Essential software

[Silas Woodruff]

We all know that having the best hardware plays a big role in performance but you also need good software to keep that performance, so this thread is dedicated to software that you think is essential for a good user experience and software that you think is the best in what it does like antivirus, music player, video player etc.

Some software that I think are essential:
Adblocker plus and Adblocker edge, if you browse the internet or watch videos on youtube, which I think all of us do then these are essential as they get rid of those pesky ads.

Steam, probably the best digital distribution platform at least for me, I found it very easy to use and allowed me find a lot of game buddies, also I found that all games can be had for dirt cheap during sale events and especially holidays.

Unchecky, for those that install a lot of software on their PC other than games they find that programs always try to put other crap other than what you actually want, well this gets rid of that and saves you precious time.




Some software that I might need for upcoming build:

The best anti-virus free or paid.
PC maintenance software like, I give Advanced System Care as example.
I heard that defragmenting an SSD is bad, so my question is how do I keep it in top performance ?
The best music player, I dont know what to look for here I guess something that is able to play all available music formats ? The reason I am asking is also because I dont know if there are any differences in quality between all the stuff available.
Best video player just like the above.
Some software that is able to update all my other software, I give Driver Booster as example.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Entropy already beat you to the crunch m8....

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...eful-programs-to-use-usually-for-free.144395/

 

[AsRock]

Yes defraging a SSD is bad and to keep the performance as high as possible best to keep about 20% of the drive free.

As for a AV i use Outpost firewall although time to time i use Avast. For media player i like using VLC as it play all music and video's i want.

Indexing is pointless on a SSD i all so like using treesize too as it's great in finding were all your space is going and for backups synctoys is great once setup and puzzles me today why MS still don't include it with the OS.

 

[Laurijan]

Some of my essential software are:
Winrar
CDBurnerXP
Foxit PDF Reader
Bsplayer
Firefox
SuperAntiSpyware
Avast

 

[Drone]

Stuff I use every day/hour

foxit reader
foobar
7z
media player classic
notepad++
Skype
paint.net

 

[jboydgolfer]

VLC is the ONLY media player in My eyes. Free, does EASY streaming to Devices on Your net, (I use MY Deskyop to stream Movies to Tablets etc.), plus I have only run into one video I couldn't play.

I too use adblock...it is something that I feel is My right. I DO however disable it on Certain sites , That I deem "worthy" of advertising to Me.
Namely sites that do NOT use intrusive, offensive, or COMPLETELY ridiculous Ad's.. for Example, PlayWith6 is Well known for it's Vehicle Ad's...Pizza Ad's...Life insurance Ad's...Which MAY not seem strange, unless You take into account that PlayWith6 is a Arma 2 LAuncher/Mod organizer.

"Malwarebytes Pro"-protection
"MicroSoft Security Essentials"-protection
"CoreTemp"-for monitoring Temps
"Open Harware Monitor"-monitoring the rest of MY systems readings.
"FireFox"-web Browsing

 

[Devon68]

Well....
Winamp for music
Gom player for videos
Faststone image viewer for images
Open Harware Monitor for monitoring temps

other than that
Nero express for CD/DVD burning
Deamon tools lite for iso files

also great software but not essential
Defragler for defragmenting
and CC cleaner for cleaning junk files

 

[Kursah]

Go to http://www.ninite.com/

You can install most good programs that you will need after a fresh install quickly and easily, without the extra toolbars and possible malware (damn you Conduit!).

I went to foobar2000 from WinAmp after using it since the 90s...couldn't be happier. Here's the rest of what I normally grab:

VLC (plays everything, plays them well..excellent media playback..works for music too!)
ALL RUNTIMES
Adobe Reader
CutePDF (Excellent free tool for modifying, saving and printing documents to PDF (create PDF)
7Zip
Peazip (for those that want a "nicer" interface)
Chrome (I recommend installing both Chrome and FF, far too many computers I have seen one browser become infected or not be compatible with something. I rarely rarely use FF, but keep it around "just in case")
Firefox
Steam
Notepad++ (If you need HTML editing, CSS, etc)
ImgBurn or CDBurnerXP (both are great, not necessary in Win7 or 8 for ISO's iirc...but I prefer both to the Win7 OE option)
WinDirStat (handy for sniffing out files full of crap)
Classic Start (Add a start menu to Windows 8/8.1, best free one I've used)
GIMP (if MS paint isn't good enough)
LibreOffice (excellent MS Office alternative, it's OpenOffice++++)
MS Essentials (Win8 has this as MS Defender...it's a solid free, lightweight AV/AM option)
Malwarebytes (installs 2.0, run it once a week, between that and MSE, you should be pretty well set on preventative maintenance for malware/virus infections for about 95% of situations)
Google Drive (because I prefer it for a redundant backup for school homework/projects)

Imagine having all of those installed in 10 minutes versus closer to an hour if you installed each one independently? That's why I love ninite. It defaults to the os system drive (usually C for installs....so if you want to install things to a different drive, you'll have to pay for pro or do manual separate installations for each. Beyond that, I always save one with just the run times that I run about once a month as it will install the newest versions of each should they be available. That allows me to turn off JavaUpdateSched. Make sure Google Chrome and other Java apps are closed when trying to install Java or it won't install. There's a lot of other programs and apps on Ninite's free site...check it out! Anyone that builds systems or wants to save time installing stuff should have this saved already.

Other things to install manually:

Speccy (great free PC info utility)
CCLeaner (just steer clear of registry cleaning...this gets some in trouble... but great for cleaning junk data...use this and Windows' Disk Cleaner together, manage your startup apps, uninstaller works great).
CPU-Z
GPU-Z
HWMonitor
Open Hardware Monitor
OCCT 4.4.1 (one of the best system stress tests imho, cannot use if on a domain unless you buy the business license)

Then look at SARDU to create a multi-boot USB stick with Hiren's, Falcon 4 UBCD, a couple of Win 7 and 8.1 ISO's, AVG boot ISO, and a few other utilities and you're off to the races! That should be a good start. :toast;

 

[Silas Woodruff]

Well I was thinking of the following :

Bit Defender Internet security 2015 -BitDefender for short (Antivirus)
Comodo Internet Security Pro 7 (Firewall)
Malwarebytes anti Malware(On demand virus scaner)
Mozila Firefox (Browser)
Internet Explorer(Backup Browser)
Google Chrome(Backup for the backup Browser)
Adblock plus and Adblock edge for Mozila Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome (Ads remover)
Diskeeper (Defragmenter -Just in case)
Steam (Digital distribution platform for games)
MediaMonkey Gold (Music player)
Cyber link PowerDvd (Video player)
Revo Uninstaller Pro (Specialized program Uninstaller)
Teamspeak 3
CPUz and GPUz (Detailed CPU and GPU info)
MSI Afterburner (Best GPU overclocking software)
HWMonitor
Adobe Reader
Adobe Air
Java
.Net Framework

And using SARDU like you said,

I'm going to have a lot of ram, might as well use some of it.
I will also use Speccy, it's not like it can do any harm can it ?
Been using Firefox for years, and even though I don't quite like the way the update 29 looks like, with a bigger monitor and some time I would probably get used to it.
Ill follow Kursah's advice and update stuff miself.
Steam again been using this for years with no complaints, seems pretty good to me and a good alternative to Origin or whatever else there is.
MediaMonkey Gold what can I say the videos of it online were pretty promising.
Cyber link PowerDvd like the above but even more interesting.
Revo Uninstaller Pro I like to make sure that way I uninstall is completely uninstalled this makes sure of that, amongst other things.
Msi Afterburner for a little fun, nothing too impressive overclock-underclock who knows.
I know that some things might be missing but when I need them ill get them.
Also will wait till windows9 since it at least looks useable.

After giving it some though I have decided to remove some non-essential software.
Diskeeper has been removed due to no use of HDD-SSHD planned.

As for windows8-8.1 I am one of those guys that If I see something I don't like I wont use it nor accept it easily although after some time I would most likely grow to accept it and probably would not want to go back to other OS, the funny thing is that just when I wanted to screw everything and get myself a new PC windows9 rumors started appearing so I abandoned that and now I am patiently waiting for windows9 so I can finaly enjoy a new PC.

 

[Kursah]

Honestly...WIndows Firewall is pretty good, and using advanced features makes a big difference. Sure it's not as full on as Comodo. Adblock works well. Bit Defender is good, but will use more resources than MSE + MBAM. I recommend MBAM Free no matter what other utility you get...why depend on just one?

I would recommend steering clear of registry cleaners...while I've had luck with them, I've seen too many others that haven't...and generally it's not worth it unless you have a specific issue then it makes the most sense to manually remove it.

I don't like Driver Detective...it's easy enough to go to the MB and GPU vendor sites and get the newest drivers yourself. Seems kind of pointless and asking to install extra useless shit on your drive.

I also see no need for Diskeeper past Windows XP. Especially if you go Win 8/8.1...and I'm sure 9.

I would recommend Firefox, IE and Chrome...you won't lose much space and having all 3 ensures you'll always have the browser you need or should one or two get infected the one you never use should be able to get you online and downloading the tools you need to get out of a bad situation.

I don't use System Navigator...I find 7-Zip and Win7/8 built-in un-zip works just fine. Lightweight and simple.

Revo is awesome when you need it.

I prefer VLC over cyberlink any day of the week. Same with Foobar over MediaMonkey. Just my preferences though.

I have a lot of RAM too...16GB, might get more in the future for when I run a couple more VM's. Use that RAM for useful things like gaming, heavier apps with better purpose.

Also in the world if IT, redundancy is a good thing, not a bad one. You might know today...but if you get busy with life, you might not know next year...having a backup of a backup is never a bad thing...even with informational/monitoring software. It's actually good, because then you can see if something is being reported incorrectly or not.

Windows 8/8.1 is plenty usable...I find it very annoying that people either spend 10 minutes with it and hate it, or aren't willing to do something very simple about it. 8.1 + free start menu = faster than 7 OS at EVERYTHING + a better start menu (that's free and takes 30 seconds to install..faster than most Windows updates). Sure there's the argument that MS shouldn't have taken it out..yep that arguement is soooo 2012, yes Metro is pretty useless to power users, but can be customized and can be quite useful for those that are again willing to do something with it... with 8.1 you don't even need to see Metro, it's there but that doesn't mean you're required to access it.

There are plenty of good solutions, and honestly on a touch screen or phone...the Metro interface works very nicely. Overall Windows 8.1 is an excellent OS at this point, I run it on all my workstations, both personally and professionally. Once people A. actually try it B. actually learn how to use it...something amazing usually happens... C. They actually like it! Now if you don't like it, that's your deal. To each their own, and just like XP, Vista and 7, some will and some won't like it. I'm skeptical of 9's payment/ownership options...I don't want a subscription-based operating system...I don't want Windows 365...so I'm leery and hoping that 9 won't take that course...but we'll see when it's actually launched. But on Windows 8...it's solid imho. If you need tips or help with it, there are plenty of those that use Win 8.

Hope that helps! Ultimately this is your build...but getting all sorts of Pro software or software you haven't used yet is asking for bloatware and issues...tread lightly there. Even if you have gobs of HDD and RAM space, why not use it for something better than bloat? Just food for thought. Not saying your choices are bad, but in my eyes there are free and better, lightweight options that will be more than enough for your needs.

 

[rustysmith4474]

My list of essential software are given below:

Bittorrent - http://www.bittorrent.com/

Immunet antivirus - http://www.immunet.com/

Adobe Reader - http://get.adobe.com/reader/

VLC Media Player - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

RSS Owl - http://www.rssowl.org/

Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

IMGburn - http://www.imgburn.com/

Windows Directory Stats - http://windirstat.info/

DropBox- https://www.dropbox.com/

Google Chrome - https://www.google.co.in/chrome/

 

[LightningJR]

I was looking through this thread because I recently formatted both my laptop and desktop and put my desktop SSD into my laptop, not knowing I didn't have SATA3.. But that's neither here nor there.


My list is very similar to Kursah's, spookily similar tbh

I also use ninite since it's just so dam nice.

Couple of differences would be my experimentation with CCCP and it's bundled MPCHC video player. Never did like codec packs but I thought I would give it a try and so far it's been working perfectly. I also like to have teamviewer and audacity installed.

To keep an SSD in top shape use ForceTRIM, works quite well and like was said above the less it's filled the quicker it'll run.



I had hoped that there would be more replies to this thread, was hoping for some new apps that I may not have known of that could be awesome. Reply more please!

 

[eidairaman1]

Replace Adobe with Foxit

 

[RealNeil]

WebRoot Secure Anywhere 2015 at the Egg for $3.99

This is an awesome deal on what I think is the best Anti-Virus software available today.

HERE(link is external)

$3.99 per licence for one year. I just bought five of them for my home PCs. I have been using it for a year already and it's great.

 

[Liquid Cool]

I use ninite as well...

First thing I do on a fresh install is...

Open Internet Explorer and go to ninite...and load up

-Imgburn(prefer K3B on linux)
-VLC
-Java
-Adobe Acrobat Reader
-Silverlight
-FireFox
-Thunderbird
-Steam

and after Firefox installs, I install Adobe Flash, Origin, and Intel's SSD Toolbox.

Then I yank out my Flash drive, transfer my profiles over from Firefox and Thunderbird, add my documents, pics, and extra software that I keep on my flash drive and I'm good to go.

The whole process takes about 10 minutes.

As far as security software goes, I've never used any...and never will.

Best,

LC

 

[remixedcat]

Amped Analytics
Auto Hotkey
Adobe photoshop
AVS video editor
Clearsight analyzer
Crystaldisk info
CPU-Z
dBpoweramp
Dropbox
Fences
Firefox
GotoMeeting
Google chrome
InSSIDer
LAN speed test
Lastpass
Logitech Gaming Software
Media Jukebox
Meraki Systems manager
MS expression
MS visual studio
MS onedrive
MP3tag
NetSurveyor
Powerchute personal edition
PRTG
Rainmeter
Tech power up GPU-Z
Tight VNC
Webroot
Vsphere
Winrar
Wireshark

 

[micropage7]

Replace Adobe with Foxit

sumatra pdf
since foxit getting bigger and bigger
what about aimp for mp3 player
xmedia recode
haozip or izarc or peazip

 

[GoFigureItOut]

Foxit PDF reader,
Notepad ++
7zip
Daum PotPlayer
Google Chrome, FireFox, Opera, Comodo Dragon
Utorrent
Malwarebytes
Glary Utilities
Avast
Clementine, Foobar, Mediamonkey
Kingsoft Office, Libre Office
CCleaner
Truecrypt
FormatFactory
IMGBurn
K-lite Codec pack
AntiLogger Free
Speccy

Not complete, but that's my list of essential software that I use and enjoy.

 

[eidairaman1]

Pale Moon
Foxit pdf reader
7zip
Winrar
Spyware Blaster
Malwarebytes
Ccleaner
Unlocker
Avast