I am using Avira’s Antivir as my antivirus software. It’s the personal edition and thus it is free. And I think it’s very good especially since it uses very little resource (unlike some other very famous antivirus software which I shall not mention here). My PC isn’t exactly high end, so not having a resource hog antivirus software is a real time saver for me. However, I seem to face some problem with Antivir recently. It’s very slow when you try to update it’s virus definition. I am not saying that it is downloading like 20kbps or something, but it is actually downloading at 1.3kbps! Yes, that’s lower than dial-up. And worse of all, sometimes it will just fail after you tried for 30 minutes or so. Got me all fed up and pissed.
Yes, it’s free. Yes, I am not paying a single cent for using their software. But I think they should at least provide some sort of speeds for their virus definitions. I mean, we are talking about viruses here. It is not some sort of game patch! It’s an pretty important piece of protection for your PC. In fact, I think it’s the most important piece of software you should have. And allowing home users to use their free software is kind of like advertising for your product. If home users feel that Antivir is good, they will recommend it for office use. I think everyone knows that this is where the money is - from corporations and businesses.
If you are going to bash me for being a cheapskate and someone who doesn’t appreciate what others had done for you, please don’t. While I agree with you that they have developed a solid (and free) piece of software, I think they should at least try to work out a solution instead of just saying “their servers are overloaded”. There are a lot of sources out there willing to act as mirrors and we could use those mirrors to update our virus definitions instead. This will also help reduce the load on Avira’s own servers. It’s a win-win situation for all.
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!
Oh no, it looks like MSN/Live Messenger is now the most popular instant messaging platform in the world. I remember when I first used instant messenging, it was the famous ICQ. And it was during the time of dial-up! And during those time, the power of being able to write a message and have it delivered instantly was, well, cool. It’s just like chating where replies can be received instantly as well. And when ICQ introduced file delivery, I was stunned by it’s usefulness as well. But somehow along the way, ICQ fell out of favour. A lot of people started using MSN Messenger which came bundled with their Microsoft Operating System. They were just too lazy to download and install the ICQ software, thus MSN Messenger grew in popularity, just like Internet Explorer.
But luckily, unlike Internet Explorer, which remained stagant for a long time without any additional features or upgrades, MSN continued to evolve. When Skype came out and proved that audio and video messenging is workable and with broadband becoming more popular, MSN also started to add these features into their messenger. And not surprising, it became even more popular with the younger generation. Old folks like us still have our ICQ account.
A lot of users didn’t realize that compared to ICQ, MSN Messenger lacked a lot of features previously. Only recently did they started adding powerful features like offline messenging, file sharing and whiteboard sharing to their communication software. And competition like GoogleTalk and Yahoo! Pager were no fight at all. Although their software were capable instant messaging platforms, they don’t stand out against the ever so popular MSN Messenger and nobody saw the need for change, especially for the newer generation. Too bad, I would go for ICQ over MSN Messenger anytime but if you use ICQ and you are alone, you might as well don’t use Instant Messaging.
