Tried and Tested Software Recommendations

As a computer technician, I often get clients asking what software I recommend to do a certain task or to fix a certain problem. There are plenty of freeware applications available to do such tasks, however, much of it is badly made or too difficult for the client to use.
Because of this, I have compiled a list of good freeware applications that I recommend after having used them in the field, and if your client asks you what software will help them, you have something to respond with.

Virus Protection:
AVG Free – AVG Free is one of my personal favorites and remains a favorite amonst most of the techicians on the Technibble forums. It has a very extensive virus database and will detect anything that a major antivirus brand such as Norton can detect. In fact, there have been a few times while I was on the field that AVG found viruses that Norton/McAfee didnt detect at all.

Avira Antivir – Avira Antivir is an antivirus I have seen only a couple of times on clients machines in the field. I have to say, its resident virus shield is awsome. One time when I was onsite, I plugged in my USB drive with all my computer technician tools on it. As soon as it was in, Avira detected a virus on my USB drive and asked me what I wanted to do with it. I hadnt run anything on the drive, I hadnt even looked at the drive in My Computer yet. Just plugged it in. It turns out it discovered the the Eicar virus which is a test file that computer technicians can use to test the capabilities of antivirus software. Avira is a little “heavier” on system resources than AVG, but not by much.

avast! – Another good antivirus. Ive seen it many times onsite and it does its job well.

Child Filtering Software:
K9 Web Protection – I havent used it myself, however some technicians on the Technibble forums recommend it.

Backup Utility:
Cobain Backup – I really like Cobain Backup and use this piece of software myself. Its simple enough for home users to setup, yet is powerful and feature packed for the computer technicians. Cobain Backup and run as a service and backup to FTPs.

Office Suite (Word Processing, Spreadsheets etc..):
Openoffice.org – Openoffice looks and feels like the Microsoft office package. It can do pretty much anything MSOffice can do without the nasty price tag.

Firewall:
Zonealarm Firewall – For the more knowlegable clients, I recommend Zonealarm, provided they know a little bit about processes and security. Otherwise they dont know what the security popups mean and just allow anything. For the non-knowegable clients, I just use the built in Windows firewall.

Media Player:
VLC Media Player – I love VLC. There have been many times where a client cannot play the video they want in Windows Media Player because its lacking the correct codec. I just install VLC and it fixes most of their problems. VLC is lighter, faster and less prone to breaking than Windows Media Player.

PDF Creation:
PDF Creator – PDF Creator installs itself as a printer so that it can export to PDF in almost any program that you can print in. Just select PDF Creator as your printer and it will save that document as a PDF.

Resizing Images:
Image Resizer Powertoy – Many of my clients want to send digital photos via email to relatives or post some pictures on eBay. However, most digital cameras take poster sized photos which can often be 1mb or more. The Image Resizer Powertoy allows you to right click on any photograph, select “Resize Picture” and choose what size you want the picture to be.

Photo Editing:
Paint.net – I used to work as a web developer, so I know my way around graphics software like Photoshop. Ive used Paint.net a few times and I must say that it has great features and comparable to Adobe Photoshop, except about $1000 cheaper.

PDF Reader:
FoxIt Reader – FoxIt Reader is a lightweight alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader for reading PDFs. The install file for Adobe Acrobat is 22mb, FoxIt Reader does it in 2mb and has almost all of the same features.

Web Browser:
Firefox with Google Toolbar – Faster, more secure and better alternative to Internet Explorer.

Email Client:
Thunderbird – Faster, more secure and better alternative to Outlook Express.

Music Player:
Winamp – A lightweight and very well featured Music Player. Runs much quicker than Windows Media Player

Archive Extractor (zip, rar, tar etc..):
7-Zip – 7-Zip can create and extract many different archive types such as Zip, Rar, Tar, Arj, .Gz, preventing you from needing mulitple archive extractors such as Winzip, Winrar, Winace etc.

Anti-Spam:
Spamfighter Free – I have used this on many clients computers and it works very well. It comes pretrained to deflect most spam and has the ability to learn even more based on your preferences.