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[cacahuate]

Laptop is purchased. Excitement is being had.

It will be a clean slate, so I want to start off right.

As of now, I know to get Firefox/Opera.

Adaware.

Avast!

iTunes/WinAmp.

What programs do you use in general? For fighting virii? The lesser known programs that are still really cool? Instant messenging ones? Fun programs that don't serve much purpose?

Thanks for your time, and for helping me make my computer spectacular!

[5thWheel]

I don't want to get into a big fight over AV (lots of ppl have lots of preferences:) but I'm pretty sure I've heard dubious stuff about "Avast!" (I think it was either Avast or AVG that missed stuff on a friend's PC, can't remember which tho!).  I use Nod32, which was recommended to me by the developers of Smoothwall.  Don't know if it is actually *good* (I'm v careful and AFAIK have never had a threat, but if I had and my AV missed it, how would I know?) but at least it doesn't interfere with normal operation (unlike poxy Symantec, which I will never again touch, caused me more problems than any virus I've as yet encountered).
For IM I use gaim.
This may be of interest to Adobe Acrobat Reader users.  I detest acrobat but have yet to find an alternative.
ZIP/Archive utility
Media Player (still looking for a windows front end tho).
Difference listing thingy (if you're a programmer!)
Automatically correct the time of your pc

Opera users: does Opera still all but force you to use tabbed browsing (which I don't like)?

[jhocking]

First off, the telling us your OS would be helpful.  From your list, I'm assuming Windows, although I'm not really familiar enough with the software to say this for sure.

I can't really give any recommendations because the PC software I use is all really special purpose (eg. 3D modeling,) while the interesting general purpose software I use is all OSX.  About the only thing I have to point out is that if you have any interest in programming and/or games (and if you're posting here then you very well may be,) you should take a peek at www.blitzbasic.com

ADDITION: Oh, AVG for antivirus.  Agitnum's Outpost firewall.

ADDITION 2: www.openoffice.org for a free alternative to microsoft office
www.gimp.org for a free alternative to photoshop

[cacahuate]

Hm. Thank you. Yes, it's a Windows-based laptop.

Any others?

[Se7en]

Right, choose firefox over Opera. Its less of a memory hog, more reliable, and has a much more cut down feel to the interface. Also, less compatibility problems with webpages.

It says something for the firefox interface that there is only one change i make after a fresh installation of it on a new PC. I add a "new tab" button to the nav bar. Thats it. The rest is utterly spot on. Its just so refreshing to have a bit of software that works as i want it to, out of the box, with no arsing about.

I'd second open office, assuming you arnt planning on *ahem* borrowing *ahem* a copy of ms office.

I use winrar for compression. it covers all the funny formats which windows XP doesnt. (XP has native support for opening zips)

I use Winamp for music. Its a simple, fully featured music player. It also supports lots of video files, so is a full alternative to windows media player.

[CRASH andor BURN]

Spybot Search & Destroy

[5thWheel]

Spybot Search & Destroy

^^^Trashed my brothers laptop, I had to dive into the registry to repair the damage (would not uninstall properly).  This was about a year ago, however, maybe it has improved.  I use free version of adaware (not personally, but have cleaned plenty of ppls pcs with it), as usual, not sure if it gets everything but it has yet to do damage in my experience.

[Se7en]

Yeah, spybot has given me problems too. Adaware has been nothing but great mind you. That said, i just have no need for any spyware protection ever since i migrated to Firefox.

[est]

i agree with a lot of what has been suggested already!  this is pretty good stuff.  my re-install checklist usually goes something like:

the latest versions of:

• ACDSee - really nifty image viewer/editor.
• Acrobat Reader - for reading PDFs
• Ad-Aware - good spyware detection/removal tool
• DiVX codecs - for playback of DiVX video files
• Firefox - best browser for my needs
• Flashget - multi-part download handler, can resume downloads, etc
• FreePDF XP - for writing pdfs
• iTunes - mostly for music sorting a jukeboxing, WinAmp is my default player
• Mcafee virus scanner - light, no-nonsense, will-not-take-over-your-PC kind of virus scanner
• MS Office - document editing, etc.  free alternative: Open Office
• Photoshop - for image editing.  free alternative: the GIMP
• Quicktime - for playing Apple Quicktime files (this is installed with iTunes, but if you don't want that but want to play .mov files you'll need this)
• Real Alternative - a light, no-nonsense player for RealMedia files
• SmartFTP - just the FTP client that i use, maybe you can find something better if you look for what you need
• Winamp - a better simple mp3 player than Windows Media & iTunes
• Winrar - for opening rar & arj files
• Winzip - because i don't like the WinXP zip interface
• XViD codecs - for playing back XViD encoded video files[/list:u]

[SpacemanSpiff]

Media Player (still looking for a windows front end tho).

This might be what you've been looking for, though I'm not sure.

Apart from that, I recomend trying both Firefox and Opera and see what you like better. I prefer Opera because I find Firefox not very handy when you have more than 35 tabs open at once. Opera can handle that better.

Virus scanner wise, the best scanner out there (if you're willing to pay for it) is Kaspersky. They typically react very fast and their scanning engine is the best one out there, when it comes to results.
Don't ever touch Symantec, their products suck.

By the way, if you get MPlayer (I linked it above) you don't need to install any codecs at all. It play everything right out of the box.

In case you ever need any SSH stuff, PuTTY and WinSCP3 are the way to go.
As for the WinAmp series, I recommend the WinAmp2.x series, everything afterwards sucked, if you ask me.
And unless you want to use warez or are rich, GIMP is a very good option. The GUI is bearable now and it has tons of features. Toy with it for a while and you'll be able to use it very well and it's free too.

E-Mail wise: Thunderbird. It's awesome.
IRC: XChat.

[Matteh99]

Est's list is pretty complete.  The only change I would make is AVG free instead of Mcafee.  Or if you want to pay money TrendMicro's PcCillin.

I haven't used Mcafee Virus scan but their "internet security suite" is a pain in the neck.  It blocks internet stuff it shouldn't and the interface is weird as I remember there is no centralized control.  Pretty much turned me off of Mcafee products..

Eric

[McTaggart]

For music I use http://musik.berlios.de/">wxMusik

It sorts everything into albums and artists, and you've got dynamic and static playlists and a really powerful random funtion.

If you're going with firefox, these are some extensions which are awesome:
http://www.radialthinking.de/radialcontext/">RadialContext Radial context menus are awesome.
http://downthemall.mozdev.org/">downTHEMall Download many files easily. Useful for getting the .oggs from the internet archive's etree mirror.

[Axle]

Try Foxit PDF Thingy. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/default.htm

Their PDF reader will open PDF's much faster than adobe's.

[5thWheel]

Try Foxit PDF Thingy. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/default.htm
Their PDF reader will open PDF's much faster than adobe's.

You are my new God.  I have been looking for an alternative to the bloated and nasty-to-use acrobat for... um.. ever!  Are they new? I don't remember seeing them last time I googled for "Alternative to Acrobat". Anyway, foxit seems to have fixed all the stuff that annoyed me about acrobat, it is awesome!

5thWheel wrote:
mPlayer (still looking for a windows front end tho).

This might be what you've been looking for, though I'm not sure.

I gave them a go but (didn't try cygwin flavours) they seem to be launcher/playlist apps.  What I want is this, only without the incessant bombing out:/ (There is a list of front ends on the main mPlayer site, I just haven't had time to try them all yet).
Edit: I have just been made aware of this: Media Player Classic, which also plays MOVs, RMs, etc, and has a UI anyway.  If its as good as it looks, mplayer & Quicktime Player & Real Blah are going in the bin at last!

[jhocking]

I too am in debt to you over Foxit.  I never really noticed how annoying Acrobat is until I started using a Mac; Preview is so much better for viewing PDF files.  I'll have to see if it is an improvement, but just knowing about an Acrobat alternative for Windows is useful.