Hi
Owner of a new desktop- what should be my essential programs to load onto it?
Essential Program's
drjoe27 on 07/05/2013 - 23:21
Last edited 07/05/2013 - 23:42
Last edited 07/05/2013 - 23:42
Comments
Just asking that question seems like that you'd mostly just use it for media consumption and web browsing.
These are the programs I consider essential.
Google Chrome
VLC Player
Skype
Microsoft Office
Avast Antivirus
Ccleaner
7zip
Adobe ReaderBrilliant
thanks i will keep this in mind for next time
Another one similar to Ninite that I'm using is Chocolatey, where you can automate installing software from the command line.
Some alternatives:
Google Chrome - Firefox
VLC Player - This is just great
Skype - Rather not
Microsoft Office - Libre Office
Avast Antivirus - MSE
Ccleaner - Or not bother
7zip - Great
Adobe Reader - Foxit ReaderAlso:
pdfcreator
My votes on the previosly mentioned lists
Chrome or Firefox
VLC
Skype (if you use it)
LibreOffice (Free and perfectly fine for the occasional office document viewing/creating)
Microsoft Security Essentials
7zip
Default Windows 8 PDF viewer (or Foxit)
pdfcreator is you want to be able to "print to pdf" to create a pdf file.Other suggestions:
Paint.NET (so much better than Paint that MS should just licence it)
uTorrent
Dropbox/Skydrive/Box.net (whichever cloud storage is your choice)
Evernote
Adobe Flash Player (only if needed… or just use Chrome which has Flash baked in)
Downthemall download extension for Firefox
Adblock Plus (Chrome or Firefox)
Lastpass
Thanks for this list - just what I needed
Perfect this is what I will do thank you
That is pretty close to what I consider essential
Google Chrome - thumbs up!
VLC Player - thumbs up!
Skype - optional
Microsoft Office - I use this, but OpenOffice is a nice alternative
Avast Antivirus - I use Avira
Ccleaner - optional
7zip - I use WinRar but this works and is free
Adobe Reader - thumbs up!
VLC is shit, I had numerous problems with some file types CCCP is MUCH MUCH better.
Those codec packs clog up your system big time.
If VLC can't play it, you must have some obscure material!I'm curious, what containers/codecs couldn't VLC play? Or are you refering to damaged files it couldn't handle?
VLC plays everything I have encountered.
In the past it didn't have hardware acceleration. It also had a bug with playing off DVD in an early 2.0 release (or releases) that I encountered. It also had WMV bugs (double window) but I hardly ever play WMV these days.
Aside from those issues and the fact it shows video title by default briefly when the video starts to play (which is a silly default to have to change in settings), it has been golden to me. I woudln't dream of installing any codec pack because of it.
@cheepwun nailed it. Also back in the day I used to watch a couple of fansubbed anime and VLC always screwed with the subs timing up, occasional screen 'fractures' or pixelations(?) could be the source file but I don't think so when I switched to MPC (which is included in CCCP) no problems at all.
It's not like any of the shit 'mega codec packs' that are on the internet if you haven't tried it don't talk shit about it cause I've used both and found CCCP a more pleasant experience. Does not clog up your system.
Another massive plus to CCCP and Media Player Classic.
VLC used to be alright, now everytime I run it it insists on rebuilding the font cache. I stopped using it and switched to other players, and saved a ton of headache.
Now I just use either DAUM Potplayer (the fork of KMplayer) and MPC — both I find are much better than VLC player.
I like irfanview for picture viewing. But mainly because im used to resizing pictures with it.
Which is available after you install plugins/addons which is liked on their site.
Otherwise i use most of the above except CCleaner.
Malware anti-bytes is usefull for when people have problems. But if its not kept up to date there may not be any point in preloading it if it doesnt work when you need to run it.
Recently started using dropbox, although there are other options around if you need that kind of thing.
add the following
Voidtools Everything
Agent Ransack
Exact Audio Copy
DVD Decrypter
CDBurnerXP
Notepad++
Dropbox
foobar2000
TightVNC
Putty
Daemon tools lite (free)
SteamAlso look into using tunlr.net so you can access geographically-restricted services such as BBC iPlayer without messing around with proxy servers, VPNs etc. etc.
(Some people don't like having all their DNS traffic go through tunlr, so if you're one of those types then I recommend installing 'DNS Jumper' so you can quickly switch between tunlr and your normal DNS servers).
Most of the 'essentials' are covered here depending on what you use your computer for. I'd recommend also installing something like TeamViewer so you can have remote assistance from any techie friends of yours. Again, it's available through Ninite.com and worth installing now so you don't have to mess around getting it when you do eventually need it!
Also, even if you have installed stuff manually, get it again via Ninite and then keep the installer. You can re-run it periodically to keep all the programs it's installed uptodate which is a great time-saver and good security wise. You could even schedule to run (as admin) to keep updated without any interaction on your part.
KeePass
also try:
Edit Pad Lite
xplorer2 Lite
Handbrake
uTorrent
Hola
Calibre
Mp3tag
Peerblock
Teracopy
Combofixcareful with the latest versions of utorrent; they are filled with garbage. You could try BitComet.
Not too bad as long as you bypass the garbage. The one I installed recently works ok. Choice, really.
you can get the old versions too, that's what I do.
they're available on Filehippo. Along with alot of other free software.
FreeCommander (if you fancy a proper dual-pane file explorer).
http://www.freecommander.com/Adblock Edge (addon for Firefox). A fork of Adblock Plus that blocks ads (of course) but without the "on-by-default" advertisements feature of Adblock Plus (in fact, without the stupid feature at all)
https://addons.mozilla.org/En-us/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/
whennottouseapostrophes.exe