Well, I thought it would be interesting to tell our readers which freeware software I am currently using on my PC. And hopefully, more people will look into alternatives for expensive...
Well, I thought it would be interesting to tell our readers which freeware software I am currently using on my PC. And hopefully, more people will look into alternatives for expensive programs. There are a lot of freeware and open source alternatives available on the Internet, some of which are even better than their commercial counterparts! For me, I use anything that works and if a better solution comes along, I will use that. I am not those “loyal” kind who supports a certain software just because I like the name. If it works, it’s good enough for me.
Below is a list of software which I have on my PC and I have given some explanations which I find them suitable enough for me to use.
1. Antivirus – I am using Avira Antivir. Free, powerful and very lightweight. You won’t like your system bogged down by your antivirus software and even with a slightly slower system, Avira Antivir should not be taxing your system much. Although I have only been using this software for about 6 months or so, I hadn’t got any virus all these time which is a good sign. Their virus definitions are updated very frequently too. The thing I find it bad about Avira, their servers seemed to be slow. When I download updates for the virus definitions, it will take like 15 minutes or so on a 6.5Mbps line! And I have tried updating on many other connections, all seemed rather slow to me. Perhaps it’s for the free version only.
2. Text Editor – I am using PSPad. Another impressive piece of free software. Because I do a lot of coding, a good text editor for me is important. PSPad is especially designed for web programmers and coders. With good formatting, it makes things much easier for a coder. And it also saves us a lot of time when doing troubleshooting. You can let PSPad check your HTML code for you too. It also has this very handy colour translator for you to change your colour code to RGB and vice versa. And it allows you to preview your colours. PSPad comes with a spell check, so terrible spellers like me will have nothing to fear about embarrassing ourselves in public.
3. Graphic Editor – My very favourite Irfanview. I have used this software for about 3 years now and I have to tell you, unless you are looking for Photoshop quality editing, then Irfanview will work just right. It’s very easy to use and comes with an impressive set of features. You can manipulate or enhance your photos and graphics by adding effects and so on. The thing I like about Irfanview, it’s batch function. Since I have to deal with a lot of pictures and photos in one shot, I can easily compress huge number of photos into thumbnails with just a few clicks of the mouse. And if you want to increase the functionality of Irfanview, you can easily download plugins which supports additional graphic formats.
4. Anti-spyware – Another old favourite of mine – Spybot Search & Destroy. Provides me a good level of protection against the various nasties you see on the Internet. And they do update their threat recognition rules pretty often. They have this “preventive measures” protection, sort of like the antivirus real-time protection, which guards against spywares before they even strike. Because it is a freeware, there is no automatic update feature available. I would suggest users to update their threat rules often, maybe like once per week. And users should also scan for spyware often, just in case something went through. Another software I would suggest is Spywareblaster. This software is more of a shield for your browser than a anti-spyware software. It helps prevent installation of spyware, adware, hijackers or dialers on your browser – Internet Explorer and Mozilla.
5. Compression Utility. I am using IZArc. Don’t ask me why they have such a weird name, I don’t know why. But this software is great. It works on a big variety of formats like RAR, ZIP, ACE and so on. And you can open cd images like ISO, BIN and CDI on IZArc as well. All in all, a very useful software to have. I have tried a few compression utility myself and none comes close to what IZArc can support right out of the box. It beats my old trusty zipping software Winrar as well.
6. FTP Client. Well, of course it is Filezilla! What else. This is one stable FTP Client. A lot of FTP Clients will start to give problems with uploading a lot of files, but not Filezilla. It just keeps on working and working till it times out. If you always face problems with uploading files to your server, then Filezilla’s resume function is a real life saver. And Filezilla supports SFTP over SSH, which is supposed to be more secure than plain old FTP access.
I will go into other software (like browsers, media player, pdf converter and registry cleaner) some other time. Do you guys have a better alternative (must be freeware or open source) than what I am using now? If so, please comment and let’s have a discussion on them!
