I post a fair bit on here, asking for help. I figured it was about time i gave a little something back.
Here's a list of mostly free/safe etc software for Windows (Mostly related to Win7 and up, but most will work on Vista or XP) that almost all of us can find useful.
Internet, security and safer browsing.Firefox (obvious, i know), or if you use a 64bit install;
Waterfox.
Recommended addons for fire/waterfox:
- Adblock Plus (because who wants to see adverts?)
- Betterprivacy (For vastly reduced tracking cookie bullshit)
- British English Dictionary (It surprises me how many people are using the default US dictionary)
- FaceBook Purity (Lets you filter out all of the crap on facebook, tells you when people have deleted you, and lets you remove things by keyword)
- Ghostery (Another privacy addon to stop advert tracker cookies)
- HTTPS everywhere (Automatically selects a secure connection to a website if supported)
- iReader (one you'll use occasionally, but appreciate when you do - It's a little button which shows a pop-up of JUST the article on a page, and not the other crap)
- New Tab Homepage (Instead of the default page, you can set any page you like as your home page for when you open a new tab)
- No YouTube comments (Because they'll all worthless, anyway)
A lot, if not all, of these are available in Chrome, too. Using Internet Explorer? Stop that.
Let's move on to Firewalls. You need one of those. Get
Comodo.
I agree the website looks a little spammy, but i assure you it's fine. I've been using it for quite a few years.
This one is a firewall, antivirus and (dodgy app) behaviour blocker, too. It's also free for the basic version which does all of that. The paid version includes tech support. Granted; If you get the version with all the fancy features; It will ask a lot of questions to begin with, but once it's done, it's amazingly good.
Internet storage / cloud storageDropbox. Excellent service, supports everything. Sycns files over said everything. 2GB free storage, but both you and I get a little more from this referral link.
http://keepass.info/Keepass (Free, has windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone, Win Phone support, can link through dropbox so you have all your passwords all the time)
Most people use the same username or even the same password for everything. That's how you get your accounts broken into and your dodgy nudes splashed over the internet.
With Keepass you have only to remember ONE password to unlock the database file, then you can store and create lists of sites/usernames/passwords as much as you like. It even has a feature to generate a password for you, and to tell you how strong it is.
Now you can have a different username and very strong password for every site you visit.
Music and video playbackFor music, i use
Musicbee. It's free, it's awesome, it looks great, works equally great.
I used to love WinAmp, but it's glory days are LONG gone.
For films and TV programs,
XBMC (now named Kodi) is an excellent, free choice. It's a nice visual way to browse what you have, it can even grab all the info and covers from the internet.
Tagging a sorting music, fixing the sound levels.I use
MP3tag (free) to get all the info on my music collection correct, get it all tagged with the proper info and in whatever way i choose. It's very powerful, but also easy to use if you just want to stick to the basic features. It can also organise your collection for you if you like.
To keep all the music at the same volume; I use
MP3gain. It analyses each track and adds a tag to the file to tell a music player how much to turn it up or down. No direct editing of the file at all.
BackupsYes, you should backup data. Often.
Use
FreeFileSync. It's excellent.
OfficeNo, you don't have to use Microsoft products. There are some great free alternatives which can both read and write in MS formats, so you don't lose compatibility. Try
LibreOffice.
Updating non-windows apps, the easy way.Ninite is a great solution to keep other apps current and secure. It automatically skips the 'option' to install toolbars or whatever else.
That'll do for now. If there's interest, i might expand this to include such things as: Linux and Mac apps, and maybe some more specific software for everything from mass naming files, to tweaking how windows works and so forth.
