What free software is essential to keep a computer healthy and fast?

Factual Questions
1

I have found AVG Anti-Virus System and Lavasoft Ad-aware to be great free programs. Do you agree? What other free programs are there to keep computers running fast and clean? What free programs do you recommend, why, and what do they do?

TIA, Tross

2

ZoneAlarm!

3

I use pop up stopper, but that aint free. Still you can find plenty of free ones, and I think they’re essential to usage of your computer.

4

Check out WebGrid for a comprehensive listing of Windows freeware. Just browse around, you will find programs that will be useful.

5

I use Google’s tool bar and it provides a free popup stopper that works really well. I also use Spybot . I used to use Adaware, but I found that Spybot seems to catch more things.

6

I’ll second Spybot.

For blocking popups (and other things like flash) I use Proxomitron

Cacheman claims to “improve the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings.”

There are also some nice little utility programs at Sysinternals, specifically PageDefrag and Contig.

7
      • Repeated, but anyway:
  • Zonealarm, nice to have even on dialup because it tells you when specific programs are trying to get network access,
  • Adaware to destroy annoying cookies,
  • Spybot Search and Destroy if you (or someone else in the home) is one to install junk software, and
  • Netscape browser, blocks popups and lacks typical IE security vulnerabilities. Lately Mozilla isn’t working right for me, Javascript is crashing it.
  • Eraser, to get rid of files permanently.
    … and probably other stuff too, that I can’t remember right now.
  • But really if you are using WinXP, the most important thing is to find someplace that tells you how to disable/cover all the vulnerabilities it comes with built-in.
    ~
8

I find Linux pretty good. :slight_smile:

9

Defrag, Scandisk & registery defraggers. It of course, depends on the computer.

10

That’s GNU/Linux to you!
[/rms]

11

Or just use an OS that doesn’t have vulnerabilities to begin with. :wink:

12

Yea, I was gonna say “Linux.”

:smiley:

13

I put the following apps onto any PC I setup:[ul][li]Ad-aware[/li][li]SpyBot[/li][li]Winzip[/li][li]WinAmp (2.81, v3 blows!)[/li]EMS Free surfer (the best popup stopper & free!)[/ul]

14

I second Hail Ants recommendations except I recommend WinAce for compression. WinZip blows.

ZoneAlarm is nice and user friendly for Win2k users. The built in Firewall is good enough for XP.

I like F-Prot for virus detection. It is a pretty slow scanner but very effective. I also like AVG and Panda.

15

I reccomend using either Mozilla or Firebird as your browser. They have very good built in pop-up blocking, and the tabbed browsing is very handy.

16

W-XP

Ad-Aware (free)

ZoneAlarm (free), cable internet.

IE-SPYAD (free)

Another IE Popup Killer, (free)… and it WORKS!
(note it only works on IE, I have tried many popup killers…all others were more trouble than the stupid popup!

I also have a router for we have two computers.

Norton 2002 on my new computer and AVG (free) on the older computer.

I never do updates or any other computer so called PM’s.
My new computer hasn’t froze in almost three years.
Never had a virus that Norton didn’t catch.

17

Never had a virus that Norton didn’t catch.

As far as you know :smiley:

18

[http://grc.com/default.htm]Gibson Research Site

19

Try Winamp 5 (Beta 2) here. Best of both versions. Hasn’t crashed (yet) on my system.

20

Oops, forgot link :slight_smile:

Here.