Tech Tips and Tricks

I’m a Mac user and use a Mac for almost all my computing purposes. However, most of my friends, family and relatives have Windows boxes and I tend to their computing shortcoming and play the “computer-guy” most of the times. I’ve always been fascinated by the nice articles of Windows Secrets and today, let me rephrase yet again another article they published recently — Nine must-have freeware apps rise to the top.

Author Scott Dunn believes that the “best freeware” lists published by Web sites and magazines frequently trumpet dozens of programs, but the results reflect the subjective opinions of just one or two testers. Thus, to find out the best of the lot, he compared roundups of “great” freeware conducted recently by four reputable publications to find the programs that were endorsed by at least three of the reviews. And the result is an awesome list of the Best Windows Freeware.

Here are the list;

1. Avira AntiVir Personal: Good malware detection rates and its ability to take on rootkit viruses makes it an ideal Free Personal Anti-virus solution. However, it does not scan incoming e-mail though it can scan it once the attachments are saved. It does detects malware if you open an infected e-mail.
2. Comodo Firewall Pro: Comodo comes with a long whitelist of safe sites, which you can add to as you surf and is regarded to be better than the firewalls built into Windows XP or Vista. Though a little complicated for novice users, this is regarded as one tough and robust software.
3. TrueCrypt: TrueCrypt is an open-source program and can create encrypted files that appear as disk drives. It also lets you encrypt an entire drive (such as a USB flash drive), a drive partition, and — for extra safety — hidden drive volumes.
4. CCleaner: This software scrubs your system by removing temp files, cookies, browsing history, recent-document lists, log files in the Recycle Bin, and a lot of other digital detritus. The utility can also be used to uninstall applications and scan for orphaned and unused Registry entries.
5. Lightning for Thunderbird: Lightning is a plug-in from Mozilla that combines Sunbird calendar program with Thunderbird’s e-mail features.
6. Foxit Reader: A much faster alternative to Adobe PDF Reader, and has more options for viewing, printing, and annotating PDFs. You can even use Foxit to fill out PDF forms.
7. Audacity: An open-source audio editor that supports .mp3, .wav, and other popular audio formats.
8. Wavosaur: A single executable file, making it easier to run from a USB drive, Wavosaur is another free audio-editing software. Note that you may need to download the free Lame Encoder .dll file to allow the program to export to the .mp3 format.
9. Pidgin: One client to rule all Instant Messaging protocols — AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, or another messaging network. This open-source IM client (formerly called “Gaim”) lets you communicate with users of all the above and a dozen other chat networks.