any video file I stumble across.

For downloading Internet TV programming I use Miro. You can subscribe to “channels” and Miro will download you the latest episodes in that channel as it becomes available. It works pretty much like a podcast downloader, just for videos. With so much media to consume, I never watch regular TV. (In fact, I don’t even own a TV.) I especially like to watch the alternative news programming, using Miro. I’m also subscribed to some tutorial channels and nature related programming.

My podcast downloader of choice is Juice. Unlike Apple’s iTunes, Juice is free of ads and giant corporate agendas.

Torrents

For torrents I use uTorrent. It’s simple and effective.

File Manager

I recently found Q-Dir again. This was a little program I used back in the MS-DOS days. It’s made a comeback as a Windows friendly application and allows you to easily manage files across directories and drives. You can have multiple frames open and drag and drop between them. It’s much faster and convenient than opening multiple windows.


SyncToy 2.0 is a great application to synchronise folders on different drives (e.g. your hard disk and a memory stick). Something useful from Microsoft.

Launcher

Launchy is a neat little application that opens with an easy hot-key short cut (ALT+Spacebar). You simply type in the first letters of any program you wish to launch and Launchy intuitively guesses the program, and shows you a list which you can easily choose and quickly open. It can also automatically do Internet searches and an arsenal of other things, such as mathematical calculations. Very useful.

Office Applications

Open Office is an alternative to Microsoft's Office Suite, and it totally free, fully functioning office suite, which include applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and databases.