Computersight -

There are free and not free programs. If you have money, buy programs, if you don’t, download free ones.

COMPUTER SECURITY

3 years ago, worm “Blaster” hurt “Windows XP”. Whit so bad virus on the loose it was very dangerous to connect to the internet. We won’t get in trouble having firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware installed on our computer.

Firewall – If we were living in a house, which would be surrounded by a big wall, nobody evil would come in. Firewall does the same thing. Doesn’t let any hackers to break into our computer.

ZoneAlarm Free:

A free firewall, which is one of the best, is needed. Many tests have proved that this is the best free firewall. If ZoneAlarm Free sees that someone is trying to connect to our computer, program blocks it and tells us about it.

Outpost Firewall Pro:

This program was the best in 2006 and definitely is one of the best on 2007. Not only “Outpost Firewall Pro” guards our computer, but it also guards itself. Hackers can turn off firewalls, but Outpost won’t let that happen. But don’t forget that this firewall is not free.

Anti-virus – If our computer will get a virus and he won’t get any help, we can lose many data. It won’t happen if we will have an anti-virus.

Avira AntiVir PE Classic:

This anti-virus is very effective. Free fighter against viruses will kill all viruses. It is very easy to use this anti-virus. But this program is slow. It takes Avira AntiVir PE Classic to find out about a new virus about 5 hours.

Kaspersky:

Definitely the best anti-virus around. It was 1st on many tests and will be in the future so I recommend Kaspersky for all.
Anti-Spyware – spies are very bad for us. They steal information from us and use it for bad deeds.

Ad-Aware SE Personal:

You can often see how spyware gets into our computer. Free anti-spyware like Ad-Aware SE Personal will detect all spies and delete them.

Webroot Spy Sweeper:

This is a not free anti-spyware but worth to buy. It is more effective than a free anti-spyware. Also it can block spies before they enter our computer.

MOVIES, PHOTOS AND MUSIC

We can watch movies, listen to music and look at photos with our computer. Without additional programs it is not easy to do it.

Listen to music – Many people have music in their computers. Our OS probably already has a music player, but I recommend other, better, free players.

Winamp:

You probably know about this music player. It is one of most popular and the best. We can also listen to radio with this player.

Foobar2000:

A free and easy to use music player. It easily plays all music formats. It is not well known, but it doesn’t mean that this player is bad. I recommend this for those, who have not a powerful computer.

Watching movies and photos – Windows Xp has Windows Media Player, which can play movies, but it’s not always recognizes a video. If that happens, you won’t be able to watch movies. It will never happen if you install other video player.

BSPlayer:

One of the most popular video players. BSPlayer can make videos look better, show video subs and do other good things.

VLC Player:

This video player is not presentable like other players, but it has many good possibilities. One of the best, it can show videos trough LAN. But if we won’t need this, we will still like it because it shows all movies.

Irfan View:

You will be able to not only look at photos, but and correct them with Irfan View. It can change size, remove red eyes. This free program should really be in our computer if we hold all our photos in computer.

Picasa:

This program is great because when you install it; all your photos automatically will be putted in folders by date. You can also edit photos with this great program.

FOR INTERNET

Computer without an internet – computer without a future. We often browse through many web pages. That’s why you need a browser. Many people use “Internet Explorer 6” but this explorer is not the best. We also like to talk with our friends. That’s why we need a messenger and e-mail.

Internet browsers – Don’t use IE6! There are many better browser around.

Firefox 2:

This browser has become very popular. Firefox is very stable and has many possibilities. It has many add-ons. Like showing weather, downloading all videos from internet and other.

Opera:

Opera is not only a browser for a PC but it also can be used on mobile phones. The newest version has Speed Dial. It makes the fastest even faster.

Internet Explorer 7:

Newest IE version. It is much better than the old one, because it has many new possibilities and is much safer. If you want to continue to use IE, download IE7.

E-mail – Windows already has and e-mail program “Outlook Express”. But it is not so good. I recommend other e-mail programs.

The Bat:

It is a very powerful and easy to use e-mail. It won’t let other to view our mail. The Bat also checks all incoming mail for spam. This way our computer is protected from viruses and spyware.

ThunderBird:

It is created by Firefox creators. It is also free and fast. It also has a good protection from spam.

Messengers – We all talk through the internet. For that we need a nice messenger.

Skype:

It is absolutely free. We can not only call to PC, we can also call to mobile phones, but we will have to pay for that. To talk to others, we will need a microphone and headphones. We also can see our friend through his webcam.

ICQ:

It is the most popular messenger. ICQ name is made from “I seek you”. We can not only chat, but also play little games. When we install this program, we will get our ICQ number. If we know our friends ICQ number, we can call him.

mIRC:

To use IRC you need a small program like mIRC. mIRC is a friendly IRC client that is well equipped with options and tools. mIRC is shareware, which means that you can download mIRC and try it out freely for 30 days to evaluate it. If during, or at the end of, the evaluation period you decide that you would like to continue using mIRC, you must register your copy.

OFFICE PROGRAMS

Having a PC means that sooner or later we will have to write a document. To do so we need one of the programs listed below.

Microsoft Office:

Writing a document with MS Office is very easy. Not long ago 2007 version was released. It is much better than 2003. It costs much, but it is worth it. Office 2007 also includes new applications and server-side tools.

OpenOffice:

OpenOffice is a free office suite of applications available for many different operating systems including Linux, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, OpenVMS, IRIX and Mac OS X. It supports the OpenDocument standard for data interchange.

ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE

We have many programs installed now, but it is not enough. We also need few thing.

Archives – With such program we can make one file out of many.

WinRAR:

WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. You may try WinRAR before buy, its trial version is available in http://www.rarlab.com/.

ZipGenius:

ZipGenius is the absolutely free software for Windows that lets you compress files to almost any kind of archive. ZipGenius supports more than 20 compressed archive formats, including CD/DVD-ROM image files in ISO9660 standard. This is the file compression suite you were searching for: it is free and easy to use, plus it supports more than 20 formats of compressed archives, including RAR, ARJ, ACE, CAB, SQX, OpenOffice.org documents and the excellent7-zip.ZipGenius now can precompress executable files going to be added to a ZIP archive through the UPXcompressor.

CD/ DVD BURNING

PC which has a Windwos XP can burn CD. But it is not very good solution.

Nero Burning ROM:

Nero delivers Multimedia Applications for capturing, editing, burning, managing, sharing as well as Audio/Video Compression Technologies. I used it, using it and will use it.

CDBurnerXp Pro:

It is free and a perfect burner. I tried it because many people say that this burner is one of the best. They were right! It is very good, but I prefer NERO because it has more features, but not everybody need all NERO features, that”s why I recommend CDBurnerXp Pro.

That’s it! These are the programs, which is needed by everybody. Don’t forget to update all software.