# Help me compile a list of essential utilities. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 1, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920 "2003-10-01T13:52:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![NoGoodNamesLeft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8797f3/32.png) [@NoGoodNamesLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoGoodNamesLeft)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/1 "2003-10-01T13:52:35Z")
A co-worker is making her first leap into the computer age, and buying her first PC. Being the friendly guy I am, I offered to put together a CD of (free) essential utilities she’ll need for day-today use. Here’s what I’ve got so far: -AdAware -Zone Alarm -Acrobat Reader -Win Zip -Clean Up! -Music Match -Quicktime Player -Eudora -Open Office Am I missing anything? ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/2 "2003-10-01T15:19:56Z")
How about [AVG](http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php) ? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/3 "2003-10-01T15:25:00Z")
Spybot S&D TurboNote TweakUI RegClean Trillian FTP Explorer MRU Blaster PopupPopper Opera 7.20 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/4 "2003-10-01T15:46:14Z")
Irfanview (excellent freeware image manipulation) HDCopy (good tool for migrating your OS to a larger drive - used to be freeware, but I think that has changed) ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/5 "2003-10-01T16:13:38Z")
GIMP Mozilla/Firebird ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/6 "2003-10-01T23:18:00Z")
I love [Bookmark Wizard.](http://www.moonsoftware.com/freeware.asp) [More to sift through.](http://discussions.virtualdr.com/showthread.php?threadid=135859) ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/7 "2003-10-01T23:36:41Z")
Quake 1.32 patch 😃 ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2003, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/8 "2003-10-01T23:37:27Z")
Freecell. ---
**Author:** ![skeptic\_ev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@skeptic\_ev](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skeptic_ev)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/9 "2003-10-02T01:07:00Z")
Am I the only one who saw the OP and thought: Water Electricity Gas ??? Oh, not that kind of utility. I see. Well, this may not be exactly what you’re thinking about, but the new Google search bar is pretty cool. (It suppresses pop-ups.) ---
**Author:** ![bojon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@bojon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bojon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/10 "2003-10-02T01:22:00Z")
irfanview HistoryKil Winzip ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/11 "2003-10-02T02:11:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by skeptic\_ev \* > \*\*Am I the only one who saw the OP and thought: > > Water > Electricity > Gas > > \*\* Nope. I was ready to pop in and say that I figured electricity was pretty essential, along with water. Gas, depending on where you are. Beyond that, I figured everything else was non-essential (though nice). ---
**Author:** ![cletus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@cletus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cletus)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/12 "2003-10-02T03:05:39Z")
Proxomitron (for popups and more) BSplayer (if you want a alternative to Windows Media Player) Winamp (IMHO better then musicmatch) WinRAR (for the compressed files that Winzip doesn’t cover) [Here’s](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=182071) a old thread I started about free stuff on the net. It might give you some more ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Tommyturtle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@Tommyturtle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tommyturtle)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/13 "2003-10-02T06:34:15Z")
Ones not mentioned so far and as far as I know are still free: Window Washer 5 Webwasher Spysweeper Star Downloader Just changed computers and haven’t gotten around to moving everything to this one yet…old one had about 50 others you’d find useful ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/14 "2003-10-02T07:12:18Z")
Textpad. [http://www.textpad.com/](http://www.textpad.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/15 "2003-10-02T07:49:39Z")
Sorry to go a _little_ offtopic: IMHO, you shouldn’t overhelm her with a bunch of utilities right from the beginning. Just give her the very bare essentials and then teach her how to discover new utilities when and if she needs them, from sites like [Download.com](http://Download.com) or [Tucows.com](http://Tucows.com). I think that giving her too much at once might just make her boggle at the huge list of strange names and not use any of it… besides, knowing how to find stuff, including software, on the Internet by herself would be a very useful skill for any computer user to have. All of this is, of course, assuming that she’s NOT the kind of person who LOVES to try out every new piece of software… if she’s excited by that kind of stuff, then, by all means, make her a huge collection of tools 🙂 And if that’s the case, I’d suggest a multi-archive tool like UltimateZip or PowerArchiver in place of WinZip/WinRAR/WinACE/Winwhatever. Something that can open all major archive formats seamlessly, so that she won’t have to deal with the hassle of using different archival tools. Just my 2c. ---
**Author:** ![maleinblack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@maleinblack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maleinblack)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/16 "2003-10-02T07:56:12Z")
Download Accelerator Very useful for downloading your stuff.Makes it a tad faster and also gives you resume options.Most of the features are present in the free version. [Get it here](http://www.speedbit.com/DAPDL.asp?) ---
**Author:** ![prisoner6655321](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f8ce5/32.png) [@prisoner6655321](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prisoner6655321)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/17 "2003-10-02T17:53:57Z")
The wonderful icon. ---
**Author:** ![prisoner6655321](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f8ce5/32.png) [@prisoner6655321](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prisoner6655321)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2003, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-compile-a-list-of-essential-utilities/204920/18 "2003-10-02T22:41:23Z")
Sorry, I had only seconds before this blasted internet filter kicked in. [The wonderful icon.](http://www.thewonderfulicon.com/) I cannot live without this program. No, it’s not as critical as a virus scanner or firewall. And it’s not as important as your mail program or office suite. But the capabilities of additional keyboard shortcuts and specialized window manipulation features make it invaluable to me. And it’s teeny and free!!! Highly recommended. Yahoo toolbar for by bookmarks. And a lot of people are starting to use the google toolbar for its popup stopping ability. Also, watch out for spyware. Isn’t Download Accelerator (DAP?) spyware? Or did the developers of that program see the light? Someone recommended Spyware Search and Destroy. That’s your spyware protection of choice. I can’t tell you how many lame websites out there try to spy on you. CNN! I’m talking about YOU! Spyware S&D prevents it all from ever getting installed in the first place.