Free software

Bad news A lot of free software is rubbish. Many paid-for programs are rubbish as well. Loads of it is pre-loaded by manufacturers 1 and starts of its own accord serving to clutter up your system, use resources, open up security holes and many worse things. The next post in this series will cover how to slim your system

Good news You can do just about everything for free. Paying for programs should be an absolute last resort. There are some tricks you need to be aware of as often the ‘free’ software advertised on the web site is really the ‘free trial’ software. You sometimes need to read the websites very carefully to find the really free version.

Browser : Firefox

I’ve mentioned this before. Like other browsers it is free And better

Word processor / office suite : Open office

Don’t get stuck with Microsoft Word or Microsoft Office. Open office is a direct replacement which will read and write Microsoft files. People are often told they need to use Word to submit homework etc. Rubbish! So long as you save in Word format you’re perfectly compatible.

Firewall : Zone Alarm

A firewall is a gatekeeper program that only lets certain traffic in and out of your computer on the Internet. The firewall supplied with windows should be replaced as it is pretty feeble. When downloading from the Zone Alarm website you need to be careful to avoid the ‘free trial’ version of ZA and just go for the completely free one. Once installed you will be asked whether to let certain programs access the internet. Obviously browser and email need to access the internet but may others can be blocked. The ‘program control’ section of Zone Alarm allows you to change your mind.

Anti virus : AVG

Once again you may have to carefully seek this out on the AVG website. I use it and it is simple to setup and forget.3

Desktop search : Copernic

Everyone should have a desktop search facility. Windows’ built-in version is a bit crude. Copernic is much better but tries to give you adverts as well! The way to squash these adverts is to set up your firewall not to let Copernic see the Internet.2

Media player : VLC Media player

I prefer this to the others that want to ‘phone home’ keep updating and generally being a nuisance.

Graphics

There are lots to chose from. Some are simply for tidying-up photographs others have much more sophisticated features for painting, annotation, cutting and pasting special shapes and layers. Everyone who takes digital photos should edit them with some program it’s just a matter of whether you need the extra features and want to spend the
time learning how to use them.

1. Called Bloatware
2. To block outgoing traffic such as Copernic trying to give you loads of adverts or other software/spyware/malware with its own agenda you need a better firewall than the one that comes with Windows. You also need to set it to block anything unless you make an exception. In ZoneAlarm you say ‘no’ when Copernic tries to access the internet. To check go to ZoneAlarm’s ‘control centre’ then ‘program control’.
3. The paid-for anti-virus programs are generally not better at detecting viruses but they will have better explanations and fixes. Also it is worth remembering that all AV programs miss a fair proportion of nasties.