Web Security and Internet Related Software

• Anti-Virus
  • AVG - AVG. I think this is one of the best free Virus scanners out there. The one I personally use.
  • Trend Micro House Call - If you dont want to install any Virus scanners onto your computer then this is the option for you. You can scan your computer for viruses on-line using Trend Micro's online virus scanner.
  • Avast - Here is another effective virus scanner out there.
• Malware/Spyware Scanners
  • A Squared - This is a great malware scanner that I use. It can remove trojans, worms, dialer, Keyloggers, Rootkits...you name it. In my opinion it is very effective at detecting and removing malware from a computer.
  • Windows Defender - Yeah I know im listing a Microsoft product here. But I have found a number of good reviews about this program. So give it a whirl and see what you think.
• Firewalls
  • Online Armour ***** 5 Star rating ***** - Here is a great firewall provided by Tallemu for private use. This is the firewall protecting me and it does great. It is among the top rated firewalls tested by Matousec which specialize in firewall testing.
  • Comodo - here is a firewall that has had good reviews from places like PC magazine.
• Web Browsers
  • Firefox - Please give up Internet Explorer! Here is Firefox. A great Web browser that is faster and more secure than Internet Explorer. Its a must have. If I have it (which I do) then you gotta have it to.
  • Opera - This is another good alternative to Internet Explorer. Just like Firefox it conforms better to Web standards unlike Internet Explorer and is also faster than IE to. If you don't want Firefox then get Opera.

Video/Audio/Graphics

• Video
  • Super ***** 5 Star rating ***** - This is a super video/audio transcoding program. It is quite amazing! It has all the codecs bundled with it. You just install and start transcoding. It can transcode to many many different formats. It can even encode to the video formats for cell phones, Ipod Video, and Microsofts Zune!! Highly recommended!
  • VLC - Here is a good video player that supports many many video files. Simple and free. A really cool feature of this player is that it can take a video file and make it a desktop background!!! So instead of a static picture you can have a full video playing if you want to.
• Audio
  • Super - This is a super audio/video transcoding program. It is quite amazing! It has all the codecs bundled with it. You just install and start transcoding. It can transcode to many many different formats. It can encode to Mp3, aac, wav, wma and more!! Highly recommended!
  • WinAmp - Here is a great audio player. You can play many popular audio formats. You can also modify the player to suit your personal tastes from changing the design of the player to installing plugins that people have made to add functionality to the player. This is also recommended.
• Graphics
  • Gimp - This is a great picture/photo editing program. It has many features that will take a while to use them all. And best of all its free.
  • Irfan View - A great image editor. It supports many image extensions. It can resize images, batch conversions, can have external plugins and much much more! check it out.

Video Games

• Free Games
  • Pocket Tanks - This is a very addicting 2d battle tanks game. You gotta get it and try it out!! You are a tank and you gotta destroy the other tank before he destroys you. Can play with a computer or another person on the same computer or even over a lan connection. You can play for free with a limited number of weapons or spend the 16.00$ and get a ton more weapons. Super fun!!
  • Scorched 3D - Here is a great game that you can play with computer players or with friends. You are a tank and you gotta blow up the other tanks to win. Very fun and addicting! Gotta check it out.
  • War Rock - Here is a fully featured first person shooter that is played online. It is similiar to Counter Strike pretty fun once you get the hang of it. Its a full fledged game thats free. Thats awesome!!
  • The Battle for Wesnoth - This is a free turn-based game with a fantasy element to it. It also has a role-laying element where you can increase your army units levels from experience. Once you get into it, it is quite addicting. It is also cross-platform compatible so it can run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
  • Counter Strike 1.6 - If you have half life then get this free mod for it. This is a very popular first person shooter that can be played online with others or play by yourself with computer players. It is very fun and it is actually free! Though they do offer it in stores to buy. Download it now for free and start playing a super fun game. NOTE: It is a mod for half-life.
  • Guitar Zero - Do you have a guitar for Guitar Hero for your Xbox 360 or PS2? Then you can get this game. This game is a knock off of Guitar Hero but for the computer and for free! you can add custom songs to it to. For more help with it visit this site here

Office programs

• Word Processing/Power point/Spreadsheet etc.
  • Open Office - Here is a free alternative to buying Microsoft Office for 150$. Its a office bundle called Open office and it has power point, word processor, spreadsheet, paint, math program, and a database program. Just for the word program go into the options and make sure it saves the documents as a .doc then that file will be compatible with microsoft word. : )
  • 7-Zip - Here is a good free alternative to buying winzip. Its 7-zip. A file compression utility and zip extractor. Enjoy!

PC Maintenance Programs

• Registry Cleaner
  • C Cleaner - This is a good registry cleaner. But it also cleans up unneeded files on your computer to make more room on your harddrive. It found and deleted over 1 GB of unneeded files for me. Yaay!
  • Easy Cleaner - This is another registry cleaner like C Cleaner. It is called Easy cleaner. Also like C Cleaner it can remove unneeded files on your computer to free up space. Both programs are free and easy to use.
• Disk Defragger
  • AusLogics Disk Defrag - Here is a good hard drive defragger thats better than the one that comes with Windows. And its free to. AusLogics has a bunch of other great products to.