[Razorlike]

I just started with a fresh build of Windows XP proffesional due to Linux being too annoying, finding new fixes for things that I want to plug-and-play like my new POD XT Live.
Now, I remember that the free software list used to have ratings. Since it doesn't anymore, could anyone list the best performing software for security (antivirus, firewall, etc), browsing (internet), Media (playing music and movies) and cleaning my computer (things like CCleaner).

~Razorlike

[Muttmuttinthebut...]

I just started with a fresh build of Windows XP proffesional due to Linux being too annoying, finding new fixes for things that I want to plug-and-play like my new POD XT Live.
Now, I remember that the free software list used to have ratings. Since it doesn't anymore, could anyone list the best performing software for security (antivirus, firewall, etc), browsing (internet), Media (playing music and movies) and cleaning my computer (things like CCleaner).

~Razorlike

I like iTunes for music, Windows Media Player works well too.
For browsing, use FF for security, comfort and add-ons, or Google Chrome for speed.

Dunno how to get Media player if it isn't already installed, everything else is free though.

This post has been edited by Mutt: Jul 2 2009, 05:08 PM

[redmonke]

Antivirus: AVG 8 Free (what I use), Avira (heard good things about it), or Avast!.
Antispyware: I use SUPERantispyware. Some people like Spybot. AVG comes bundled with antispyware, so it scans both in one round.
Antimalware: I use malwarebytes. It takes out a lot of stuff others miss. I use that as the first scan, then SUPERantispyware, then AVG.
Firewall: If you have a router you already have one, but if you go to public places a lot, then you can try out Comodo or ZoneAlarm. I use OnlineArmor (which I got for free as a deal a website was having. http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ has bunches of free stuff every day. I've also got Paragon Partition Manager, which is way better than gparted ).
Media: I like Windows Media player, the best. I don't buy things off iTunes so I don't use it. It also automatically imports all your music from your My Music folder (no need to reimport stuff like in itunes).
Internet: Firefox 3.5 just came out and is very fast and very secure.
Cleaning: Ccleaner is great. Defraggler is really good for defragmenting (only need to do once or twice a year ).

[Jr Josh]

Antivirus I use AVG free. You could also used avast. Both are good.

For a firewall I just use windows firewall. If you don't want to use that, just go with Zone Alarms free firewall.

For a browser, I'd go with Firefox or Google Chrome. IE just sucks. Firefox has good add ons and is fast. Google Chrome is fast, but not so many add ons.

For media, I go with iTunes for all my music and then I use VLC Player for movies and such. VLC will pretty much open any media type.

For cleaning your PC, go with CCleaner.

[Edward I -Longsh...]

AV - AVG 8

Firewall - ZoneAlarm

Anti-Malware etc,- AdAware

Internet - IE8. Simple, reasonably fast and assured to work with most things. I think FF is too clunky but that might just be me.

THats what I use. My comp is fast, simple to use and secure. I'd recommend these.

[iSummon]

I use AVG Free and Spy Bot search and destroy, both are free and easy to use.

Use Fire Fox for your browsing, it's awesome for security, if your THAT paranoid use No Script add on to your FF that blocks anything even CLOSE to bad.

[gabtdw]

Internet - Firefox 3.5 - the best browser due to its almost limitless flexibility and expandability with addons. It's also REALLY FAST and standards compliant.

Music - iTunes - as long as you don't mess around with the database location once you've got your library going, it's the best, change the library location to My Music to import direct from there) and, of course, Spotify.

Video - I've heard good things about VLC Player, but I just use WMP with various codecs installed (Xvid, DivX etc.)

Security - AVG has never given me any problems

This post has been edited by Earlofvarrok: Jul 3 2009, 04:04 AM

[Cattius]

WARNING: MASSIVE POST ALERT (sorry... )

I'm not going to name just one product in each category, because I think different products suit different people. Instead, I'll give you a selection to choose from with descriptions. I like to be awkward

Security:
Anti-viruses:
AVG Free 8.5 - Popular, user-friendly and provides very good virus and spyware protection. More resource-heavy than the other anti-viruses.
Avast! - Not as popular or easy-to-use as AVG, but it's very customizable, provides good protection and is light on resources.
Avira AntiVir Free - From the independent testing I've seen, this has the best detection results out of the three, but there's not a huge difference. It's not as user-friendly as AVG and the advertising can be a bit intrusive, but it's light on resources.

Firewalls:
ZoneAlarm Free - Easy-to-use firewall that makes a great replacement for the Windows Firewall.
Comodo Firewall - Great firewall with lots of features and options, but can be confusing for less experienced users.

Browsing:
Firefox 3.5: A rock-solid browser with good security, fantastic standards support and tons of add-ons and themes so you can customize it to your heart's content.
Internet Explorer 8: Internet Explorer has an appalling track record. Luckily for the millions of newbies that never think to change from the default browser bundled with their computers, the 8th version is actually fairly decent. Microsoft have added some nice features like Accelerators and improved standards support (although it's still lagging behind the other browsers). However, the interface is still decidedly old-fashioned, there's little in the way of customization, it's always the most-targeted browser as it has the largest market share, and I find it to be slower at rendering pages than the other browsers.
Google Chrome 2: One of the newer browsers, Google's offering is pretty good. It's my favourite and I use it as my main browser. It's fast, has good standards support, is very secure thanks to its sandboxing approach and has a very "no-frills" interface - ideal if you don't want your browser to distract you from browsing. There's virtually no add-ons though, and those that exist require a fair amount of tweaking to work.
Opera 9: An extremely fast browser with the lowest resource usage, Opera is pioneering many new features which other browsers don't have, like built-in torrent support. It also has good security, and is customizable through the use of 'widgets'. It has a fairly 'unusual' interface, that you either love or hate the instant you see it. It's a shame that most people seem to overlook it really.
Safari 4: A reasonably fast, standards-compliant browser with some very nice visual features, such as 'Cover Flow' for your bookmarks and history. However, it uses a HUGE amount of resources (over double the amount any of the other browsers use). I'm not sure about add-on support tbh as I don't know a great deal about it.

Incidentally, for another topic I compared the resource usage of each browser on my Windows 7 laptop. Here are the results, in case you're interested:

Spoiler: Click to Toggle the Spoiler.

I mentioned resource usage in a previous post. Here's the resource usage of IE8, FF3 and Chrome 2 on my Windows 7 machine. Each browser has one window open, showing the main page of the Sals forum.

Google Chrome 2: 2 processes 48MB RAM 0% CPU
Internet Explorer 8: 2 processes 35MB RAM 1% CPU
Firefox 3: 1 process 49MB RAM 1% CPU

What is interesting is that, despite the fact IE8 seems to use less resources, it is noticeably slower than FF and Chrome when browsing pages. I didn't actually time the startup for each browser, but I judged Chrome to be significantly faster at starting up, and IE8 and FF to be roughly equal in startup time (however, bear in mind Chrome only had to load the New Tab page when I started it up, whereas IE8 and FF had to load Google). Also worth a mention is the fact that Firefox and Chrome loaded the Sals forum main page with no errors; IE8 reported an error loading an image.

As I said before, with modern computers resource usage is no longer a major issue, but I still found it interesting to compare the browsers.

EDIT: I installed Opera and Safari for Windows to compare them too.

Opera: 1 process 20MB RAM 0% CPU
Safari: 2 processes 130MB RAM 6% CPU

Safari doesn't seem to be exactly lightweight
Both browsers loaded pages very fast, IMO at the same speed as Chrome, and faster than FF and IE8.

[Close]

I also very highly recommend using the WOT (Web of Trust) add-on in whichever browser you choose to use. It lets you quickly see whether a site is safe or not and thus enhances security. It is available as an add-on for IE and Firefox, and as a bookmarklet for all other browsers.

Media:
I recommend using all of the following programs btw as they serve different purposes.

iTunes 8: Great program, very popular, just annoying that its resource usage is so high. Perfect for if you have an iPod and want to update it/buy media for it. Some people really don't like it though, so here's a selection of free alternatives.

VLC Media Player: A useful open-source program that can play just about anything you throw at it.

Spotify: Free, high quality music (with occasional adverts), available whenever you have an internet connection.

Clean-up:
Just like for Media, I recommend both these programs.

CCleaner: I know you already know about it, but a clean-up tools list wouldn't be complete without it Cleans up junk files and tidies the registry.

Defraggler: A very nice defragmentation tool. Works well, no need to run it very often.

That may seem like very few optimization tools, but you don't need many.

This post has been edited by Cattius: Jul 3 2009, 11:31 AM

[Mp5shooter]

For security, I suggest Kaspersky Internet Security. It's a great security suite with lots of features, including anti-virus and a firewall.

Features:

Anti-Malware
Files and Memory
Email and IM
Web Traffic

System Security
Application Filtering
Firewall
Proactive Defense

Online Security
Anti-Phishing
Network Attack Blocker
Anti-Dialer

Content Filtering
Anti-Spam
Banner Ad Blocker
Parental Control (lol)

-

For spyware and malware, a great option is Spybot Search and Destroy. It scans your computer very quickly for spyware and malware. Also included is a system settings protector so nothing is changed without your permission. If you plan on using this and Kaspersky (Which is recommended) install Kaspersky first or Kaspersky won't install if it finds Spybot Search and Destroy; you'll have to uninstall SnD and then reinstall it.

-

Browsing

Get Firefox. Very fast and secure browser. You can get some nice addons for Firefox too, such as Webmail Notifier which places a small envelope icon in the bar at the bottom of the browser. You input your email account user names and passwords and set how often you want it to check for new mail in the inboxes in each account. You can make it play a sound when new email is received. When you get new mail in any of the accounts, just click on the envelope, which now lights up from gray to orange with the number of new emails next to it. It will open up all accounts with new mail in seperate tabs.

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Media

Windows Media Player is a good choice just for watching random movies you have laying around, but for music I recommend getting iTunes.

-

Cleanup

CCleaner is definitely the way to go for this. It cleans up all temporary files and removes invalid registry entries. There is a secure option to "shred" all files that are deleted using the application. You can also wipe free space on the disk while cleaning.

[Cattius]

For security, I suggest Kaspersky Internet Security. It's a great security suite with lots of features, including anti-virus and a firewall.

Kaspersky is good, but I think Razorlike was asking for free software.